As Gina Raimondo showed us in 2021 before exiting for DC, politicians are committed to doing/saying one thing…until the very second the situation changes. (I’ll be on vaca in the coming week, so my next column will appear Aug. 2.) You can follow me through the week on threads and what we used to call the twitters. Here we go.
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STORY OF THE WEEK: As Republicans gathered in Milwaukee this week, one person not there was Steve Frias of Cranston, whose lengthy tenure as Rhode Island’s GOP national committeeman ended Thursday. This marked the first time since 1992 that Frias did not attend the Republican National Convention. He decided not to seek re-election to the post because he does not support GOP nominee Donald Trump. For Frias, a lawyer, lifelong Republican and self-described small government conservative, his differences with Trump come down to the rule of law. “I just don’t agree with, you know, the election is stolen, that the people involved in January 6th should be pardoned, that the legal system is rigged,” Frias said during an interview on Political Roundtable. Not seeking another term as GOP committeeman “was one of the more difficult decisions I’ve made in regards to politics in my life,” but, he added, “In the end, I have to be true to myself, and if you’re true to yourself, if you’re not true to yourself, you can’t be true to others.” Frias’ stance of not supporting Trump makes him an outlier in the Republican Party, although — contrary to many Democrats — he believes that sufficient checks and balances exist to sufficiently protect democracy if Trump returns to the White House. Asked why relatively few Republicans oppose Trump, Frias said the most important thing in politics for most politicians is winning. “If President Trump had lost in 2016, I think my views would be more in the ascendant, or more widespreadly held. Because he won, and because he succeeded in doing a number of things policy-wise, more people are just basically saying ‘it’s the ends justifies the means.’”
THE RHODE ISLAND ANGLE: Expectation is growing among Democrats of a major development in the presidential race in the next few days, possibly by Sunday. If Joe Biden bows out, and VP Kamala Harris becomes the Democratic nominee for president, chatter suggests the short-list of running mates for Harris includes U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, and Govs. Roy Cooper of North Carolina and Andy Beshear of Kentucky. Beshear’s close win in 2019 and a more comfortable victory in 2023 were piloted by Eric Hyers, known locally for managing winning campaigns for then-U.S. Rep. David Cicilline in 2010 and 2012 and Gina Raimondo’s first win for governor, in 2014.
UNCONTESTED: Add House Speaker Joe Shekarchi to the many General Assembly incumbents who will not face an opponent on the way to re-election this year. Republican Dana James Traversie, who got 40% of the vote against Shekarchi in 2022, did not return nomination papers ahead of a recent deadline. Shekarchi’s predecessor, Nick Mattiello, lost his state rep seat to Republican Barbara Ann Fenton-Fung — now running for mayor of Cranston — in 2020, underscoring the importance for a speaker of holding a safe legislative seat.
WINNING APPROVAL: Polls are just a snapshot in time, and polling has gotten more challenging since the widespread demise of landlines. With those caveats in mind, a series of polls show a sinking approval rating for Gov. Dan McKee, from 49% last winter in a Morning Consult survey, to 36% in a Pell Center poll last month, and now 29%, according to the latest from the UNH Survey Center. Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that the same poll found that the Washington Bridge saga has meant longer travel times for affected motorists, with more than a fifth of respondents saying their trips are 30 to 44 minutes longer. McKee’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the poll. Suffice it to say, as we move closer to 2026, the bridge issue looms large as the governor makes a final call on whether to pursue another term.
INFORMATION, PLEASE: The state has issued its RFI (request for information) to try to understand why the RFP to build a new westbound Washington Bridge failed to attract bids. Responses are due by noon on Aug. 2.
TIME TRAVEL: Can you imagine a time when a Rhode Island governor enjoyed an approval rating nearly matching that of perennial leader U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, and 64% of Rhode Islanders actually believed the state was headed in the right direction? This was the case 20 years ago, in 2004, when a Brown University poll showed an enviable 63% approval rating for Gov. Don Carcieri and just 24% of Rhode Islanders thought the state was on the wrong track. This week’s UNH poll depicted a far bleaker outlook, with 60% of respondents saying the state is going in the wrong direction. How to explain the sharp difference? The world is far more unsettled these days, with high-profile conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, many consumers still feeling the sting of inflation, and although the pandemic is receding in memory, it underscored the sharp partisan divide that remains with us. In hindsight, 2004 seems like a more genteel time, before we were all glued to our phones and ahead of the advent of social media-accelerated knee-jerk ripostes.
