Lincoln Chafee Once Again Slams Rhode Island Dem Gov Gina Raimondo

How poor is Democrat Governor Gina Raimondo’s record in Rhode Island? So poor that her predecessor, a member of her own party, has become her biggest critic. Former Democrat Governor Lincoln Chafee once again took aim at Raimondo in a scathing new Providence Journal op-ed blasting her record on pension issues. Chafee’s attack marks the latest chapter in the ongoing feud between him and Raimondo, as Chafee has openly discussed challenging her in the 2018 election as a Democrat or an Independent:

“…I was often puzzled by Treasurer Raimondo’s poor decision-making at critical times: allowing her friends in Engage RI to run those ads, not addressing the local plans and opposing the peace conference. But the biggest blunder was unfolding.

No article on Rhode Island pension reform is complete without a discussion of the funds’ performance, because the return of the retirees’ cost of living adjustments is tied to the strength of our investments. Going where no Rhode Island treasurer had gone before and ignoring experts’ advice, Treasurer Raimondo steered over a billion dollars into ‘alternative investments.’ These hedge funds come with rapaciously high fees.

Well, we had the worst of both worlds: we paid the high fees and the investments bombed. Thankfully, new Treasurer Seth Magaziner is getting the fund ‘back to basics,’ as he calls it. But the damage has been done — by some estimates, a loss of a half a billion dollars, and another long delay for the retirees’ COLAs.”

But Chafee wasn’t finished – he then took to WPRO radio to continue shredding Raimondo – while fanning speculation that he will challenge her in the 2018 election from the left:

TARA GRANAHAN: “Name a couple of people you think coming around the bend here would be a good choice to run for governor.”

LINCOLN CHAFEE: “Well there’s still time to sort out. I’m right now  a Democrat, and so I’ll be looking at my options.”

TARA GRANAHAN: “So you are a good choice?

LINCOLN CHAFEE: “I have experience Tara, as you mentioned, governor, senator, mayor, that’s helpful…”

It’s a rare thing to see an incumbent governor receive the level of criticism from a predecessor of her own party that Raimondo has from Chafee. But after a week clouded by being left out of a meeting between the Democrat State House Speaker and Democrat State Senate President to resolve the Rhode Island’s budget impasse, and a new poll showing Raimondo to be the least popular, most vulnerable Democrat gubernatorial incumbent in 2018, Chafee is hardly alone in his assessment of Raimondo’s performance among Rhode Islanders.