There’s nothing like a fast post-season fade for the Yankees to alleviate the worse performance of our Sox. Thanks for stopping by. You can follow me through the week on Bluesky, Threads and X.
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My weekly “One on One” interviews are now available as an Apple podcast. As Rhode Island approaches the general election, you won’t want to miss in-depth interviews with candidates in some of the most consequential races. Please consider following the feed!
1. STORY OF THE WEEK
With just 25 days until midterm elections end on Nov. 3, Democrats feel like they have the wind at their backs. Confidence is high about retaking the U.S. House of Representatives, although reclaiming the majority in the Senate is a bigger lift. Second District U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner contends Senate Republicans will face significant pressure, even if they retain the majority, to change course on the war, restore healthcare cuts and back away from tariffs. “I see a lot of these Republican representatives and senators that were in lockstep with President Trump on the war and on the tariffs,” Magaziner said during an interview this week on One on One. “Now that they are home in campaign season facing their voters and getting an earful from their voters, they're starting to change their tune.” Magaziner is hammering Trump’s $1 billion+ in gains through crypto and other possible sources, lambasting what he calls “the most corrupt administration in the history of our country.” Of course, Trump might not be president if Democrats made a more effective appeal to voters in the years leading up to 2024 – and the party isn’t without its own problems. But Magaziner said Democrats will use their subpoena power if they retake the House to shine a light on Trump’s gains, how a Russian oligarch reportedly paid for a big chunk of Don Jr.’s wedding, and the Qataris’ provision of a new Air Force One. “Beyond that, there has to be accountability,” Magaziner said. “We have to say clearly that no one, including the president of the United States, is above the law. And if there is illegal activity, then there have to be consequences.”
Magaziner and I also talked about his matchup with Republican Vic Mellor, why Congress hasn’t fixed Social Security funding, whether a broken Congress can be improved, and more.
2. SHOCK OF THE NEW
Pomp and circumstance and soaring rhetoric will be the order of the day when inauguration day unfolds in Rhode Island on Jan. 5. At minimum, we’ll have a new governor, a new attorney general and a new mayor of Providence. Perhaps it will be so cold that reporters’ smartphones stop working, as when Gina Raimondo was inaugurated in back of the Statehouse in 2015, or maybe just very cold and snowy like when Don Carcieri and David Cicilline shared a downtown Providence stage in 2003. Regardless, the buoyant optimism of the day will soon give way to a dawning reality: for all the wonderful things about Rhode Island, we face serious and familiar problems that have evaded significant progress for years: the housing crisis, the brain drain of young people to other destinations, a lack of new engines of job growth, underperforming public schools, the upward trajectory of the state budget and so on.
3. SEEING RED
During a WJAR-TV debate on Wednesday, Republican candidate Aaron Guckian pointed to Helena Foulkes’ support for Providence mayoral candidate David Morales in suggesting she’s a socialist and way, way out on the left. Foulkes, a former top executive at CVS – one of the few publicly traded corporations headquartered in Rhode Island – noted that she’s a capitalist and said it’s important for the governor and Providence mayor to have an effective working relationship. So it goes, as Guckian struggles to bolster his support in a general election race dominated to this point by Foulkes and independent candidate Ken Block. Guckian reported a meager $7,273 balance in his latest campaign finance report, while Block – boosted in part by a personal loan – checked in at $263,515, and Foulkes reported her balance as $214,871. Block and Guckian continue to trade calls for each other to drop out of the race, while the crossfire accrues to the benefit of Foulkes. Meanwhile, the rise of a democratic socialist duo in Providence, between Morales and Miguel Sanchez – who said he’s lined up the support to be the next City Council president – was cited by Guckian during the Channel 10 debate as a threat to Rhode Island. But what of how the union-dominated retirement board blew up the city’s unfunded pension liability back in the late ’80s – a problem that consumes more and more of Providence’s budget each year? While democratic socialism can be a useful bogeyman, local history shows how conventional politics sometimes has its own dire effects. Also: Providence’s fiscal constraints will limit Morales ability to pursue a series of utopian initiatives, even if he wanted to.
4. OUR PREDICAMENT
Fall River native E.J. Dionne Jr.’s 1991 book, Why Americans Hate Politics, helped inspire a panel discussion moderated by yours truly at the Providence Athenaeum. State Rep. Megan Cotter (D-Exeter), Allan Fung, now an independent candidate for state rep, and Eric Patashnik, director of Brown University’s Watson Institute, joined me to talk about the crisis of confidence facing local and national politicians. Our topics included affordability, housing, government competence, and how some of these issues propelled David Morales’ campaign in Providence. (Shout-out for Brown scholar Marc Dunkelman’s excellent book, Why Nothing Works, which covers related territory.)
