NOW I get it - why Caprio attacked Obama. He doesn't want Obama's endorsement. He's running against

Pirate Smile

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Mon Oct-25-10 10:45 AM
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NOW I get it - why Caprio attacked Obama. He doesn't want Obama's endorsement. He's running against

Edited on Mon Oct-25-10 11:08 AM by Pirate Smile

the left.

Caprio's Clinton fixation
The gubernatorial hopeful is running an ‘It’s The Economy, Stupid’ campaign. But will the centrist approach work in a liberal-leaning state?

-snip-
Moreover, if Caprio's right-of-center politics put him at risk in a left-of-center state, he's already made it through what should have been his most vulnerable period: the Democratic gubernatorial primary, which features a far more liberal electorate than the general election.
But left-leaning Lieutenant Governor Elizabeth Roberts, who might have posed the biggest primary threat to Caprio, decided to pass on the race. And his remaining Democratic foe, Attorney General Patrick Lynch, never caught fire with progressives.
Lynch, who quit the race before primary day, came from a family of old-line, middle-of-the-road politicians. And his lurch to the left was unconvincing for progressives already eyeing a more appealing, general election alternative: Chafee.

Indeed, Chafee — a former Republican senator who quit the party after his defeat in 2006 and later endorsed Barack Obama for president — has managed to garner the support of several large unions and environmental groups that have almost reflexively backed Democrats for decades.
And while labor's talents in getting voters to the polls are often overstated, there is reason to believe the unions could be a real asset this time out. In September, labor officials knocked on hundreds of doors around the state and were able to knock off several conservative state legislators in the Democratic primaries — Caprio's brother David among them.

-snip-
That's a problem for Caprio. While Clinton, doing battle with Ross Perot and George H.W. Bush, was able to challenge Democratic orthodoxy on welfare and the like without fear of losing progressives, Caprio has no such luxury.
In fact, with Chafee firmly entrenched on the left, Caprio has been forced to compete with Republican John Robitaille for right-of-center votes — hence, an attempt to ease Robitaille out of the race that blew up on the campaign a few months back and an embrace of several GOP ideas: most recently, and remarkably, a call for the continuation of the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy.
Those maneuvers, combined with a still mysterious meeting with Republican National Committee officials in February, have damaged his Democratic bona fides. A recent poll out of Brown University had him clinging to a narrow lead over Chafee among Democrats, 43 to 40 percent. And Chafee's internal polling gives Caprio just a one-point advantage.

-snip-
But insiders say the get-out-the-vote effort will be hamstrung, a bit, by several Democratic candidates' decisions to contribute less than requested to the party's coordinated campaign effort.
There are some turf issues involved: the Cicilline camp, for instance, does not want to fold the extensive field operation it built during a competitive primary into the party-wide, general election effort. But there is also a disconnect between the universe of voters targeted by the gubernatorial standard bearer at the top of the ticket and the candidates listed below.

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Downballot Democrats like Cicilline, Roberts, and treasurer candidate Gina Raimondo need to plumb Chafee strongholds like his native Warwick and the tony East Side of Providence. And they must rally the progressives and union voters who made such a strong showing in the primary.
If they succeed — if they get voters who might lean toward Chafee in the governor's race to the polls — they could actually damage the prospects of their own gubernatorial nominee. And the greater the pressure on his left flank, the more important it becomes for Caprio to reach into Robitaille's voter pool.

http://providence.thephoenix.com/news/110308-caprios-clinton-fixation/