As Bernie Supporters Back Matt Brown, Rhode Island Dem Gov Gina Raimondo’s Primary Problems Worsen
To make matters worse for Raimondo, Democrat officeholders are starting to bail on her re-election bid, with one state representative already backing Brown, while Democrat Secretary of State
"Democratic gubernatorial candidate
Brown, a former secretary of state who recently re-emerged after a decade out of
'The current governor has defined the job of governor as selling the state to businesses to get them to come here,' Brown said during a kickoff organizing meeting at the
Echoing Sanders, Brown assailed 'a broken system' that he said allows 'financial corruption' and 'moral corruption' to infect government. He said he will not accept contributions from corporate PACs, lobbyists, or companies with interests in oil, gas and coal.
State Sen.
'We all know that there are good bills that go up in the
Brown is an underdog in the
But the 48-year-old, whose last job was leading an anti-nuclear nonprofit, cited his experience in the 2002 election as evidence he can win.
After law school, he said, 'I went home and challenged an incumbent Democrat in a primary for secretary of state who had the full backing of the political establishment. Does that sound familiar at all to what's going on here today? And with a massive grassroots campaign, we won that election.'
'Matt Brown's platform is something that I truly support, and I hope that all 'Berniecrats' in the state support, as well,' she said.
Brown initially said he planned to run for governor on the November ballot as an independent, but he changed course last month and said he would instead enter the primary. His decision came the same day
Raimondo has said little publicly about Brown, but behind the scenes she is working to shore up her support inside her party. Every high-ranking Democrat in the state but one has signed onto the host committee for a
Raimondo's campaign is also distributing a memo from
On policy, Brown said he wants to reverse various tax cuts approved by
Brown pledged to increase funding for Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for low-income residents that has grown to about a quarter of the state budget. He said he would reverse rate freezes and other Medicaid reductions Raimondo has instituted in recent years to balance the budget.
'This governor has cut Medicaid - it has hurt people, and it's contributed to the breaking of the backs of our hospital providers,' he said. 'They're now bankrupt, they're closing, and they're looking to sell themselves to out-of-state corporations, which would be a disaster for the quality of care in the state and a disaster for our economy.'
Brown also reiterated his goal of making
Brown closed with a pitch based on science.
'It's in all of our interest to take on this system, dismantle it and build something better,' he said. 'I think we need to remember, we know now from DNA studies, recent DNA studies from all around the world, that we actually all started out together. There were as few as 1,000 of us, human beings, struggling to survive on the African savannah. And we did survive, and we went north and we went around the world.'
'But in the process, we found every possible way to divide ourselves against each other,' he continued. 'We found race, we found religion, we found nationality, ethnicity, and politics. And so now we are divided, and that makes us powerless. ... [W]e're going to have to make sure that people recognize that now, because these problems are so big, that the only way to solve them is to find a way over these divides.'
'It's a hard job,' she said of the governor's office. 'It's not just ideas. It's management.'
One attendee already in Brown's corner was
'I believe the Democratic Party for a long time has been leaning too much toward big money, and, basically, Wall Street Democrats,' Hamilton said, adding that he considers Raimondo one of them.
Brown, Roselli and Dickinson are three of the nine candidates who have filed to challenge Raimondo this year. The others are Republicans
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