On losing

Winners and losers in Tuesday’s primary

By Will Collette

I hate to lose. That’s one reason why, through most of my adult life, I have stayed away from electoral politics and focused instead on classic, Alinsky-style community organizing and strategic campaigns. In electoral politics, you put all your money on a single-roll of the dice and it’s win or lose on election day. In organizing or in strategic campaigns, there’s always a Plan B.

Since I’ve gotten more heavily engaged in electoral politics after returning home to Rhode Island in 2002, I have rediscovered how much I dislike that one-throw-of-the-dice aspect of electoral politics.

When I pick a candidate, I am almost always fully dedicated to what that person believes in. I’ve turned down work this year as in past years for candidates I didn’t know or didn’t like. Before I commit my time, I want to believe in that candidate.

So Tuesday’s primary results were a big disappointment since only one of the four candidates I supported won. I had picked Clay Pell for Governor, Frank Ferri for Lieutenant Governor, Seth Magaziner for General Treasurer and Guillaume DeRamel for Secretary of State. I made each choice based on whether I felt I could trust them and whether their values aligned with my own. Even after Tuesday’s result, I would not change one of my picks.

I am proud of the way Clay carried on his campaign. He would make a
great Governor and Michelle would be a terrific First Lady. But not this year.

Only Seth won, although he did so by a two-to-one landslide over the odious Frank Caprio, and by so doing, has (I hope) ended the Caprio clan hegemony over Rhode Island Democratic politics.

I’m still proud of the long-shot campaign run by Clay Pell for Governor. He kept his word to be the only candidate to stay out of the muck and to run on the issues. He just couldn’t overcome the mountain of Super-PAC and Wall Street money Gina Raimondo had amassed.

Frank Ferri lost because of his terrible blunder of waiting way too long to get into the campaign. That cost him money, momentum and endorsements. 

Ralph Mollis was the choice of my former colleagues at the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee. Mollis lost due to a lack-luster campaign, overall voter “Mollis fatigue” and progressives abandoning him over his awful decision to push the state to adopt its unnecessary and costly voter ID law.

Dan McKee also ran a terrible campaign but he had lots of money (his charter school fervor brings in lots of investor money). He pretty much ran a stealth campaign that succeeded in creating few negatives. His opponents never hit him as hard as they could have on his indenture to the charter school industry.

Seth Magaziner will be a great General Treasurer, provided of course,
he wins in November against quasi-Republican Ernie Almonte

Seth Magaziner’s campaign started as a long-shot, but that race quickly changed as he showed his dynamic vision for the office of General Treasurer. The best FrankCaprio could muster was a plea for voters to give him a chance for redemption after years of screwing up. 

Though his father, Judge Frank Senior, and his brother David as State Democratic Chair secured him the unjustified state party endorsement, what value Caprio’s family brought to his campaign turned into a negative when his brother’s sleazy bid-rigging scheme went public.

Caprio made the stupid campaign blunder of trying to attack Seth’s resume, which in my opinion, boomeranged by drawing more attention to Caprio’s own resume.

I hope this is the last we see of the Caprios in RI politics

Guillaume DeRamel’s loss to Nellie Gorbea was largely due to lack-luster campaigning that focused more on how his name is spelled than what he brought to the table. As Nellie Gorbea hammered Guillaume with unproven attacks on his business practices, Guillaume was like a deer caught in the headlights. 

He didn’t fire back at Gorbea’s own history that included working for an anti-union, corrupt Governor of Puerto Rico and failing to make sure the Rhode Island non-profits she served complied with Secretary of State’s accountability requirements.

Nonetheless, congratulations are due to her, and to the other Tuesday winners who beat my preferred candidates. No matter how many negatives they have compared to the Democrats they beat in the primary, they are head and shoulders better than the Republican opponents they face in the November 4 General Election.

There were a lot of other losers on Tuesday. My 1-3 record is the same as the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee who picked Ralph Mollis for Lieutenant Governor while I picked Ferri. Both lost.

The state’s labor unions saw a virtual shut-out for the public employees, teachers, and others whose allegiances were split between Clay Pell and Angel Taveras.

Nick Mattiello - Zero for three

However, the state construction unions, for the most part and for their own very complicated and arcane reasons, rallied behind Gina Raimondo. They will have some campaign markers to cash in with her should she win in November.

Surprisingly, the biggest losers of all – batting .000 on their endorsed candidates – are the State Democratic Party , the State Association of Democratic City and Town Chairs and House Speaker Nick Mattiello. They went zero and three. They didn’t make a pick for Governor, but picked Mollis, Frank Caprio and Guillaume DeRamel.

Mattiello could take some satisfaction from openly campaigning to remove some progressive state representatives he considered to be insuffiently loyal to him, most prominently, Rep. Maria Cimini of Providence. This was a clear signal to all other Representatives that while they might not love him as their leader, they should fear him. He may be unable to do squat at the state level, but he can keep him House under his thumb.

The only endorsed Democratic candidate who will be running in the November 4 General Election is Attorney General Peter Kilmartin. He had no opponent in the Democratic primary.

It seemed to me that the only real priority pushed by the state party leadership, and certainly by its now ex-Chair David Caprio, was to nominate and push Frank Caprio.

A lot of good that did them.

Losing is supposed to be good for the soul. Makes you realize that you’re not as smart or potent as you think you are, though frankly, I have had more than enough of that experience in the past.

As painful as Tuesday night was, it could be worse if we learn nothing from the experience that we can take with us into the November election. The voters cast ballots that tell us just how disillusioned and angry they are with the way things are now. 

I still believe, as I did at the beginning, that the voters want change toward the good. But what they are also saying is that they will make up their own minds about what that means and that the usual shapers of public opinion cannot count on people to follow their lead.