TALKING POLITICS A new apex for Carcieri’s excellent adventure BY BRIAN C. JONES

By any measure, Governor Donald L. Carcieri is having an excellent year.

He’s had a spectacular series of wins at the General Assembly, emerging as the key politician in setting the State House agenda. This is not to say that the Republican governor’s policies are the right ones for the state; only to note that the governor, a political novice when he took office in 2003, has become adept at the job.

Here’s a partial win list:

• Tax cuts. With Carcieri insisting taxes are too high, the General Assembly enacted a number of tax breaks when the state found itself with more money than budgeted. •

• Gambling. An opponent of "casino" gambling, Carcieri nonetheless cut a deal with Senate President Joseph A. Montalbano, and later agreed to some House modifications, hiking slot machine gambling at the Lincoln and Newport emporiums. New revenues are earmarked for car tax elimination and other tax relief.

• State worker benefits. The governor championed changing the state pension system; persuaded the largest employee union to accept co-pays on health premiums; and changed health insurance vendors.

• Anti-union moves. So far, he’s thwarted one of organized labor’s major initiatives, the creation of a union representing home child-care providers. Further, he’s blocked other labor measures, vetoing a minimum wage hike, although that may be subject to an override vote.

• Economic development. Although Carcieri’s goal of creating 20,000 new jobs has been criticized as a low target, the administration estimates that he’s more than halfway there. He also kept vestiges of the once-great Brown & Sharpe company in Rhode Island after it had decided to move to Connecticut.

• Separation of powers. Championing an earlier Constitutional amendment to establish clearer division between executive and legislative functions, Carcieri seems to be winning the hand-to-hand combat over the details. One change: elimination of the lottery commission, the poster child for a legislator-influenced agency.

A former banker and corporate CEO, the 62-year-old Carcieri hasn’t held elected office since he was student council president at East Greenwich High. But, says Brown University political science professor Darrell West, "The governor has changed the conversation in Rhode Island. Things previously never even discussed, let alone acted upon, now have been changed."

One reason for Carcieri’s success is that he’s a natural communicator: his folksy manner plays well in talk radio, formal speeches, and "town meetings" organized by his staff. He has also learned how to adapt, first butting heads with General Assembly leaders, and now working with them even while exploiting fissures in the Democrats’ State House juggernaut.

And affably, but consistently, he’s held to clear themes of lower state costs, and lower taxes, while identifying those whom he sees as villains — unions and state workers — in a way that’s resonated with voters.

West’s June public opinion poll shows Carcieri with 57 percent voter-approval — a level, the professor says, "[That] governors around the country would kill for."