I asked longtime political observer Robert A. Walsh Jr., former executive director of the National Education Association Rhode Island, for his view on why Rhode Islanders have grown more pessimistic. He cites Covid, the Washington Bridge debacle, the housing crisis and the high cost of housing, the pension overhaul spearheaded by Gina Raimondo, and the trend in which more people consume information reinforcing their existing views. Walsh also blames national politics for creating a climate in which “you’re afraid to discuss politics with your friends,” people discuss leaving the country if their favored candidate loses, and widespread dissatisfaction about both major candidates “makes you wonder if this is the best we can do.”
THE FIX: Asked on Meet the Press last weekend about how to reduce the threat of political violence in America, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders pointed (via Politico) to how the nuts and bolts of democracy come down to “serious discussion,” not radical rhetoric. “Politics should be kind of boring, you know?” he said. “Our healthcare system is dysfunctional. How do we fix it? Well, it’s kind of a boring discussion, but we need a health care system that guarantees health care to all people.”
AMERICA AT 250: Rhode Island’s current budget includes $150,000 to help prepare the state for America’s 250th birthday in 2026 — just 6% of the $25 million planned for that use in New Jersey. That mismatch gives ballast to arguments by such people as local historian and restaurateur Bob Burke that Rhode Island is missing out on an opportunity to ramp up its heritage tourism and stage a better 250th celebration in 2026. Steve Frias is one of the members of the RI 250th Commission and he agrees that the big anniversary is an event worth supporting with investment, saying in part, “[W]hen you celebrate the founding of your country, that helps bring people together. And of course if we’re able to do some things that can, drum up tourism, that’s even a twofer. You get your money back with people coming in, maybe, to see things.” Asked why the state hasn’t offered more financial backing, Frias said, the “General Assembly and all elected officials, they basically very focused on what’s right in front of them. And this is 2026. So I would say possibly some of it is, you know, that’s still a couple years away…. And I think that’s a factor. And so maybe as it gets closer, they’ll recognize the opportunity and they will step up.”
COLLEGE HILL: Dacia Read, a former staffer in the Raimondo administration, is the new chief of staff for Brown University President Christina Paxson.
MEDIA I: Pam Johnston was named this week as the new CEO of The Public’s Radio and Rhode Island PBS, which merged earlier this year. Pam has served in high-level roles at GBH and FRONTLINE, and she has a strong belief in the value of local news. “This is truly a dream job, a dream place, a dream team and the magnitude of it for me, for the people of Rhode Island and for these two organizations is profound,” she told our colleague Pamela Watts. “It’s different than stepping into a role because there is a transition of leadership. I see this as building something new but with a really strong foundation that already exists.” … In other local media news, Scott Isaacs, news director at WJAR-TV, Channel 10, is heading to a new gig with Boston Fox 25.
MEDIA II: Donald Trump has popularized and ramped up the anti-media sentiment once espoused with far less reach by Spiro Agnew. But good reporting often involves accountability. A case in point is how the ProJo’s Antonia Farzan reported last year on a Warwick city councilor’s dubious land transfer — a case that resulted in a no contest plea this week. Those of us reporting in Rhode Island have it easy compared to scribes in some places. As an example, former NPR correspondent Tim Mak, whose newsletter offers on-the-ground reporting from Ukraine, is covering all mental health costs for his staff on the Counteroffensive. Even in Pennsylvania, where a lone gunman appears to bear sole responsibility for the recent attempt on Trump’s life, the crowd turned on the media in the immediate aftermath. “Middle fingers were everywhere. They asked the press if they were happy and blamed the media,” wrote the Globe’s James Pindell.
SHORELINE: While a final decision has not yet been made, a judge has struck a blow against Rhode Island’s new shoreline access law, as my colleague Alex Nunes reports.
KICKER: GOP campaign strategist Lee Atwater made a deathbed apology in 1991 for remarks he made about Michael Dukakis during the presidential race three years earlier. The focal point was the Willie Horton ad, which painted Dukakis as soft on crime by highlighting an assault by a Black man against a white woman. Years later, politicians of both major parties continue to exploit anxiety about crime. In 1999, Hillary Clinton fanned fears about school shootings during a visit to Cumberland, even though kids in poor parts of Providence faced a far more common threat. More recently, speakers at the RNC claimed that crime has climbed during the Biden administration, when facts show otherwise. Why do politicians focus on this? As James Alan Fox of Northeastern University has observed, pols emphasize the three Rs — revenge, retaliation and retribution — in the belief that it leads to the fourth R: re-election.
