STORY OF THE WEEK: Running for office is a lot different for Seth Magaziner this time around than in the 2022 election, when visions of a GOP victory danced in the minds of Republican activists. Magaziner wound up beating Allan Fung by a bit more than three percentage points, taking over the Second Congressional District seat vacated by Jim Langevin. This time around, although Magaziner’s campaign is sending some overheated fundraising emails, he faces only token opposition from low-visibility GOP rival Steven Corvi.

Magaziner is nonetheless anxious about November, because he feels Democrats are not mustering enough urgency in the battle against Donald Trump. “I am concerned that we are not yet seeing the level of engagement from Harris supporters that we saw for President Biden’s campaign four years ago,” Magaziner said during an interview on Political Roundtable. “Yes, there is a surge of enthusiasm over the last month since President Biden stepped aside, but it’s still not where it needs to be.”

Three new polls show a narrow lead for Harris as the calendar heads into September. Magaziner said nothing should be taken for granted: “My message to everyone is, now’s the time to get up off the couch and get involved. Volunteer, knock [on] doors. I’m going to be organizing phone banks to get Rhode Islanders engaged in the Harris campaign. We cannot be complacent.”

BIDEN’S DECISION: U.S. Sen. Jack Reed was once dubbed the E.F. Hutton senator — “When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen” — because of his quiet ability to exercise influence. The longtime senator and Senate Armed Services chairman “is hardly known as a troublemaker prone to rash statements,” as Carl Hulse reports in the NYT. Nonetheless, Hulse’s story recounts, Reed was among the first when Senate Democrats gathered privately to assess Biden’s fitness to pursue a re-election campaign: “What was even more remarkable was what he said, according to two attendees: If Mr. Biden wanted to stay in the race after a disastrous debate performance that underscored concerns about his condition and mental acuity, he should submit to examination by two independent neurologists who were willing to report their findings at a news conference. It was a striking position for a Democratic loyalist to take, and one that underscored the near unanimity among Senate Democrats in the room that day that Mr. Biden should not continue as the party’s nominee.”

PENSION POLITICS: What do the late Buddy Cianci and Kamala Harris have in common? In razor-thin political fights, each benefited from rivals who faced a negative public perception for pension benefits. During his remarkable comeback in 1990, Cianci groused during a TV debate about “getting in the crossfire here from the big dipper and the little dipper,” referring to rivals Fred Lippitt and Andrew Annaldo and their lucrative pension benefits. Cianci wound up winning back the Providence mayor’s office by 317 votes.

Twenty years later, in 2010, Harris was making her first run for statewide office in California and she was already considered a rising Democratic star. “Ms. Harris would escape a month later with one of the narrowest statewide victories in modern California history — by less than 0.85 percent of the vote,” Shane Goldmacher reported in recently telling the story for The New York Times. A key factor in the outcome came when GOP AG candidate Steve Cooley answered frankly during a little-watched TV debate when asked if he would double-dip in taking his pension as a former county DA and as a state official. “I definitely earned whatever pension rights I have, and I will certainly rely upon that to supplement the very low, incredibly low [$150,000] salary that’s paid to the attorney general,” Cooley said in part.

The tone deaf response went into an ad made by Mark Putnam (who later worked for Gina Raimondo and Helena Foulkes) and Harris won the AG race by the skin of her teeth, putting her on track to eventually compete for the presidency as a barrier-breaking candidate.

CRANSTON MAYORAL: GOP combatants Ken Hopkins and Barbara Ann Fenton-Fung took part in a series of jousts this week, including a debate organized by the Cranston Herald. The overarching question is whether Cranston voters feel sufficiently moved to oust the incumbent and go in a different direction. The GOP primary is a particularly high-stakes matter for Fenton-Fung: if she wins, she’ll face Democrat Robert Ferri in November and potentially have a platform from which to eventually seek higher office. But if she loses, she’ll be on the outside, looking in. 

HOUSING I: As my colleague Nina Sparling reports, buried deep in residential property records across Rhode Island lies an ugly truth: old restrictions in deeds that prohibited people of color from buying a given home. Among those surprised to learn about this was George Caruolo, once a majority leader in the Rhode Island House of Representatives. He had bought a home in Riverside, part of a subdivision in 1939, in the early 1980s. “I grew up here and it never struck me as the type of place that would be worried about that kind of thing,” Caruolo said. “But lo and behold, just by chance, just to make sure, I checked my deed and there it was.” Caruolo added language to his deed to disavow the precious racial restriction.

