Projo Politics Blog

The state Republican Party fundraising machine is “firing on all cylinders,” party Chairman Giovanni Cicione tells Political Scene.

“I wasn’t comfortable walking in the door and asking for money right away,” said Cicione, who officially took over for Patricia Morgan about three months ago. “I’m comfortable with that now.”

The state office has hired a full-time fundraising director for the next four months. Aaron McGarry, a Connecticut resident who most recently ran fundraising efforts for failed state senate candidate Lloyd Monroe, will be paid roughly $4,000 a month.

“He’s young. He’s motivated. He’s full time for us,” Cicione said. “Fundraising is firing on all cylinders for us.”

As part of its initial strategy, the party sent out a mass e-mail earlier in the month appealing to potential donors:

“Will you click this link and make your most generous donation to the RI GOP so we can support our Republican candidates and help them get elected?” read the message.

The GOP started the year with around $55,000 in the bank. Cicione said he hopes to double that by the end of the year.

But it’s not just about the money for state Republicans this summer.

Former North Kingstown GOP chairman and Town Councilman Mark Zaccaria has contacted each local party chair in the 2nd Representative District, seeking to build the party at the grass-roots level while looking for a Republican to take on Democratic Congressman James R. Langevin.

Zaccaria has asked each local GOP chair to nominate a member of his or her Republican Town Committee to serve as a liaison on a candidate search committee.

“We’re going to use them as the main source of information for who’s who in their town. We’ll create a short list [of potential candidates], talk to people, and find someone not only with the background and résumé, but also someone interested and plugged into the kind of fundraising,” Zaccaria said.

It is likely to take months to find a suitable candidate, according to Zaccaria and Cicione. But that’s OK with them, despite the fact that Langevin already has $74,565 in his campaign account, according to reports filed with the Federal Elections Commission at the end of March.

“It’s all about creating an infrastructure for the GOP,” Zaccaria said. “I think the GOP has had a great message, but we haven’t had the infrastructure to get it out there.”

Cicione agrees.

“Whoever our candidate is, we need a very strong party structure to help them run the campaign,” he said. “Setting up that structure over the summer is a big part of my job. Just raising money and running a campaign in a vacuum is not the way you win a race.”

--By Steve Peoples, Katherine Gregg, Elizabeth Gudrais and Edward Fitzpatrick
Journal Staff Writers

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