LINCOLN CHAFEELincoln Chafee, a gubernatorial candidate when the 38 Studios deal went down, had the good sense to label it a bad idea at the time.
Still, he pledged that he would be the company's biggest cheerleader when he took the governor's office ― that he would help it succeed. Gobble-ee-gook.
This spring, as the company sought the sort of last-minute private funding that could have kept it afloat ― and spared the taxpayers ― the governor couldn't help but squawk to a press corps sensing trouble.
On May 14, Chafee said the state was working to keep the company "solvent." Later, he called 38 Studios' first game, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, an "abject failure" ― an analysis that didn't exactly comport with reality.
Did Chafee's impolitic statements really make the difference between success and failure for 38 Studios? Maybe not. The truth is, Schilling's pitches to investors had never been all that successful.
But one thing is clear: the turkey-in-chief took a bad situation and made it worse.
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