Mountain_Bill5743 t1_ivrh6b5 wrote on November 10, 2022 at 1:47 AM

The other candidate in the D primary was an extremely controversial candidate despite looking good on paper (moved among many states making many negative headlines before landing here-- I still don't know why he was the education commissioner in CT. Risky loans with the city of Newark as mayor). He landed here for some time (Yale college friend of Gina), but still seemed to be a really controversial candidate who happened to be linked to a lot of negative financial/PR decisions where he was always the common denominator:

https://www.providencejournal.com/story/news/politics/2022/09/09/ri-treasurer-candidate-stefan-pryors-record-questioned-what-we-found/7992869001/

The party endorsed Diossa so I'm sure that helped and I'm sure most likely due to his popularity as the CF mayor. It's like you have an educationally qualified guy who seems to be linked to controversial decisions in every job for the last decade or a well liked guy with few qualifications who is less likely to make a large decision that poisons the well again.

I think people tend to vote D down ballot, sure, but I also think the more democratic voters of this state are also worried about electing an R. In all honesty, I'm not sure myself how much power a treasurer has to make it a partisan position.

StonksGuy3000 OP t1_ivrkujb wrote on November 10, 2022 at 2:14 AM

To my knowledge, Lathrop didn’t carry any baggage though so perhaps he had the qualifications and a clean past

Mountain_Bill5743 t1_ivrqxgk wrote on November 10, 2022 at 3:01 AM

Yeah, having read his positions, he sounds very moderate. These days, hitching yourself to the Republican party is pretty much going to guarantee failure in a state like RI because you're not going to be synonymous with moderate. Baker's the exception, not the rule nationally.

I also totally understand. I've been here for a decade and I always tell people hat politically the state is not on the same candidate quality as MA and similar states. MA just has its act together in a way we never had on a lot of levels and if you decide to stay here long term it's worth resigning to the fact that the state doesn't run all that well (ask anyone who works for the state here haha).