Democrats denounce socialism on House floor, nominate a socialist for Providence mayor days later

…(cont) I asked the man next to me what the DSA was. He said ask downstairs. So I went downstairs.

Downstairs was Elections. Not what I'd come for either, but I was already off my errand, so I stood in a line like the one at the RMV for plates, the kind where you take a number and read the walls. On the wall was a notice, Tuesday too, but the next one, September 8th. Providence primary. A state lawmaker named David Morales beat the sitting mayor by fourteen points — that's the number DDHQ gave, and I copied it same as the other, ticket, sheet, wall notice, three scraps in one coat pocket now, and my raincoat only has the one pocket that zips. Democratic socialist, the paper called him, same three letters as the ones from upstairs.

Same wall, same day, same primary — the governor lost too. Dan McKee, sitting governor, beat by a woman who used to run CVS, sixty-two and a half to thirty-seven and a half, four fifths of the votes counted when they called it. The clerk at that window said McKee hadn't lost a primary like that since — she looked it up — 2014, and that's for any elected governor anywhere, not just Rhode Island. I asked what that meant. She said she couldn't say, only 2014.

I have a car that starts on the third try most mornings and not at all on the fourth. I mention it because on the way to that parking ticket — never did settle it — I sat at the toll plaza a good while, thinking about the two scraps of paper now riding in the raincoat pocket next to the summons. Eight members upstairs vote to read socialism out of the party on a Tuesday. Seven days later, on the next Tuesday, the party's own voters in one state hand the socialist line a fourteen-point win in the capital and the sitting governor a walking paper of his own. Both things happened. Both are on paper I'm holding.

I don't know what the eight were counting on. I don't know what the fourteen points were answering. I only know the dates are seven days apart, one week, the kind of arithmetic even I can do at a toll booth.

The governor's name turned up on a different scrap too — something about a bridge crisis he hadn't sorted out — but that one didn't come from the toll plaza.

I was almost back at my car when the Records man came out of the annex behind me and said, hold on, you left this. It was the printed sheet, two hundred twenty to one hundred ninety-two. He asked if I wanted the primary count too. I said I already had it. He said, well, they're both from a Tuesday. I said which Tuesday. He didn't answer that. Neither will I.