Democratic
disaster at the polls in South County
A
version of this article also ran in Rhode
Island’s Future here.
While
there was jubilation at the state Democratic Party’s election night party over
their biggest
sweep since 1960, that mood was not shared by Democrats across most of
South County.
However,
from Exeter to Westerly, Democrats, and especially progressive Democrats, took
an awful beating in General Assembly and Town Council races. Majorities in
several South County towns also shifted from blue to red in their votes for
state offices.
Since
I started living in South County in 2002 and covering local politics here at Progressive Charlestown, I
had enjoyed watching what seemed to be a steady shift from the region’s
historic Swamp Yankee conservatism to more progressive politics. South County
sent a high proportion of solid Democrats to the State House and voted mostly
Blue in state and national races.
But
that changed on November 4.
We
lost three terrific progressives – my own state Representative Donna Walsh,
Sen. Cathie Cool Rumsey and Rep. Larry Valencia. Each of them faced appallingly
unqualified opponents. Donna Walsh lost to a radical “Tenther” who doesn’t
even seem to live in the District. Cathie Cool Rumsey lost to Hopkinton’s
honorific Town Sheriff who was caught using her uniform to impersonate a police
officer.
Voters traded three great legislators for a bag full of wingnuts |
Larry
Valencia lost to a guy whose only previous experience was running as a delegate
to the Republican National Convention as a delegate for Ron Paul – and who came
in fifth out of five.
In
Charlestown, we were totally crushed, losing every single elected office in the
town to a group called the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party), an
off-shoot of the RI Statewide Coalition. If you mixed the Tea Party with the
Nature Conservancy and the worst imaginable rich people’s homeowners
association you can imagine, you’d get something that looks like the CCA.
The
CCA
Party gets more than 60% of its funding from out of state donors. They provide vacation property owners with
the ability to vote with their checkbooks in local elections. The CCA Party has
increasingly put Charlestown on a “pay to play” basis where the attention you
get from town government is in proportion to the amount you donate to the CCA
Party.
But
those of us in Charlestown were not alone in our misery.
The "Exeter Four" beat the recall last December only to see voters oust two of them. Remaining: Cal Ellis and Arlene Hicks (photo by Will Collette) |
It
was only eleven months ago that Exeter Democrats rallied to crush a gun
lobby-sponsored recall of their Democratic Town Council majority. The
“Exeter Four” won a huge victory last December 14 only to see two of the
four defeated on November 4, costing them the Town Council majority. The level
and sophistication of campaigning in Exeter for the general election bore
little resemblance to the
way Exeter Democrats won last year’s recall.
Larry
Valencia’s home base in Richmond also went very bad. Voters rejected the state Democratic
slate except for Seth Magaziner and also flipped their Town Council from a
Democratic majority to Republican control.
Even
in Westerly, a Democratic stronghold, Democrats lost control of the Town
Council. So it went in North Kingstown, Narragansett and Hopkinton.
When
the dust settled, the only solidly Democratic town left in South County is
South Kingstown.
Teresa Tanzi won! (From her website) |
South Kingstown
was the only municipality not swept up in the red tide. South Kingstown was one
of only three South County towns to vote for all five Democratic state office
candidates. They also re-elected progressive Democrat Rep. Teresa Tanzi by six
points despite a $100,000+ campaign mounted against her by mortgage banker
Steve Tetzner.
In another closely watched race, South Kingstown
also elected Democrat Kathy Fogarty over her Republican opponent, Lacey
McGreevey. Fogarty defeated incumbent Rep. Spencer Dickinson in the primary to
get her shot at the seat. She won the general election by sixteen points.
On
top of all that, South Kingstown voters also elected three Democrats and two
independents to their Town Council. One of those independents is RI Sierra Club
lobbyist Abel Collins. However, even though there is a nominal Democratic majority, that majority is deeply split, as evidenced by the bizarre events that led to the Council picking Abel Collins as the new Council President (click here).
So what
happened?
For more cartoons by Taylor Jones, click here. |
Like
elsewhere in the country, 2014 voter turn-out in South County was low. It was
lower than expected even considering the normal drop-off in non-Presidential
election years.
In
Charlestown, we expected turn-out to drop by 900 from the 2012 count for the
Presidential race. But the drop-off ended up being more than 1,100. With a
total voter registration of just over 6,000, that drop-off had a huge impact on
the results.
Challengers
to incumbents trumpeted the state GOP’s lead issue, 38 Studios, 24/7. Forget
that it was unlamented ex-Governor Donald Carcieri’s (R) idea, Democrats equal
38 Studios. However, 38 Studios did not affect the state office races or act as
much more than buzzkill in most races. Even Republican Attorney General
candidate Dawson Hodgson, who probably banged the 38 Studios drum the loudest, admitted
after the election that maybe the issue wasn’t so potent after all.
However,
38 Studios may have had a disproportional effect among our South County Swamp
Yankees as it was the main message in just about every mailer, ad and flyer
attacking Democrats.
In
many South County races, the conservatives out-spent and out-hustled Democrats.
In the House District 36 race, Donna Walsh’s “Tenther” opponent out-spent her
13-to-1 going into the final month.
But
money doesn’t always make the difference, as re-elected Rep. Teresa Tanzi can
attest. Tetzner went into the final stretch of the campaign having raised three
times as much money mostly through loans he made to his campaign. Tetzner
outspent Tanzi by six to one, but she still won.
The voter base that won the election for Fake Bilippi, Elaine Morgan and Justin Price. |
After
reviewing Price’s and Morgan’s
campaign finance reports, it looks to me that there was a lot more money spent
on their campaigns than they reported. Morgan, for example, reports having
spent only $322 on her campaign up to the last week, but she had campaign signs
plastered all over Richmond, Exeter and Hopkinton as well as campaign mailers. She
only reported $444 in in-kind donations.
There
are still unresolved pieces of the puzzle. At some point, Rep. Donna Walsh will
get a hearing in front of the state Board of Elections on her
charge that her opponent lied about where he lives and is not really a
resident of the 36th District. There may be charges filed in other
campaigns for under-reporting campaign finances, ethics violations or campaign
sabotage.
There
are still some disputes to be resolved but in the end, there
is a new political reality in South County.
Perhaps
with more time and perspective, we’ll be able to figure out what went wrong,
but we now live with the reality that on November 4, South County flipped from
Blue to Red. We have to figure out how to flip it back.