Are we seeing now a quintessential example of political death by mouth? It seems that way. The last time we wrote about Frank Caprio, the Democratic candidate running for Governor in Rhode Island, he was furious over President Barack Obama not endorsing him since Obama has a strong bond with former Republican Sen. Lincoln Chaffee, who endorsed Obama. So Caprio — in words that reverberated around the world (but are not unusual in emails sent to owners of weblogs) publically said Obama could take his endorsement and “shove it.’
It does now seem as if Rhode Island voters are sending the same message to Caprio, if this poll — showing a stark change in Caprio’s political fortunes — is to be believed:
A new Quest Research poll in Rhode Island shows Lincoln Chafee (I) leading John Robitaille (R) in the race for governor by seven points, 35% to 28%, with Frank Caprio (D) falling back in third place at 25%.
Caprio lost 12 points since a mid-October poll after saying earlier this week that President Obama can “shove it” after learning he would not get the president’s endorsement.
Theoretically Caprio could reverse some of the damage — but at this point if he loses his comments will be pointed to by future political scientists and pundits as the kind of language that perhaps is best left out of political campaigns, even though it is not unusual on talk radio or in blog comments sections.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.