Today is Primary Day in Rhode Island, and based upon the coverage that I’ve already seen (Fox is doing promos on following the results of the Chafee-Laffey primary with them this evening) the nation’s weary eyes are turning to the Ocean State.
The Hill has a good overview up today, including this:
“Speaking frequently in the third person as if to emphasize the Chafee name, the senator describes his style as “a very stable, thoughtful, calm, steady approach, whereas my opponent’s more likely to say whatever suits the audience he’s talking to at the moment. And I think Rhode Islanders are going to see that.”
Ouch. Patrick Casey says that when you start to refer to yourself in the third person, it’s time to hang it up, Senator.
Over the last two week I’ve been deluged with mailers from candidates, third party groups, and national parties. And the phone calls have been terrible. My phone has been ringing off the hook – a few dozen calls a day. The majority are from Chafee and his backers, with the Democrat Party a close section. The Dems line of attack doesn’t seem to be for anything, but against Bush (“Bush economy”, “Bush foreign policy”, “Bush’s war”, etc.). No substance, no plans, just anti-Bush to an almost pathological level. Most people I talk to aren’t all that impressed – they know it’s not a presidential election year, and they’re not buying into the “Democrats can do better” argument – even in a largely Democrat state (although the real registered voter numbers are 365,658 independents, 236,665 Democrats, and 68,874 Republicans). The real change now seems to be that everyone, including conservatives and Republicans, think that Republicans are as bad as Democrats. So voters are going to rely on a “who do you like more personally” more so this year than any other year.
As I said, the telephone calls are the worst, and are aggravating people to the extent where it could be causing the opposite from what was intended, according to this
WJAR Channel 10 story.
The Rhode Island General Assembly voted this year to
close schools on Primary Day, claiming that since many polling stations are located in schools it is inconvenient. Unfortunately, they never actually consulted the schools before voting for this. Before this year, the system worked fine – and now students and teachers have to make up this day at the end of the school year. Ah, Rhode Island, the land of foresight.
As I don’t travel in the same ‘elite’ circles as Chafee, Whitehouse, and Providence Journal reporters, I went out to a few local Warwick pizza parlors and a popular Chinese restaurant this weekend to gauge people’s feelings on the race. Overwhelmingly they’ve been critical of the tone of the campaign, focusing their disappointment at Chafee. The last series of ads by the Chafee campaign itself was mentioned as one of the basest, most personal negative attack on one candidate against another that anyone’s seen before in this state. People aren’t as stupid as many politicians and their consultants think – I constantly heard things like “Well that part of Chafee’s ad just isn’t true”, and “Who cares about an old stockbroker job”.
Even if Chafee wins this primary, he has lost a lot of his luster and the respect that many in Warwick (where he was Mayor) had for him, let alone the rest of the state. Were it not for the NRSC poll done by POS that said that Chafee had a huge lead over Laffey (countering a RIC poll that said exactly the opposite), I’d say that Laffey was going to win, even in Warwick. But we shall all see, at around 9:00pm tonight. 
