The RI GOP’s competence envy
Complaints about the Democratic stranglehold on power in the General Assembly really amount to frustration about the continuity enjoyed by the state’s majority party.
As it stands, Democrats outnumber Republicans 62-12, with one independent, in the House, and they have a 33-5 edge in the Senate.
But whose fault is it that only one party shows basic competence in running and supporting candidates? Since Republicans are seemingly unable to do this, are the Democrats supposed to run up the white flag, like a bunch of good sports?
And if the ruling Democrats are as all-powerful as the party’s critics insist, how do they explain the special election victory last month of Frank Ferri, a gay man who heads Marriage Equality Rhode Island, who clobbered Edgar Ladouceur, the party-endorsed candidate, for a vacated House seat in Warwick?
While Ferri’s embrace of gay marriage places him well outside the Democratic legislative mainstream, his election triumph was attributed to an aggressive old-style shoe leather-based campaign.
Politics ain’t beanball, as the saying goes, but it’s not rocket science, either. If Fidel Castro could overthrow a dictator with a small band of rebels, to use one example of insurgents overcoming very long odds, Rhode Island Republicans should be able to mount an effective long-term challenge to the ruling Democrats.
While Rhode Island is sometimes called one of the bluest of blue states, most voters here are independents (about 350,000, compared with roughly 260,000 Democrats, and 77,000 Republicans), and the electorate has demonstrated a clear preference for Republican governors for better than 20 years.
Talk-radio offers a friendly platform for the GOP, and newish elements on the Web, including the conservative blog Anchor Rising and the right-leaning Ocean State Policy Research Institute, provide forums for ginning up the Republican cause and related concepts.
Yet rather than concentrating their message and their firepower, those seeking to challenge the ruling General Assembly Democrats continue to scatter their energy.
In one such example, Ken Block, the president of a software company, cited his frustration with the prevailing super-majority of Democrats on Smith Hill in recently announcing the formation of a new political movement, the Moderate Party of Rhode Island, with a small set of short-term goals.
While Block deserves some credit for his civic concern, isn’t it bad enough that Rhode Island already has one party that can’t get its act together?
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