Print
Return to online version

November 2, 2009

FLASH: Corrente Not Running for Governor

Marc Comtois

Former U.S. Attorney for RI Robert Corrente told WPRO's Dan Yorke that he will not run for RI Governor in 2010. He confirmed that he did speak to the Moderate Party but ultimately determined that the timing wasn't right.

Comments

Hi!
What is interesting is the U.S. Attorney's position is a political patronage appointment. Lincoln Chafee reccommended him when he was a Republican U.S Snator to a Republican adminstration. Virtually always Presidents follow the suggestion on federal appointments to their Members of Congress of their parties.
It is known albeit not officially perhaps, Linc Chafee is running for Governor as an Independent. If Corrente ran as a Moderate he would be running against the man who got him his U.S. Attorney's appointment.
How did Corrente get his political patronage appointment when I suspect a number of Republican attorney's would have taken that appointment? What were his Republican credentials?
Regards,
Scott

Posted by: Scott Bill Hirst at November 2, 2009 3:17 PM

Anybody who thinks that Lincoln Chafee will remain in the governor's race until the end is nuts.
It will become more apparent by the day that he has no chance of winning. As dumb as Linc is, even he will come to this realization, albeit quite slowly.

Posted by: Mike Cappelli at November 2, 2009 4:43 PM

My first thought was that Linc wouldn't stick this out, but after some thought he might just do it. In a head to head where he'd have to get 51% of the vote, he might be hurting regardless of the opponent. But when you consider that you could have a candidate from the 3 parties plus Linc and maybe Laffey and then for what it's worth, the Cool Moose Healey did announce he was running a while back. If it went down that way and there were 6 candidates on the ballot, it could come down to dumb luck at that point.

To be clear this is a made up scenerio and not what I think will happen.

Posted by: Steve A. at November 2, 2009 11:35 PM

If Corrente had announced he was running, it would've been a sure sign Linc was out. We'll soon see whether Linc doesn't have the fire in his belly after all or is just keeping his powder dry.
Having five or six viable candidates is a positive development - anything that helps bring about the end of two-party dominance is all good.

Posted by: rhody at November 3, 2009 10:18 AM

Being that Linc is the furthest left of all the general-election candidates, I really don't see a 4-way or 5-way scenario in which he can win.

Left wingers own September in RI, but they never fare too well in November.

Posted by: George at November 4, 2009 11:23 AM