The Opposition Can Never Win if They Don't Run...

At a Providence City Republican Committee meet-the-candidates-event last evening, Providence GOP Chairman Dave Talan offered a firsthand observation on the importance of the Republican party fielding full slates of candidates, every election cycle…

I like to tell a story from two years ago about my meeting with Representative Stephen Costantino from Federal Hill. On Primary Day in 2006, I was in front of my own voting place, the Reservoir Avenue Fire Station, where they were having a heavily contested Democratic Primary between Representative Tom Slater and two challengers. Rep. Costantino was out in front of my voting place working for Slater because there was no primary in his own district. I was out there passing out fliers for our City Council candidate, Evaristo Rosario, for the November election.

The whole day, I was there with Rep. Costantino. He spent the entire day complaining to me, saying why did you Republicans put up a candidate to run against me. She has no chance of winning, why bother? Now, I have to go out and I have to spend money and I have to campaign. Why are you bothering to do all that?

I felt like telling him, you know Steve, you just answered your own question. And when it came to the November election, I was again in out front of my polling place, but this time, I didn't see Rep. Costantino there, because he was busy in his own neighborhood with an opponent.

That's what we need to do, keep all the incumbents busy. Most incumbents are incredibly paranoid; if they have an opponent, they'll spend all their money on their own race and they won't spend any time at all helping anybody else out in the Democratic Party. They won't be able to gang up on the Republicans in other neighborhoods and districts, like they will if they are without opponents. So anybody who chooses to run as a Republican, even in what would seem to be an unwinnable district, does the party a favor by keeping an incumbent occupied and improving the chances that another Republican in a neighboring district will win, because they'll be fighting on even terms.