HOUSING II: Listen to The Public’s Radio or check our website Tuesday morning for another installment in Zoned Out, our series about the impact of local zoning on efforts to solve Rhode Island’s decades-long housing shortage. Tuesday, you’ll hear about how the clash between some municipalities and the housing priorities backed by House Speaker Joe Shekarchi is playing out.

NEW BEDFORD: My colleague Ben Berke spins a great yarn about the wreck of New Bedford’s last great whale ship. Do yourself a favor and listen to the embedded audio.

MORE MAGAZINER: Some other highlights from my Political Roundtable interview with the representative in CD2:

-- Magaziner and his wife Julia welcomed their second child, Lucy, earlier this year, so I asked how he feels about the world his kids will inherit, considering the current amount of conflict and challenge. Here’s part of the answer: “[W]e have faced difficult challenges in the past, and we’ve overcome them because we’ve rolled up our sleeves as people who believe in freedom and democracy and usually – but not always – found a way to do the right thing. And so this is our generation’s test to build a better world for our children than the one that we inherited, and I’m determined to do my part.”

-- Running for governor one day is “certainly not something I’m thinking about right now,” although he didn’t rule it out.

-- Asked if Democrats have done enough to restrain Israel in an attempt to reduce civilian casualties in Gaza, Magaziner said in part: “Here’s the crux of the issue. The leaders on both sides don’t want to stop fighting. You know, [Yahya] Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, wants to keep fighting, and he is prepared to go down in a blaze of glory in the way he sees it, killing as many Israelis and Jews as possible along the way. Netanyahu, for his own selfish political and personal reasons, does not want to stop fighting, and that creates a very difficult dynamic. What I heard from Vice President Harris at the convention when she spoke was a real, genuine outrage at what is going on, a real, genuine desire to push a cease-fire through any means possible. I have not heard that kind of language from Donald Trump, so I trust Kamala Harris to deliver on a lasting cease-fire more than I trust Donald Trump.”

SECOND ACT: The Providence Police Department became a dysfunctional place during late-stage Buddy II. The problems included an exam-testing scandal, low morale and a lack of commitment to community policing. I have a vivid memory of how Urbano “Barney” Prignano demonstrated his volatile temperament during an interview at the old police station in 1999. Prignano was joined for the interview by Capt. Jack Ryan, the public face of the department at the time. As Jon Rockoff reported in the ProJo a year later, the two men grew distanced after Ryan signed a proffer and began cooperating with federal investigators. To bring things into the present, Ryan is now a lawyer and consultant, and he turned up as an expert in a recent PBS Frontline documentary on use of force by police.

PROVIDENCE SCHOOLS: More than a quarter-century ago, Buddy Cianci was still riding high as the maximum leader of Providence, but reporting by C.J. Chivers in the ProJo pointed to under-performing public schools (and a severely underfunded pension plan) as part of the underside of the ballyhooed Providence Renaissance. It was around that time that a new consensus formed that improving the Providence schools was vital for the state’s future. The pandemic was disruptive, sure, and Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green this week said that schools should be proud of the progress they’ve made since then. But test scores for basic skills like reading and math remain abysmal, so it’s hard to make the case that much has changed. Now, the state will retain control of the Providence schools for three more years, creating a new timetable for measuring progress and perhaps a potential boost for enhanced urgency. 

THE OPIOID EPIDEMIC: Providence journalist Phil Eil spent years unraveling the story of how a once-promising college and med school classmate of his father later became known as “the pill mill killer.” The ensuing book, Prescription for Pain, is a testament to Phil’s determination to tell that story. It’s a compelling read and an important chronicle of the opioid epidemic in America. Phil’s writerly voice was evident when he first pitched me as a freelancer more than 15 years ago at the now-defunct Providence Phoenix (he later succeeded as the paper’s news editor, the final one before it went kaput), and we recently talked about his book.

HOSPITALS: Lifespan has finalized the deal to buy two Massachusetts hospitals from the distressed Steward Health Care for $175 million. In a statement provided to my colleague Lynn Arditi, Lifespan President/CEO John Fernandez predicted better things for St. Anne’s Hospital in Fall River and Morton Hospital in Taunton: “I am confident our team has the experience and know-how to rebuild the infrastructure of these two hospitals and operate them as successful and thriving not-for-profit organizations.”

KICKER: Ease into your weekend with this audio profile of one of Rhode Island’s fine musical groups, The Whelks. As Mareva Lindo reports, the group based in Warren and Tiverton highlights their love of early county, swing and Rhode Island on their debut disc.