Good Buddy, Bad Buddy

Mike Stanton: “The biggest story in Rhode Island this fall isn’t the potential election on Nov. 4 of the state’s first female governor, Gina M. Raimondo, a Democrat, or its first Asian-American governor, Allan Fung, a Republican. Instead it’s the improbable comeback of Buddy Cianci, the felonious former mayor of Providence, who spent two decades in City Hall and is now running for yet another term.”

“As Buddy’s unauthorized biographer, I have long been fascinated by his enduring appeal, and what it says about American politics. Elected in 1974 as the anti-corruption candidate, Mr. Cianci was forced to resign in 1984 after a felony assault conviction for that incident with the cigarette, came back in 1991 and was forced to resign again in 2002 after another felony conviction, for racketeering conspiracy. He belongs to that great American pantheon of rogues whose corruption was tolerated because of their populist appeal to voters and the perception that they “got things done” — Boss Tweed, Huey Long, James Michael Curley, Edwin Edwards.”