VIDEO: The campaign so far, Part 1

Like it or not, the 2014 election campaign has already begun

By Will Collette

Although so many Americans decry our state of perpetual political warfare, it’s a reality that the next campaign season began the night the election results from the last election were announced.

Even in our sleepy little burg, the town’s two main parties, the controlling Charlestown Citizens Alliance Party (CCA) and its nemesis, the Charlestown Democrats began preparing for the next election as soon as the 2010 votes were counted. 

Now, we face the calendar reality that we are one year away, almost to the day, from going to the polls again.

This is the first of a two-part series on where Campaign 2014 stands one year away from Election Day.

For more cartoons by P.S. Mueller, click here

The Charlestown Moderate Party folded its town committee in July 2011, well before Moderate Party CEO Ken Block decided to ditch his creation to further his personal ambitions. Only nine Charlestown voters registered with the Moderate Party. Two of them, Dan Slattery and John Goodman, are part of the CCA Party inner circle.

The Charlestown Republican Town Committee appears to be trying to stay alive. Many of its activist members have long since jumped over to the CCA Party. Its moderate core recently had to fend off a radical take-over attempt by Tina Jackson, who ran a disastrous 2012 campaign against Rep. Donna Walsh (D). 

According to their most recent campaign finance disclosure, they have raised no money and had to pay Washington Trust $6 because their bank account has been dormant. They have $475.17 cash on hand.

Thus, the most likely contest in Charlestown’s 2014 town elections will be a replay of 2012, pitting the entrenched CCA Party, funded primarily by wealthy non-residents, versus Charlestown Democrats perhaps with a few unaligned candidates sprinkled in.

Currently, town Democrats hold the lead in fund-raising reporting an added $1,773.86 in the last quarter, bringing their cash on hand to $5,511.78. The CDTC has also stepped up its activities though public education, “auditioning” the Democrats vying for endorsements for state and federal office in 2014 and by boosting the content on its website.

The CCA Party has an established pattern since its founding in 2006 of laying low and disclosing little until the very last minute. Typically, they raise little money until that last few weeks before an election when their big donors from out of town start writing big checks up to the maximum allowed under state law ($1,000). The CCA Party then tries to disguise where these donors live by listing their vacation homes as their residences.

So far, that has also been their pattern in the 2014 campaign cycle. For the second quarter in a row, the CCA Party reports no revenue coming in and shows a cash-on-hand balance of $2,992.36.

In the last quarter, they spent a third of their treasury to buy insurance for their officers and Steering Committee.

CCA leadership: change or same old, same old?

Usually the CCA Party makes its annual “rearranging of the deck chairs” announcement in the late spring or early summer about its leadership line-up. 

That announcement generally shows the tight grip held by the CCA Party’s original founders and insiders and also the attrition they suffer in their leadership ranks as their top people age and move on to assisted living or Florida (or both, as the case may be).

This year, the CCA has become more closed off than ever. They have skipped the annual announcement of the officer and Steering Committee roster. Their campaign finance reports only show Leo Mainelli as the CCA’s Treasurer without any hint of any other officer shifts. Virginia Wooten is still listed as CCA Party President even though she is all but invisible.

The new faces of the CCA Party – the Areglados, the Chambers and the rest of the Partridge Family – don’t seem to have been given a place at the table. Or if they have, the CCA Party isn't talking about it.

Campaign 2014

CCA Party Platform

In 2010, town Democrats raised over $11,000 for the election campaign, more than any previous Democratic town committee. It amounted to more than a third of all the money raised by town Democrats ($30,362) in the 11 years covered in the RI Board of Elections database.

By contrast, the CCA Party raised more than that - $31,732 – just since 2008. They have demonstrated by the policies, ordinances, appointments and legislation their Town Council majorities have promoted that they believe in giving their donors what they paid for. 

We've documented the cases – Y-Gate, their on-going battles against human activity at Ninigret Park, against toilets at town beaches, giving patronage appointments to cronies like Ron Areglado, Mike and Donna Chambers, Peter Herstein, fighting against tax relief for middle class families, pushing policies to force small businesses to leave town, paying private legal fees, trying to block aquaculture, pandering to CCA leaders, etc. – of how the CCA Party rewards its political base.

General Assembly

Tina Jackson - fined for failure to disclose campaign finances

State Rep. Donna Walsh (D) reports cash-on-hand for her re-election at $11,533 and that doesn’t count her very successful, well-attended fund-raiser at the Breachway Grill on October 28.

Her opponent in the previous election, Tina Jackson (R), seems to be focused solely on raising the money she owes the RI Board of Elections for failing to file campaign finance reports. She has just been declared delinquent for failing to file the report due on October 31 and her total unpaid fines for five delinquent reports top $1,700 and are growing by $25 a day. The last time she bothered to file a report. which was on October 9, 2012, she said her campaign account was minus $492.16.

Democratic incumbents Sen. Cathie Cool Rumsey (l) 
and Rep. Donna Walsh (r)

Senator Cathie Cool Rumsey (D), who represents the northern half of Charlestown, reports a cash-on-hand balance of $5,543.43.

The guy she defeated, ex-senator Frank Maher, seems to be devoting his efforts to the disgusting recall campaign against the Democratic majority on the Exeter Town Council. Maher is one of the only actual Exeter residents on the “We the People of Exeter” PAC that was organized to push the recall effort.

The recall in Exeter was organized by the Cranston-based RI Firearms Owners League, which opposes the Town Council’s effort to get the RI State Police to do the background checks for Exeter residents who want a concealed carry handgun permit.

The Council made an unsuccessful attempt to get state legislation to that effect last year because Exeter does not have a police force (the only town in RI without one) and the State Police do the town’s policing, making it logical that they would also do the background checks.

Finally, Charlestown's southern end has been represented by Westerly's Senator Dennis Algiere (R), one of an almost extinct species of liberal Republican. Dennis hasn't had a real opponent in many years and there's no reason to believe 2014 will be any different. He is currently sitting on a campaign treasury of $6,094.

Instead of people like Algiere, the new Republican Party is populated with characters like this one: