Carcieri has delivered on his rhetoric in some instances — most strikingly by riding herd on Beacon Mutual, a quintessential Rhode Island boondoggle. Yet he faces a tougher political landscape in his second term, and without better results, the governor risks being just another abject failure in advancing the cause of a competitive two-party system in Rhode Island.
How bad was it for republicans?
Carcieri barely repulsed a surprisingly vigorous challenge by Lieutenant Governor Charles Fogarty, although this seemed due more to a very aggressive Democratic get-out-the-vote effort and higher than usual voting in a mid-term election, thanks to the casino ballot question, than to the effectiveness of the challenger’s campaign.
Democrats otherwise swept the state general offices, even with considerable public wariness about Attorney General Patrick Lynch, because of the murky resolution of the criminal charges in the Station nightclub fire case. To find its most effective challenger, Secretary of State candidate Sue Stenhouse, the GOP had to look in the governor’s office.
On the federal level, Rhode Island’s congressional delegation will be without a Republican member, come January, for the first time in 30 years. Although US Representative Patrick J. Kennedy might have been a bit vulnerable due to his periodic penchant for unflattering headlines, the GOP put up a sacrificial lamb in the form of Jonathan Scott, a severely under-funded first-time candidate. It was even worse in the Second Congressional District, where, for the first time in almost 150 years, the GOP failed to even run a candidate.
And as Daniel Barbarisi reported in the Providence Sunday Journal, Republican majorities were dismantled on town councils in Foster, North Kingstown, Richmond, and Narragansett — with Foster going entirely Democratic. Republicans were completely removed from the Warwick City Council for the first time in that city’s history, and the GOP maintained just one seat on the nine-seat Cranston City Council.
On the national level, following the loss of Republican control of both chambers of Congress, President Bush is chastened, Karl Rove’s reputation as a master strategist has taken a big hit, and Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman is on his way out.
Yet in Rhode Island, Patricia Morgan, the GOP’s volunteer chairwoman, fails to take any blame for the situation. Pointing to how the Dems made national gains in controlling legislatures and in picking up gubernatorial seats, Morgan asserts, “The fact that we didn’t have more people elected this time has nothing to do with the state party. This was not a failing of the state party. The state party is really stronger and better than it has ever been,” because of improved organizational capacity and “a very strong slate of candidates.” (Morgan acknowledges, though, that the number of Republican legislative candidates dropped, to 50-something, from almost 70 in 2004.)
Meanwhile, Carcieri spokesman Jeff Neal says the governor bears “very little” responsibility for the sorry showing of Rhode Island Republicans this time around. “You and I both know that this was a massive Democratic tidal wave that broke against the shores of Rhode Island and elsewhere . . . ” Neal says. “The percentage of Democrats voting a straight party ticket was probably at an all-time high . . . In that context, and in the context of the massive effort of public-employee unions to oust Governor Carcieri from office, I think that Tuesday’s results are a lot more positive than they could have been.”
