Doyle: The Dirty Laundry of RI Politics

Ed Doyle

Election time in Rhode Island has all the nuances of circus side shows, bare knuckle fighting and it brings to mind images of criminals sitting around a dimly lit table in a back room putting all their devious plans on the table of how to destroy one candidate or another. A new visitor to Rhode Island would only need to tune into a radio or television station or pick up a newspaper and immediately want to high tail it back out of the state until the election was over and the coast was clear. There are truly some candidates that try ever so hard to keep focus on the issues that are plaguing the state and its people and try to point out how
they can do a better job than the current office holder that they are running against but almost in every case their opponent slithers into the gutter, gets covered with the dirt and pig dung that they love to roll in
and focus on everything but the issues. Name calling, refusing to answer questions about the issues, or worse yet saying nothing at all and letting your henchmen attack your opponent's innocent family so you look like the innocent one with plausible deniability such as is the case with my opponent in the race for State Representative in district 43 of Johnston.

A few examples would be as follows:

Bret Smiley running for Mayor of Providence. Bret's main platform is to throw another tax on the people of Rhode Island and give the money to non-profit organizations. He hides the fact that the firm he was responsible for lost a million dollars of spending for one political candidate. Instead of coming clean on these types of shortcomings he attacks another candidate that isn't even running against him in the
primary. Shift the focus away from yourself, find what you believe is a hot button topic and pummel that candidate. Unfortunately Mr. Smiley picked the wrong candidate to pick on to try to show himself as the tough guy.

We have candidates like Gina Raimondo that can go the soap opera route and make herself look like the savior of Rhode Island riding through the clean quiet streets of Rhode Island with her children with rainbows in the sky and daisies coming through the asphalt. If that wasn't far enough from the
reality of traffic jams on potholed streets with gunshots echoing in the air and muggings happening on each side street of the city how about the ad that shows that she has so much power that she saved a woman's life not once. but twice! Gina why don't you spell out what's wrong with our system that
allowed this woman to be attacked in the first place and how you are going  to fix it? Instead of pointing out a building where your dad once worked with the sound of violins in the background, face the people and tell them exactly what your plan is to keep those businesses open because there are plenty of dads that worked in buildings just like the one you reminisce  about that lost their jobs and are still out of work struggling to feed their families which you have no idea of what it is like to do so. Stop treating the voters of Rhode Island like children and idiots and tell them the truth.

The last example is the worst kind of skullduggery. Lets take my opponent State Representative Deborah Fellela. A history of voting to raise taxes, raise fees, put millionaires above the working class and when her opponent calls her out on it and challenges her record and to face the people of Johnston, she sicks her junk yard dogs on their families. A campaign staff made up of three criminals, Wolf Kennedy, whos real name is Charlie Peters that served years in prison, her husband Henry Fellela that faces 37 years
in prison from steeling the identity and credit cards from an 85 year old man, and her son Kyle Fellela that was arrested after she won one of her elections for assault and battery in a victory celebration. All this while she laughs in the voters faces saying her husband's crimes which also included defrauding the government is overblown and has nothing to do with her being a state representative. Instead of trying to let the voters that trusted her an opportunity to trust her once more, which is impossible after 6 years of stealing every nickel she could from them, she has her felon for Fellela team attack not her opponent, but her opponent's wife and children with disgusting social networking and the secret whispers in the ears of the voters. Her tactics were so bad that they even violated Facebook policy and were pulled from the internet. Yeah that's what the voters want disgusting bullying to make them forget they are losing their jobs, their homes and their businesses.

There is one reason that any of this continues and worsens each year. That reason is we the voters allow it to happen. Sure we may say that the ads and the lies and the mud is horrible but we never hold them accountable and we put them right back in office so they can spit in our faces come the next election.

Rhode Island is on the brink of total disaster and I believe this is our last chance. Look into your children's eyes when you cast your votes in the primary and on election day and you better be ready to tell them one of two things. yes my dear sons and daughters you may indeed have a chance because I voted for the new blood, the new fighters that say it like it is and will fight for us, or. sorry kid you are on your own because I fell for the lies, gave into the intimidation or just plain don't give a damn.

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