Robitaille enters RI governor's race

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP/WPRI) - Republican John Robitaille, a senior aide to Gov. Don Carcieri, said Monday he will run for Rhode Island governor and promised to help the state's small businesses after the GOP's best-known candidate refused to join the race.

Robitaille, 61, filed paperwork Monday to create a campaign committee so he can start raising money and said he will publicly announce his candidacy and platform Tuesday afternoon.

“It has been an extreme honor to have served Governor Carcieri over the past two years. The experience I have gained in the Executive Branch of state government will be invaluable to me as I move forward with the campaign” said Robitaille. “I will be submitting my resignation to the Governor and will be working through a transition plan over the next several weeks.”

He is the only Republican candidate in the race to succeed Carcieri, who must leave office after finishing his second term early next year.

"I represent the guy on Main Street, not Wall Street," said Robitaille, who serves as Carcieri's director of communications. "I was a small-business owner for 22 years."

The Portsmouth resident has never held major political office before, and his political views remain a mystery, even to some in his own party. In 2006, he lost a race by nine votes to unseat Democratic state Rep. Amy Rice.

Republicans have struggled to recruit a candidate to keep a governor's seat they have held for 21 of the past 25 years in one of the most heavily Democratic states in the country. Businessman Rory Smith, a Republican, dropped out of the race last month after concluding he could not win.

Robitaille's filing Monday came shortly after former Cranston Mayor Stephen Laffey, who unsuccessfully challenged then-Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee in a 2006 primary, reiterated that he would not run, despite recent urgings from supporters who hoped to draft him.

GOP state chairman Giovanni Cicione said one of Robitaille's strengths is his experience in government.

"He has spent two years working with the current governor learning how the process works," Cicione said. "He knows the budget, he knows the General Assembly, he knows the Cabinet structure and the departments. I don't think there's anyone running who knows more about the job than John Robitaille."

Robitaille was the founder and president of Perspective Communications Group in Middletown.

Prior to entering politics, Robitaille stepped into the public spotlight in the early 1990s when he and several others accused the Rev. James Porter, a Roman Catholic priest, of sexually assaulting them as children. The publicity help prompt a prosecutor in Massachusetts to bring criminal charges against Porter, who was convicted in 1993 of molesting 28 children. Porter died in 2005.

Carcieri appointed Robitaille communications director during a 2008 staff shake-up that occurred while the economy was tanking and Carcieri's approval numbers were slipping.

Just 36 percent of people questioned during a May poll conducted by Brown University approved of the governor's job performance.  It's unclear whether voters will project their feelings for Carcieri onto one of his aides.

"He'll certainly have to be his own man; that will be a task for him," Cicione said.

The other candidates in the race include two Democrats, Attorney General Patrick Lynch and state Treasurer Frank Caprio, and Chafee, who lost his Senate seat to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse in 2006 and is running as an independent candidate.

Democrats quickly seized on Robitaille's links to the unpopular governor.

"It's going to be very difficult for Mr. Robitaille to carry the mantle of change," said Mike Mikus, Lynch's campaign manager. "He says he wants to look out for Main Street, but Main Street has not done well under the Carcieri administration."