Image: Johnston Patch
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Every candidate who runs for office does “oppo,” or opposition research, on the opponent. Sometimes, explosive revelations are found that make huge headlines, and if a campaign times it right, the news could have a major effect on the race.
Other times, candidates reach just a little too far to try and tar the challenger.
Such was the case in the 2012 Johnston mayor’s race, when incumbent Mayor Joseph Polisena tried to sell me on a story about his Republican opponent, Peter Filippi III.
Sitting in the mayor’s office at Johnston Town Hall one day in August, Polisena handed a file of papers across his desk.
A quick glance showed that they were police reports detailing how Filippi had been arrested two times, once in 2009 in Johnston and another time in 2001 in Attleboro, MA.
Polisena told me that “someone” had provided him with this information, and wondered whether I’d be looking further into the incidents.
What Polisena didn’t tell me was that both of the cases had been dismissed, and because of that, as far as the police department, state attorney general’s office, and the courts were concerned, the incidents didn’t happen.
So, after finding that out, I pretty quickly understood that I was dealing with a straight-up smear campaign.
Why else, after all, would a sitting mayor with virtually no chance of losing his seat to an underfunded and, frankly, unpopular opponent be pushing two dismissed cases, one of which was 11 years old?
In Polisena’s opinion, it was proof of Filippi’s “issues” that made him unsuitable for office.
[Filippi had run for office a couple of other times and lost by wide margins.]
A couple of days later, I was in the mayor’s office again. I explained that I would not be pursuing the story. He told me that he knew the Johnston Sun Rise, the local newspaper, was planning to cover it.
Now, in just about any other time and place — and with something approaching a legitimate story — I may have jumped to publish the story.
But since I couldn’t prove the origins of these police reports, and couldn’t duplicate getting them since the data trail of the dismissed cases was erased, I didn’t feel that I should give them the light of day.
As it turned out, Filippi did the job for me by writing a blog post on Johnston Patch about the issue — and when I saw the mayor a couple of days later and told him my decision, I also offered him the chance to reply via the blog platform.
Polisena refused that offer, though in a wide-ranging interview about his re-election campaign, he did give pointed opinions about Filippi.
[It turns out that the Sun Rise report was not all that favorable to Polisena, since it gave Filippi the majority of the article to explain himself and blame the local Democratic Party for spreading around the arrest file.]
I came away from that experience disappointed in Polisena, someone who I still generally admire, since he’d tried to hand an incriminating-looking file on an opponent to me across the mayor’s desk.
It’s one thing for a campaign operative to approach a reporter with juicy-looking information; it’s a completely different matter when the candidate himself — in this case, a three-term mayor — tries to peddle such material.
I also felt let down because, as I told Polisena, I didn’t really see the need for him to stoop to such tactics, since it was clear to anyone with a pulse that he was going to crush Filippi on Election Day.
On that count, I was correct — Polisena defeated Filippi by a nearly 4-to-1 margin.
About a month after the election, I was reassigned to Bristol-Warren Patch, so it’s hard to say whether that decision soured my relationship with Polisena.
And a few months later, when I returned to Johnston for what would be my final stint there, Polisena was still cordial as he welcomed me to the mayor’s office and provided me with early warnings of upcoming issues.
Looking back, I don’t think it really had that much of an impact over the course of those final months, at least, since I continued to interview him and he maintained a professional and courteous relationship with me.
I’m also inclined to think that since the end was nigh for my Patch career when I returned in early 2013, Polisena treated me well out of professional courtesy and personal respect, which I hope grew because of how I handled the Filippi matter.
Most importantly to me was that I’d stood up for sound journalistic principles and refused to let Polisena push me into reporting on something that failed the smell test.
Polisena may not have agreed with me, but I do feel as though he respected my professional judgment.
Thoughts or comments? Email me: joseph.hutnak@gmail.com
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