ANALYSIS: Raimondo’s “Love” Speech
Wednesday, January 17, 2018
Gina Raimondo is one of the state’s least popular elected officials.
In the past, she has struggled to find a theme for her State of the State addresses. Last year, GoLocal analyzed her State of the State speech for her use of “I”. Raimondo had gone “I crazy.
As GoLocal reported last year: “Governor Gina Raimondo’s State of the State address on Tuesday was rich in promises and even richer in the first person reference of “I”.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTRaimondo said “I” thirty eight times in her speech -- more than ten times more than President Donald Trump used the first person reference in his inaugural speech on Friday.
Raimondo, or maybe better referred to as Raimondi, claimed sole responsibility for economic initiatives in one reference in her speech, “I love the work I do convincing companies to come here.” She did not mention the work of other business leaders, legislators or staff.
The Year of Love
This year, Raimondo is in love. She is in love with Rhode Island. In love with new spending initiatives, and is trying to soften her hard edges with “love.”
How much love? Twelve loves and lots of love imagery is her speech connecting Rhode Islanders.
For Raimondo, who according to Harvard’s John Della Volpe’s poll released by GoLocal in October identified by just 6 percent of Rhode Islanders to be doing an excellent job as governor. SEE THE FULL POLL RESULTS BELOW
Here are some of the things Raimondo loves:
In her speech, Raimondo highlights a small business owner, “When I met Alan, it was clear to me that he loved Rhode Island, but he didn’t shy away from telling me that it sometimes it frustrated him.” Raimondo stayed away from talking about tax subsidies from the General Electrics and the Johnson and Johnsons — those out of state companies and others have received upwards of $100 million.
She talked about another small business person, “For years, he worked a desk job that he tolerated; but, on the side, he owned a small cleaning business that he loved.”
More love and more love throughout the speech.
On the Policy Side
Raimondo asked for more money to rehab public schools across the state. "A once in a generation pledge to fix our public schools." She asked for $1 billion dollars to fix Rhode Island's public schools over the next five years.
She outlined the need to expand job training.
She is pushing for the line-item veto again and asking for it to go before the voters in November.
Raimondo is looking to expand healthcare coverage for mental health.
She did discuss the small business training program at CCRI funded by private equity behemoth Goldman Sachs, but never mentioned them by name.
She outlined Supply RI — an initiative for large companies to buy in RI. A GoLocal investigation found that RI Commerce delivers two-thirds of their contracts to out-of-state companies.
What did she not mention? The PawSox proposal.
Overall, this was Raimondo’s most cohesive and articulate speech as Governor. It is an unknown if her new “love approach” is too little too late. We will know in just ten months.
Related Slideshow: GoLocal: Benchmark Poll, October 2017
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