John M. Kelly, the president and CEO of Meeting Street, has quietly continued raising money (he's got $84K banked) for a Providence mayoral run, and he says he remains very interested in running for the position. Pressed on his expectation of what David Cicilline will do in 2010, Kelly (who has said he will not run against Cicilline) says he hopes the Providence mayor runs for governor.

As part of the ongoing publicity rounds for his new book, Linc Chafee taped WPRI-WNAC's Newsmakers this morning. The show will be broadcast Sunday, at 5:30 am on Channel 12 and at 10 am on Fox 64.

Here's a short version of some of the highlights:

-- Why aren't people more upset about the Bush presidency? Chafee points to the lack of a draft and the lack of appetite for dissent following 9/11.

Speaking of Chafee, he was his idiosyncratic self during his appearance yesterday with Rappleye on 10 News Conference.

It sometimes seems like some of the gubernatorial hopefuls for 2010, including David Cicilline, Patrick Lynch, and Steve Laffey, have been preparing forever. Yet Chafee, citing a mixed message about a return to public life, is very, very relaxed about the whole thing.

Dan Barbarisi has the news today that John Kelly, whose incipient Providence mayoral campaign was first reported by Matt, is being replaced as chair of the Providence Zoning Board of Review by three-time former gubernatorial candidate Myrth York.

Kelly, who in November became the first candidate to file papers to run for mayor, is the CEO of Meeting Street School.

During yesterday's broadcast of A Lively Experiment, Lou Pulner raised the possibility that Frank Caprio -- who unveiled a furlough plan for the treasurer's office earlier in the week --had been tipped off by the Carcieri administration that it was moving forward with its own furlough plan.

It's certainly possible.

Matt has the details:

I am extremely impressed to see at least one of the 2010 Providence mayoral candidates getting serious about the city's economic future:

City Council Majority Leader Terrence M. Hassett, Ward 12, has asked the City Council’s Committee on Finance to take up the Living Wage ordinance, a long debated and sometimes controversial legislative measure that was postponed during the last session of the City Council, it was announced today.

Cliff Wood, who claimed Rita Williams's Ward 2 Providence City Council seat in 2006, continues to be the subject of some mayoral speculation for 2010.

N4N thinks Councilman Cliff, a member in good standing of the Cicilline-Cornish Associates' nexus, is less likely to go for it than a number of other candidates, but you never know.

Former US Senator Lincoln Chafee says he won't support Hillary Clinton -- or anyone who voted for the Senate authorization for the war in Iraq -- for president in 2008.

"Anyone who voted for the war is disqualified in my view," Chafee said during an appearance broadcast yesterday on WJAR-TV's 10 News Conference. " . . . It was a key moment in our history .

Despite his characteristic candor, Linc Chafee remains a somewhat enigmatic figure.

If the Republican Party has moved too far to the right for his taste, as he told the Sunday ProJo's Bruce Landis in explaining his decision to disaffiliate, it's not like this is a new development. Chafee was an (understandably) uncomfortable member of the national GOP well before the election that cost him his seat last year.

General Treasurer Frank Caprio offered the standard boilerplate when asked about his political future during a taping today of WPRI/WNAC-TV's Newsmakers. In response to the query from Steve Aveson, Caprio basically said that, for now, he remains focused on the job at hand.

While Caprio has been on a short list of possible Democratic gubernatorial candidates, Matt recently reported that he might also be looking at a Providence mayoral bid.

In his latest roundup on the prospective Providence mayoral field for 2010, RI Future's Matt Jerzyk interestingly includes the name of General Treasurer Frank Caprio. Perhaps, with a potentially crowded gubernatorial field on the Democratic side, Caprio is keeping his options open. Speaking of the gubernatorial field, AG Patrick Lynch hasn't helped himself with his quickly rescinded threat not to sign off on the state tobacco bond money.