Speaking with the Brown Republicans Tuesday night, John Robitaille, the presumptive Republican nominee for governor, offered his assessment of the state of the race and outlined the economic positions around which he intends to focus his campaign.
During the meeting in Wilson 301, Robitaille shared his background with students, gave a rundown of the current state of the governor's race and shared his views on issues ranging from same-sex marriage to business taxes to social safety nets.
Robitaille served as senior advisor for communications to Gov. Donald Carcieri '65 beginning in 2008 until earlier this year, when he left the Carcieri administration to campaign for governor.
The event was lightly attended, often taking on an air of intimacy as the candidate sat behind a desk turned toward the students, leaning back as he spoke. During the hour-long meeting, Robitaille spoke conversationally and took questions from students, often engaging them directly in back-and-forth exchanges.
"I'm not used to speaking to such a small group," he said. "It would feel weird giving my normal stump speech."
Robitaille said that because he has little name recognition and cannot afford to self-finance his campaign, he will most likely accept public matching funds.
At one point, Robitaille called President Barack Obama a "good man," but said he has given too much control of his agenda to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
Robitaille also threw a barb at General Treasurer Frank Caprio, who is seeking the Democratic gubernatorial nomination and is considered to be more conservative than his primary rival, Attorney General Patrick Lynch '87. Robitaille called Caprio a "wannabe Republican" who is too scared to run as a Republican in deep-blue Rhode Island.
The Brown Republicans reached out to Robitaille around two weeks ago, said group President Keith DellaGrotta '10, adding that the candidate responded the next day sounding enthusiastic about the idea.
DellaGrotta said that the meeting gave club members an opportunity to learn more about their party's candidate.
"A lot of people didn't know a whole lot about him," DellaGrotta said.
Should Robitaille win the Republican primary, as is expected, DellaGrotta said that the Brown Republicans would strongly encourage members to campaign for him, though he was unsure how involved the group would get.
Robitaille called himself a social and fiscal conservative, but said that instead of on social issues, he would focus his campaign on the economy — what he called the most important issue on the minds of Rhode Island voters right now.
Robitaille placed much of the blame for Rhode Island's poor economy on the Democrat-dominated General Assembly, which for decades, he said, has kept taxes high to fund expensive social services.
"Legislators should be stewards of taxpayer money," he said. "They shouldn't spend like drunken sailors, like they do."
Because Rhode Island's taxes are higher than other those of other New England states, Robitaille said, businesses are fleeing the state for neighbors such as New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
"We are really suffering from an economic development engine that's stalled," he said.
Robitaille said that as governor he would bring down business tax brackets so that entrepreneurs will stay in Rhode Island.
He also placed blame for Rhode Island's "unsustainable" tax levels on "lucrative benefits and pension plans" enjoyed by public employees.
Another priority as governor, he said, would be expanding job training and educational opportunities for workers to wean people off what he called a "culture of dependency."
"Don't get me wrong, when people fall on hard times, the government needs to help them," he said, but "we're in this cycle that we have to break."
Robitaille said that he does not plan to emphasize social issues, admitting that his conservative beliefs would probably be unpopular in progressive Rhode Island. He is pro-life and opposes same-sex marriage, though he said he would be supportive of measures to give same-sex couples a form of legal recognition that does not use the word marriage.
He also said that he might not veto a marriage equality bill if one were produced by the General Assembly, depending on how it was written.
Robitaille said his opposition to abortion stems from personal experience. He said his wife, then five months pregnant, gave birth to two children who then lived for almost a day.
Watching them struggle to survive, he said, convinced him that fetuses are human regardless of their stage of development.
Robitaille predicted that voter frustration with the economy and the General Assembly, as well as disappointment with President Obama, will make for an explosive election this year.
Throw into the mix an unusually large field of candidates — in addition to the Republican and Democratic candidates, Ken Block of the Moderate Party is running, as are independent candidates Lincoln Chafee, a former senator, and Todd Giroux — and anything seems possible.
"This is going to be the most unbelievable election I've ever seen," Robitaille said, adding that incumbents of all parties should feel nervous about reelection. A recent public opinion survey by the Taubman Center for Public Policy found that only 12 percent of registered Rhode Island voters trust public officials to make the right decision for the state's future.
"There's a real ‘throw the bums out' mentality," he said, something that he hopes will work to his favor as a candidate who has never served in elected office. Carcieri was elected in 2002 as a businessman without a background in government.
Robitaille noted that because so many candidates are running, one could win with around 26 percent of the vote, calling such a scenario "unlikely," but not impossible.
Like Carcieri, Robitaille has a background in business, having spent about ten years as a labor relations specialist for companies such as Frito-Lay and Continental Can Company.
Robitaille said that he learned about the art of negotiation by working with unions, a skill he said he believes would help him work with the General Assembly and others as governor.
In 2006, Robitaille ran for a seat in the Rhode Island House of Representatives from the 72nd District, losing by just ten votes, according to the Rhode Island Board of Elections.
This year, with polls showing Rhode Islanders frustrated with their elected leaders and a large, unstable field of candidates, Robitaille is hoping to do a little better.
