Rob Horowitz: Gemma’s Hail Mary
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
In a media conference last week that rivaled the bar scene in Star Wars for its out-and-out weirdness, Anthony Gemma probably put the final nail in the coffin of what has been one of the strangest and hard-to-fathom candidacies that our sometimes political theme park of a state has ever seen.
With only two weeks remaining until the primary, Gemma has yet to offer a compelling rationale for his candidacy nor has he begun any television advertising. Instead, he used scarce campaign resources to accuse his opponent, incumbent U.S. Rep. David Cicilline (D) of voter fraud all the while failing to to come anywhere close to meeting the standard of proof required for such a serious charge in the court of public opinion -- let alone any court of law.
While Gemma claims that the unnamed accusers in the videos and affidavits must remain anonymous because of concerns for their physical safety, those who have come forward --perhaps wearing bullet proof vests -- have significant credibility problems that have already been well documented by the Rhode Island media. The fact that Gemma fled his own media conference instead of staying to answer all the media questions speaks volumes.
It also speaks volumes that former Atty. Gen. James O' Neill (D), the most credible person involved in this fiasco, did not address the media during the conference and told the Providence Journal "I am not going to go on record by saying that there is a document that indicates David Cicilline, he--as an individual—was front and center on any of these machinations you heard of today.” It is a safe bet that if O’Neill were willing to go as far as the Gemma campaign needed him to he would have spoken at the press conference and been available for a round of follow-up interviews.
If Gemma were not making such a serious charge, this all could be written off as a laugh line in a comedy routine. But Gemma and his team know full well that the US Attorney’s office and the Rhode Island State Police are not going to reject this out of hand. As a result, these so-far unsubstantiated charges will linger at least through the primary.
Gemma also knows that because many voters think that Cicilline was misleading on the state of Providence finances when he ran for Congress in 2010, that he is vulnerable to charges that hit at his credibility.
Charges, however, are just that -- charges. To work, charges need to be backed up by real facts and evidence. As a result, I am confident that most Democratic primary voters will see right through this cynical and poorly executed ploy and cast their vote for Congressman Cicilline
Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island.
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