Traditional media stepped up to the plate in some cases, such as how WJAR-TV (Channel 10), has offered a new hour-long Sunday morning political roundtable during the campaign season.

Still, when it comes to shaping an informed citizenry, the main problem remains how most people get most of their information from TV — and how typical viewers get far more exposure to campaign commercials than to insightful political coverage.

Biggest loser
The RHODE ISLAND REPUBLICAN PARTY faces the prospect of becoming increasingly marginalized.

The most striking evidence of the GOP’s failure to develop a farm team is how it failed, for the first time in many years, to even run a candidate in the Second Congressional District, against James R. Langevin. Things aren’t much better in the First Congressional District, where under-funded first-time candidate Jonathan Scott is competing against US Representative Patrick Kennedy.

State Republicans have a better outlook in terms of their ability to run candidates for the General Assembly, although the return to House Speaker William J. Murphy’s fold of wayward Representatives Joanne M. Giannini, Peter Palumbo, and Peter Petrarca suggests a strengthening of his position.

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The bottom line: until the RI GOP proves itself capable of nurturing an effective long-term strategy, complaints about the excesses of Democratic dominance will basically amount to empty chatter.

Most myopic campaign opponents
Many SUPPORTERS AND OPPONENTS OF THE PROPOSED HARRAH’S ENTERTAINMENT-NARRAGANSETT INDIAN CASINO have become so lost in their respective talking points, regardless of their correspondence to reality, that Question 1 has become a mostly emotional debate, rather than a rational one.

Best disappearing act by a rising star
Calling STEVE LAFFEY.

Best prospects for a losing candidate
First-time candidate GUILLAUME DE RAMEL, who lost to North Providence Mayor A. Ralph Mollis in the Democratic primary for secretary of state, probably would have fared better had thousands of Democrats not entered the Senate primary to vote for Lincoln Chafee in September. De Ramel has also made clear his interest, should Bill Lynch choose to leave his post as chairman of the Rhode Island Democratic Party, of stepping into that role.

Best instance of quality shining through
Reginald Centracchio, the former commander of the Rhode Island National Guard, boasts formidable name recognition and a strong following among the elderly, not to mention a strong sense of fundamental decency. Yet while voters’ skepticism about the General Assembly is often justified, state Senator ELIZABETH ROBERTS gives a good name to public service, and she has emerged as a consensus favorite as the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor.

It speaks to her record and credentials that Roberts has received endorsements from organizations as varied as the Providence Journal, the Phoenix, the Providence Business News, and the Rhode Island Manufacturers Association.

But will she cross the finish line? Centracchio seems, smartly, to have made a bigger TV advertising buy, playing on and bolstering his widespread recognition. Roberts, whose early commercials used regular-people surrogates speaking in her voice, would have been better served with spots giving her a more conventional introduction to voters. More recently, her camp has drawn a sharp distinction with Centracchio by emphasizing her support of stem cell research. Still, this race is one of the harder ones to call in the week before the election.

Most tart political analogy
For some, Bill Harsch, the Republican candidate for attorney general, is an appealing alternative to Democratic incumbent Patrick Lynch.

Harsch has insisted, to any who will listen, that Lynch’s conduct in office is so badly predictable as to follow a narrative scripted by the AG’s critics.

Yet even some of those sympathetic to Republican candidates, like WPRO-AM talk-show host Dan Yorke, have faulted Harsch for playing fast-and-loose with details of the Station nightclub disaster case. (Similarly, the ProJo, which leans Republican on its editorial page, endorsed Lynch, citing him as a better candidate.)

Speaking last week on WJAR’s 10 News Conference, Yorke captured the feeling of voters who had the inclination to consider Harsch, but who ultimately found him wanting. THE GOP CANDIDATE WAS LIKE A “HOT GIRL” AT A BAR, Yorke says, who looks a lot less attractive after her suitor’s alcohol-fueled distorted vision has worn off. 

Email the author
Ian Donnis:idonnis@thephoenix.com.