RI 2014 Governor's Race Weekly Scorecard - June 8
GoLocalProv
RI 2014 Governor's Race Weekly Scorecard - June 8
Each week GoLocal's reporters, editors and MINDSETTERS™ review and grade the candidates, policy statements, their media, and the campaign activities for each of the five major likely candidates for Governor of Rhode Island: Gina Raimondo (D), Angel Taveras (D), Allan Fung (R), Ken Block (R) and Clay Pell (D).
Allan Fung has had three terrible weeks since he announced he was running for Governor. One was when he admitted he had killed a man in an auto accident when he was in college, the second bad week was the unveiling of Cranston’s Trafficgate, but this week may have been his worst.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTHe launched a negative attack ad on Ken Block. Going negative four months ahead of the primary is a highly unusual strategy for a candidate who claimed to be ahead in the polls.
Then, Fung got caught in a public lie. He claimed in a radio interview that he had not polled recently and then he and his campaign manager had to back track and admit that Fung’s denial of a poll was untrue.
GRADE: D-
Raimondo returned to the campaign after the death of her father and broke new commercials and offered a major policy proposal on college funding for Rhode Islanders.
The focal point of the Raimondo plan partners with local businesses to create a loan forgiveness program for students who put down roots in Rhode Island after graduating from one of the local colleges or universities.
The WPRI poll conducted by Democratic Pollster Joe Fleming, however, gave Providence Mayor Angel Taveras a small lead over Raimondo.
GRADE: B-
Another solid week for Block as he picked up endorsements from GOP state senators.
Block scored endorsements from:
Senator David Bates, Republican representing Block’s hometown of Barrington as well as Bristol and East Providence; Senator Christopher Ottiano, Republican representing Bristol, Portsmouth, and Tiverton; Senator Nicholas Kettle, Republican representing Coventry, Foster, Scituate, and West Greenwich; and Senator Edward O’Neill, an independent member of the Senate, who represents Lincoln, North Providence, and North Smithfield.
GRADE: A-
One of Taveras’ big problems is he is Mayor of Providence. The crime, the taxes and the poor schools are all Taveras.
A guest MINDSETTER™ piece by the highly respected Wendy Lawton captured the frustration of city residents with the quality of Providence schools. As Lawton wrote, “Rhode Island Department of Education statistics show that in Providence Public Schools, less than half of elementary and middle school students meet benchmarks in reading – and less than 40 percent meet them in math. In Providence high schools in 2013, only 61 percent met reading and 24 percent met math standards. High schools don’t even meet the modest 74 percent graduation target rate set by the state. In Providence, only 65 percent of students graduate in four years – and only 72 percent graduate in six.”
For Taveras – he owns all these numbers.
GRADE: C
Pell is rich and is married to a beautiful and talented former Olympian, so we should not feel too bad for him.
But as a candidate for Governor, Pell is becoming a punch line to every political joke. His recent appearance before Grow Smart was termed somewhat pathetic and the recently released poll numbers had Pell at 10%.
GRADE: C-
10 Questions Gina Raimondo Has to Answer When Running for Governor
10. Money
Can she explain the amount of out of state money?
Most of the candidates for Governor need to answer the question, can they raise enough to be competitive? That is not a problem for Raimondo. She has proven to be the most skilled fundraiser, but her issue is justifying that the vast majority of the money is coming from out-of-state.
Raimondo will face a number of questions regarding who is really behind her campaign - the amount of out-of-state dollars is just one of the questions.
9. Pension Reform
Did she only reform certain pensions?
Raimondo rose to celebrity status because of her leadership on pension reform. Her efforts helped to stabilize the pension system, but the reform was hardly democratic.
Teachers took the vast majority of the hit, while major groups of pensioners escaped reform including the judges, state police and disability pensioners. Raimondo has some explaining to do.
8. Lack of Transparency
If she lacks transparency as Treasurer, what will it be like as Governor?
From her deepest critics to the media and even members of the retirement board, many have questioned her and her office's willingness to share information and provide the public insights into her management of the investment commission and the performance of the fund under her leadership.
Data which historically was easily accessed by the public and media is now locked behind the Raimondo wall. Often this raises serious questions and forces the media to seek the simplest information via FOIA requests.
7. Wall Street
Why is Wall Street spending so much money supporting Raimondo?
Raimondo is the queen of fundraising and so much of it derives from the major players on Wall Street.
6. Performance
Has Raimondo managed the pension fund competently?
The most important job of the General Treasurer might be the management of the state's retirement fund. The blockbuster investigative piece by Stephen Beale unveiled that the pension system under Raimondo lost $200 million.
While she may be able to blitz the airwaves with positive messages about her bio and her leadership in pension reform, her Democratic primary competitors and/or her GOP opponent in the General Election may be able to destroy her credibility by playing up her "mismanagement of the pension system."
5. Hedge Funds
Will Raimondo pay the price for shifting so much of the assets into Hedge Funds?
For the past six months, Raimondo has been under constant critique for shifting more than 20% of the State's retirement dollars into unregulated Hedge Funds. The critics has included forensic auditor/Forbes contributor Ted Siedle, Rolling Stones magazine's star reporter Matt Taibbi, former General Treasurer and candidate again, Frank Caprio, as well as many of the public unions. The combination of where she gets her campaign dollars, coupled with the shift in investment strategy and the under performance of the fund may all build into a snowball effect.
4. Connect to RIers
Educated at Yale and Harvard, a Rhode Scholar and a millionaire, can she connect to the average RIer?
Raimondo is a born and bred Rhode Islander, but for her adult life she has been educated at the best colleges in the world and living a professional life aligned with many of America's super rich associated with Wall Street. In her announcement she mentioned a number of times she was a mother, but did not mention that her husband is a partner at Mckinsey - and according to Forbes magazine probably takes home $2 million or so per year.
Raimondo talks a lot about her father losing his job when she was a child, but she has come a long way since then. She could come across as the ultimate RI success story or be perceived as an out of touch venture capitalist.
3. Siedle and Taibbi
Neither Ted Siedle or Matt Taibbi are going away - can she deflect their questions and charges?
In the past two months, both forensic auditor/Forbes columnist Ted Siedle and Rolling Stone's star reporter Matt Taibbi have raised serious issues about Raimondo's motivation and judgment.
As Taibbi wrote, "The dynamic young Rhodes scholar was allowing her state to be used as a test case for the rest of the country, at the behest of powerful out-of-state financiers with dreams of pushing pension reform down the throats of taxpayers and public workers from coast to coast."
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/looting-the-pension-funds-20130926#ixzz2o2bLhqKW
2. Is she a Democrat?
Will Taveras and Pell paint her to be too conservative?
Raimondo is simply hated by the teachers unions and others - big blocks of voters in the Democratic primary. Both Clay Pell and Providence Mayor Angel Taveras will tack to the left and may compete for the same voters allowing her to sneak through to the general. However, progressives and unions may decide to pick Pell over Taveras (who is struggling to raise money and whose track record in Providence may come under fire) and then Pell can take the left leaning primary.
1. SEC Investigation
Can Raimondo survive an SEC investigation?
Both Siedle and a state senator have written to the SEC calling for an investigation into the investment practices of Raimondo. A federal investigation would be at a minimum a black eye to the General Treasurer and an enforcement action might end a credible campaign. Timing may prove to be everything.
