What makes Steve Laffey run? (continued)

AFFEY HAS AN ASTUTE appreciation for symbolism, marketing, and the language of political communication. During his 2002 campaign, he distributed thousands of pieces of "Laffey Taffy." His campaign placards are deliberately eye-catching. His sense of visualization extends to likening an episode during his teenage years – three friends rising to defend him when another youth challenged him to take a drink – to the Mos Eiesly bar scene in Star Wars. Still another cinematic work comes to mind – The Pride of The Yankees, in which Lou Gehrig pronounces himself the luckiest guy on the face of the earth, despite being dealt a fatal illness – when Laffey frequently invokes his good fortune in life.

Prior to a July 12 appearance on Face to Face, a program on the Providence Spanish-language radio station 990 AM, the bubbly hostess, Rosa DeCastillo, a native of the Dominican Republic and a survivor of domestic abuse, tells Laffey off-air, "I’m very excited that you’re here." When the show begins, DeCastillo’s first question – Who is Steve Laffey? – offers an opportunity for her guest to sound some of his favorite themes. Laffey says he’s someone with "a very lucky life who has been able to go off and do the things I wanted to do." His sunny refrain – citing the opportunities he’s enjoyed and how he wants to extend similar chances to others – contrasts with the acrimony he inspires in his foes. DeCastillo and her colleagues, who pose for pictures with Laffey after his radio appearance, embrace the mayor’s message.

For someone relatively new to politics, Laffey has keen political skills. He’s articulate, genial, highly intelligent, good at going on the offensive, relentlessly on-message, and adept in his understanding and use of the media. In some respects, it’s a surprising amalgam for someone who had what could have been a difficult childhood in a blue house on Shaw Avenue in Edgewood, not far from Narragansett Boulevard.

Laffey’s four siblings, one of whom has since died from AIDS, were beset by problems with mental illness or substance use. A February profile in the Providence Journal described how the future mayor secured his bedroom door to prevent his siblings from hurting him as he slept. Despite all this, Laffey cites his as a "wonderful childhood," and says always felt fortunate, because "good things always happened to me." "There was always a place for me to go that was safe," including the nearby residence of Jim Bennett, who would go on to compete as a GOP candidate for governor in 2002. Speaking of his neighborhood, he says, "I was very safe here."

The turbulence of his siblings helped to steel Laffey’s resolve against drinking alcohol. The serendipity extends, Laffey says, to how he received a scholarship based on need to attend Bowdoin College, and then, thanks to a particular scholarship for Bowdoin alumni, progressed immediately afterward to Harvard Business School. To hear a close friend tell it, Laffey has always been something of a force. Bowdoin roommate Tom Marcelle, now a lawyer and town councilman in Bethlehem, New York, recalls how Laffey turned up on campus after some early arriving athletes, "Like a hurricane that whirls in. He was talking a mile a minute, doing 10 different things, and he already knows everyone in the dorm. We [his roommates] were both dumbfounded. The guy had so much energy, so much personality. When he walked in the room, you could tell he was a very charismatic, outgoing guy."

After several different jobs, Laffey seemed to find his niche in 1992 when he began working in Memphis, Tennessee for Morgan Keegan & Company, a financial services firm. Rising to become president and chief operating office of the company, he left after about 10 years when it was sold to a regional bank. Twice married, Laffey has four children.

Although the mayor volunteered no religious references during the time that I recently spent with him, religion clearly plays an important role in his life. Asked about whether divine inspiration played a role in his return to Rhode Island, he says that after spending three months with his family in Vermont during the summer of 2001, "I really felt strongly that I should come back to Cranston. I did think that the man upstairs really steered me back to Cranston for a reason, which was to save the city." Asked about the role that religion plays in his life, Laffey says, "I think that faith plays a role in everything that you do, whether it be politics or raising your children. For me, it’s important that you have my faith and it definitely helps me on a day to day basis."

In a similar way, although Laffey reveres Ronald Reagan and seems a staunch supporter of George W. Bush, he take pains to avoid partisan positions, preferring a broader, and certainly more palatable, message of opportunity and vigilance for taxpayers. To his credit, the mayor – the only Republican to win the endorsement in 2002 of the Rhode Island Latino Political Action Committee -- has also been an ardent advocate for diversity in Cranston. After the crossing guards, his second favorite target could be the Cranston Fire Department, which doesn’t employ a single minority firefighter. The mayor talks with pride of how some 130 of the 400 people at his reelection announcement represented minority groups. Nor does it hurt that such stances, like his appearance on Spanish-language 990 AM, broaden Laffey’s recognition, potentially winning him more converts away from Cranston’s internecine feuds.

When we stop back in Cranston at J.P. Spoonem’s, one of the mayor’s favorite lunch haunts, a middle-aged man, a resident of Rhode Island’s capital city, approaches Laffey to express his appreciation for his work in office. "We might annex Providence soon," the mayor rejoins, adding after a second, "Don’t worry, I’m only joking."

OW FAR can Steve Laffey go, and what can he accomplish?

When he talks about the crossing guards as a symbol of everything wrong with Rhode Island over the last 30 years, it hardly seems as if his goals are modest. Opponents note that the crossing guards are an easy target, the city’s smallest bargaining unit. Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian, a Republican, however, says Laffey’s impact has spread beyond Cranston, helping to ease union negotiations in the state’s second-largest city.

Laffey has something of a political brother in Governor Donald L. Carcieri, who, despite a less bombastic nature, seems to share a similarly conservative ideology and the goal of scaling back benefits for public employees. Short of GOP gains in legislative races this fall, however, the Democratic-controlled will remain capable of acting with impunity and short-circuiting the governor’s agenda.

This could help to explain why Laffey has brought his sharp tactics to the state GOP, dividing the party by ousting former Cranston mayor Traficante from his role as national committeeman. In his view view, Rhode Island Republicans have suffered from "country club mentality. They were kind of happy to be the smaller party. My version is the party of Lincoln, inclusive to all people."

When it comes to his political future, Laffey is noncommittal, saying, "I don’t know. I never really think about it. I’ll probably try to help the most people I can, whether it’s in private industry or public service." Although conservative support might enable him to beat Lincoln Chafee in a Republican primary in 2006, a Democrat would seem to enjoy the advantage in a general election contest. Laffey appears unlikely to challenge Carcieri for the governor’s office, although DePetro has been pushing him on the idea of running for lieutenant governor (Democrat Charles Fogarty will be incapable of seeking the seat because of term limits).

If he’s able to move up, Laffey’s conservatism would become more evident on the wider stage of a more prominent office. Although there’s arguably a way to go in reeling in archetypal Rhode Island boondoggles, there could also be a point where GOP ideology tilts policies to a different extreme. Laffey’s hero Reagan, of course, was hardly a true friend of working Americans.

In a few ways, Laffey is reminiscent of former Providence mayor Vincent A. "Buddy" Cianci Jr., who began his career as a Republican reformer while wielding wit, dash, brash tactics, abundant energy, and a formidable intellect. There are many differences, of course, between the two men, the not least being Cianci’s skill at self-destruction. When it comes to Steve Laffey, the question of how just how far he can go – and to what effect -- remains an open book.

Ian Donnis can be reached at idonnis[a]phx.com.