TALKING POLITICS Can Laffey position himself as a ‘progressive’? BY IAN DONNIS

Taking an off-air break during a recent Friday morning broadcast on WPRO (630 AM), Cranston Mayor Stephen P. Laffey, noting the $253 million judgment in the case of a man who died from heart arrhythmia after taking the arthritis drug Vioxx, practically sighed, "Those poor people at Merck." Then, perhaps realizing that the case is a loser as a poster child for tort reform — in part since the damages are expected to be significantly cut (and also that I was recording his words in a notepad) — Laffey quickly reframed the matter as one of a "powerful drug company" being against "the people."

This brief exchange took place on August 26, almost two weeks before Laffey’s September 8 announcement that he is running for the US Senate, but the candidate-to-be strived to match his self-description as a Republican progressive. One has to wonder, though, given the second coming of Theodore Roosevelt’s initial inclination to side with a mammoth pharmaceutical manufacturer peddling a product that has proven hazardous for some patients.

Laffey, of course, evinced no doubts during his Senate coming-out appearance at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Cranston. His resolve was as steely as the rigidly choreographed use of familiar campaign tropes, from the way in which an aide induced the "Laffey, Laffey" chant while leading out the candidate, to the use of accessible pop anthems (Springsteen’s "Born In the USA" and U2’s "Beautiful Day") to open and close the heart of the gathering.

Along the way, the candidate paid tribute to family and patriotism (two of his five children led the crowd of a few hundred in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance), hometown, capitalism, the American dream, self-improvement, independence, hard work, and duty, while flinging the first rocks in his anti-Washington, anti-establishment campaign. One of the members of the mayor’s kitchen cabinet, Norman G. Orodenker — who was joined in introducing Laffey by former WHJJ-AM talk-show host John DePetro, a childhood chum — talked up the progressive theme, quoting Democrat Hubert Humphrey, and hailing Laffey as "a brilliant mind, but a mind that has enormous compassion for those who have no voice."

Laffey trumpeted his record in putting Cranston on a sounder fiscal footing, and suggested that this makes him well qualified to tame the "gigantic mess" in the nation’s capital. "When it comes to taxpayer rip-offs and special interest deals, there’s not a bit of difference between the Republicans and Democrats," he said. "The politicians in DC need to pay attention to the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: ‘The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have too much, it’s whether we provide enough for those who have too little.’ "

It’s a noble sentiment, of course, but one that seems a bit odd coming from a man who venerates Ronald Reagan, a leading proponent of trickle-down economics and scapegoating the poor, far more than the father of the New Deal.