Knock It Off!

By Susan Bergeron

December 5: Governor Gina Raimondo of none other than our nation's Biggest Little has emerged as the frontrunner for Joe Biden's Health and Human Services Secretary. But now the front page of the Providence Journal reports that Raimondo has stated she will not take the HHS job. I was disappointed to hear of this. I hope someone can persuade her to change her mind. Although progressives and the Congressional Black Caucus will surely be relieved that the new administration is not going to fill yet another top seat with someone less diverse and less left-leaning, in this case they should first take a look at Raimondo's resume. Patience, everyone! I feel sure the Biden administration is off to a decent start with nominees, so far, and there will be more diversity coming. This will be a cabinet that's going to be a seismic shift from Trump's almost all white cabinet that was formed from his game of adult musical chairs that left our heads spinning. The chaos resulting from all the firings and resignations of his corporate greed pool (of only the best people, whom he promised us during his first campaign) will leave a stain on his presidential legacy, the likes of which we've never seen before in the history of any presidential administration, with its avalanche of nepotism, cronyism, and incompetence.

I volunteered for Governor Raimondo's second campaign during the 2018 mid-terms. I remember doing the research on her platform and political track record. On the negative side, our governor had a history of cozying up to Wall Street and that wasn't sitting too well with our mostly blue color voters. When she took office, she had invested a large chunk of the state's pension funds, which were in dire straits, into the stock market. It didn't work out so well and needless to say, the citizenry were unhappy.  But one of the most controversial actions has been her instituting truck tolls on our state highways. Truckers sued the state to remove the tolls but as of this writing the gantries are still in position and the tolls are still being assessed. Her biggest failure was an overhaul of the Health Department's computer system that caused a devastating breakdown in an otherwise almost peerless system. Some say it's the reason she's backing out of the HHS position. For these and many other reasons Gina Raimondo has lost quite a bit of popularity among the citizens of RI. 

The plus side of Raimondo's record included her superior work in health care. It was so good that the state of Rhode Island was often held up as a model for how to run an effective and well managed state health care system. One thing most will agree on is that they are very satisfied with how she has handled the pandemic. I'm not sure if she could win a third term if it were legal here, but most people I talk to admit that under her watch they've enjoyed better administration of Medicaid, food stamps, nursing homes, state sponsored health insurance (Blue Cross/ Blue Shield of RI) and hospitals, as well as having benefited from better pandemic mitigation than many other states. Mitch McConnell could take a few pages out of her book, seeing how Kentucky ranks #44 nationwide in healthcare. 

Readers may recall that the Democrats' major platform issue during 2018 was healthcare and preserving the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans have attempted to repeal 70 times. Dems were trying to drown out the noise from the opposition over impeachment and the disastrous Kavanaugh hearings. It worked. Americans finally had come around to supporting Obamacare. Gina Raimondo was one of the few governors who have codified the act into state healthcare law, protecting it from the relentless attempts at eradication by the heartless GOP, who are now trying to extinguish it using the courts, having become exhausted with trying to legislate it out of existence.

One more reason to regard Raimondo as a superior candidate who should be considered for the post of HHS, vital during this raging pandemic, is her response to the plague in her own state. Although RI is the smallest state in the union, it should not be overlooked that our state government was among the first of the states to take robust measures to mitigate the virus. Raimondo was not shy about instituting mask mandates and stay at home orders. She quickly formed a state task force and held weekly televised news conferences. She also joined the six-member state Coronavirus Working Group headed up by New York's Governor Cuomo in April 2020, when Trump refused to take Federal control of the emergency. Sickness and death rates in RI stayed relatively low, per capita, during the first and second surges of the pandemic. 

During the summer of 2020, when citizens of the state began to exhibit signs of Covid fatigue---crowding the beaches, gathering in large groups, and eschewing the mask mandate---Governor Raimondo held an emergency press conference. It has come to be known as the "Knock it off!" presser. She warned residents of the state that if they didn't buckle down and go back to proper mitigation protocols, she would have no choice but to roll the state back to Phase II, which entails much more restrictive Covid-19 protocols. She looked straight into the camera, and with that look only a mother can give, she uttered those famous words, "Knock it off, people. Just knock it off." Within days the tee shirts were selling on-line.

Joe Biden visited RI in August of 2018 when he was on his exploratory tour, considering the 2020 run for president. He held a rally in Providence for the Democratic caucus, and I was invited. I showed up so early I ended up near the front row. I remember the warm interaction between Biden and Raimondo at that rally. In his speech Biden mentioned a lot of work they'd partnered on in the past involving infrastructure projects, while he'd been Obama's Veep. After the rally he stepped down from the stage and did selfies and autographs with his admirers. I was too tired to wait around for that, but I waved to him before I turned to go and called out, "Good-bye, Amtrak Joe!" He caught my eye, reached over the heads of a few people and squeezed my hand tight, a big smile spreading wide on his handsome face. I remember thinking how strong he looked that day, how powerfully he spoke. Whenever people made disparaging comments about Biden's health or mental capacity during the 2020 campaign it always angered me all the more because I had personally witnessed what a lie that was.

Rhode Island has now joined the other 16 states which have officially certified the results of their Presidential Elections, and the Ocean State found that its citizens chose Joseph Biden in the election almost two to one over Trump. One by one, the Trump signs and flags have disappeared from lawns, replaced by inflatable Santa’s and cheery Christmas wreaths and twinkling lights. It seems like a lot of people are ready to move on, but who knows? Maybe after the new year the Trump flags will reappear, and the vitriol will return. Only time will tell. But for the other two-thirds of us voters, we're moving on and away from four years of hellish chaos. We're offering a hand up to anybody who wants to come along and try to Build Back Better. Here, in the nation's Biggest Little, we may have to start by sacrificing our governor. For many Rhode Islanders, they wouldn't necessarily view that as a bad thing. And by the way, if you've been partying during the holidays in the middle of this deadly pandemic---Knock it off!