Part of the challenge is that, in some cases, information conflicts. For example, about 85% of Americans think Democrats and Republicans are more focused on fighting than on solving problems, according to the Pew Research Center. At the same time, though, Pew also found that a majority of citizens hold deeply negative views of those on the other side of the political spectrum. So if Americans don’t like polarization and they are invested in it at the same time, how do we make progress?
Similarly, Pew found that 85% of Americans think the high cost of campaigns blocks good candidates from running, but the U.S. Supreme Court has come down on the side of likening campaign contributions to free speech. So what can be done?
You can hear the panel discussion at noon on Tuesday, Oct. 13, on 103.7 FM.
5. SMITH HILL
With the pending retirement next month of Henry Kinch Jr., former state Rep. Lisa Tomasso is poised to take over the leadership of the Joint Committee on Legislative Services, the powerful hiring and spending arm of the General Assembly. Tomasso has most recently served as senior VP for the Hospital Association of Rhode Island. A former Pawtucket city councilor, Kinch was previously clerk for Superior Court for many years, first in Washington County and then in Providence and Bristol County. In a statement, House Speaker Chris Blazejewski congratulated Kinch on his pending retirement, adding, “Lisa has outstanding experience in both the public and private sectors. We worked together as legislative colleagues, and I saw firsthand her knowledge of public policy and dedication to public service. She will be a tremendous asset to the General Assembly.”
6. THROUGH THE YEARS
The Jane Doe case at Cornell University underscores the threat faced by women around college campuses. The headline on a guest essay by novelist Jennifer Weiner in The New York Times reflected the thinking of many: “I Thought Things Had Gotten Better. The Cornell Case Shows How Bad They Really Are.” My mind went to how I’d reported a story – “Campus Rape – A Hidden Problem,” published 30 years ago in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. Excerpt: “Jeffrey A. Newman, a Boston lawyer who since 1982 has represented women who have been raped or sexually assaulted in college settings around New England, said he receives 10 telephone calls a month about new assaults. ‘It's a very common problem, attendant with the gross abuse of alcohol,’ Newman said. ‘People ask if it has changed over the last 10 years. It hasn't changed one iota.’”
7. MENTAL HEALTH
Nearly 400 men in Rhode Island died by suicide from 2020 to 2024. In response, the state Department of Health has launched a program, called Man Therapy, that aims to dispel the stigma sometimes associated with seeking assistance for mental health. RIDOH found that 11% of Rhode Island men experience frequent loneliness and that suicide is most common among working-class men between 25 and 65. Deirdre O'Donnell, manager of RIDOH’s Violence and Injury Prevention Program, spoke with my colleague Luis Hernandez about how Man Therapy tries to use humor to break the ice, including a fictional character dubbed Rich Mahogany: “I think if we learn how to lean into the idea that it's okay to not be okay – it's okay to ask for help – and lean into that vulnerability a little bit more and offer genuine spaces that are going to welcome that for men and for peers, that's how we actually really move the needle.”
8. BRIGHT IDEA?
Politics makes odd bedfellows, as the saying goes. So maybe it’s a good time to buy a lottery ticket since President Trump and one of his top local critics, Democratic U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, are on the same side of the push to make Daylight Saving Time permanent. Whether this will actually happen remains unclear. And hey, I like lots of sunshine as much as the next person. But do we really want to push off sunrise in the winter until about 8 a.m.?
9. KUDOS & CONGRATS ….
… to Lauren Fedor, a former intern at what we now call Ocean State Media and alum of the Brown Daily Herald, who is signing on as senior politics reporter for Politico.
10. KICKER
The venerable dive bar risks becoming a thing of the past.
As Anna Kodé wrote in a finely etched NYT feature in June: “A dive is a day-drunk American dream, a dingy oasis where dividing lines — race, class, background — blur and fade. It is a respite without reservations, where you can kill an hour or pass an afternoon. A place out of time. But things change, even if dive bars are supposed to stay the same. In today’s New York, the humble dive is at risk of becoming an endangered species as hole-in-the-wall establishments face high rents, rising costs and a disappearing clientele.”
Closer to home, supporters of Nick-a-Nee’s – the venerable dive bar in Providence’s Jewelry District – are rallying to help it overcome a challenge posed by climbing property taxes, “the increasing costs of utilities, supplies, and everything else that goes into running a small neighborhood bar.” Nick-a-Nee’s is close to my heart. It’s down the street from where I worked at the Providence Phoenix. It was the last stop with two pals on the night of my bachelor party. It offers free music, a friendly vibe, and welcomes our canine friends. So it’s great to see the community coming together in support of this cherished destination, surpassing within 24 hours the $30,000 goal on GoFundMe. As musician Mark Cutler quipped on FB, “The response is like the end of It’s a Wonderful Life.”
