Beginning at the Beginning

One ray of hope in the evening — perhaps gleaming a little more brightly because of my proximity — is the success of Tiverton Citizens for Change.

In summary, four out of five of our endorsees made it onto the seven-person council. Our one school committee endorsee won the greatest number of votes! Our two non-write-in budget committee endorsees received high totals. (No info, yet on write-ins.) And the two ballot measures that we supported won in landslides.

I am disappointed to see that School Committee Chairwoman Denise DeMedeiros didn't keep her position — because she's certainly preferable to the alternatives — but at least there's a bit of gratification to knowing that the margin was sufficiently close that the outcome would almost definitely have been different had she accepted our endorsement.

And now we get to work rebuilding Tiverton, and that's where the glimmer of light breaks through a prism. I very much feel that what we're building, with TCC, is a new model that can ultimately change the state. A group of very (and diversely) talented people got together, worked through some prickly differences, kept egos from diluting effectiveness (which is a clear problem among reformist groups in Rhode Island), and achieved its goals, almost in total, within an extremely short time span.

This is how we build a backing organization and a farm team of candidates who can put up a better showing than the odd Republican who takes an interest in state-level or higher office.