Empty endorsements by visiting windbags

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To the Editor:

As we voters search for substance in the candidates of the 2014 election season, the aspirants for chief executive are beckoning help from national notables by seeking public endorsements. Feigning enthusiasm and promoting local contenders that they hardly know, national bigwigs are flocking to Little Rhody.

The first of which was the rude, robust and rotund New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Surrounded by an entourage of press akin to that of his idol Bruce Springsteen, Christie stirred the local press into a frenzy of possible presidential campaign speculation.

Lost, however, in the scrumming was the supposed intention of the visit, which was the endorsement of Republican candidate for Governor Allan Fung. The mild mannered and demure Fung was eclipsed by planetary presence and personality of Christie, thus, making the effort “A bridge to nowhere” for the Fung campaign by a man who knows how to manipulate bridges for political reasons.

Equally nebulous will be the impending visit from failed Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Having yielded only 35 percent of Rhode Island’s popular vote in 2012, which included very few independents and crossover Democrats, Romney seems a strange choice to try to boost vote totals for Fung in our pervasively Democratic state. Additionally, Romney’s unenthusiastic monotone dripped with insincerity in his previously recorded endorsement that was used by Fung’s primary campaign in robot phone calls to potential voters.

On the Democrat side, General Treasurer Gina Riamondo has enlisted former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Undoubtedly, Clinton will be concentrating on strident feminism as her strategy of endorsement. Ms. Raimondo had used her Rhode Island Planned Parenthood endorsement in an incendiary fashion to cultivate a feminist sentiment in the electorate. One would assume Clinton will try to galvanize female voters to make history by electing the first female governor in the state.

What isn't apparent in these “dog and pony” shows are the real issues that are critically essential to us Rhode Islanders. Budgetary matters, decaying infrastructure, chronically high unemployment, the lack of a thriving manufacturing sector, astronomically high taxes and the exodus of the Ocean State’s middle class are not being discussed with any depth or productive discourse. Instead, we are showcasing a series of supercilious and self-aggrandizing stars and their ubiquitous tag-a-longs hoping for recognition by association.

Without a concrete idea of which potential governor will attempt to introduce what policy, we are left with ephemeral impressions of the insubstantial on which to base our vote. Visiting windbags simply enhance the shallowness and lessen the substance.

<*R>Christopher M. Curran

West Warwick

Comments

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  • jtaxassoc

    Christopher, wake up and smell the coffe.

    As for Mitt Romney recieving 35 percent of Rhode Island’s popular vote the reality here is civil servants including retirees and eligible voters living in the same households make up 33 percent of the vote. Also, our state has the third highest percentage of Senior Citizens in the country per capita. When you consider Crime, Welfare, iligal imgration and union control over our state and municipalities any Republican is better than nothing at all. Our problem is of the 113 legislators only 11 are Republicans and one Indepentant. Your commentary was meaningless period, Peter A. Filippi III

    Friday, October 17, 2014 Report this

  • micgib

    As usual, Mr. Curran makes some good points.

    I question the wisdom of Gina Raimondo's decision to allow The president and the first lady to campaign for her later this week.

    Very few Democrats in other states want to get anywhere near these two unpopular figures and with good reason.

    Michael Iacobbo

    Tuesday, October 28, 2014 Report this