Plot thickens on Gio’s rip of Caprio

State GOP chairman Gio Cicione, as I posted earlier today, used a taping of Newsmakers this morning to rip state Treasurer Frank Caprio and his plan to plug a short-term hole in state finances through the sale of $350 million in bonds.

Yet according to a press release from Caprio’s office:

PROVIDENCE 10/24/2008 - Rhode Island Governor Donald Carcieri has directed the office of General Treasurer Frank Caprio to borrow $350,000,000 to address cash flow needs in the State of Rhode Island.

So is Gio actually criticizing Carcieri, the head of his own party?

If one wanted to get conspiratorial, we might suspect that Carcieri was trying to help Caprio have a pre-2010 moment in the gubernatorial sun -- and that Gio botched it.

After all, as I wrote in 2006:

[I]t did nothing to dim questions on the part of some Democrats about a possible inside deal when Governor Carcieri gushed to Providence Journal political columnist M. Charles Bakst last November about Caprio’s qualifications as a potential state treasurer. “He tried to choose his words carefully because, he noted, Caprio is running as a Democrat,” Bakst wrote. “Nevertheless, Carcieri said, ‘He’s got all the skills . . . He’s very bright, hardworking . . . was Senate Finance chair . . . He’s got all of the requisite background.’ ”  . . .

To critics, Judge Caprio’s decision to move his family from Providence to Narragansett several decades back, as well as the judge’s friendly relations with the governor, raise the specter of a pronounced drift toward Republicanism. In January 2003, the judge and his wife attended a Carcieri fundraiser at the Crowne Plaza in Warwick — Bakst described them at the time as “Caricieri pals” — and Joyce Caprio and Marissa Caprio, Frank and David’s sister, have made campaign contributions to the governor, according to the state Board of Elections. Frank and David Caprio are also both said to be quite friendly with Jeff Britt, the governor’s liaison to House Democrats.

Considering all this, Frank Caprio’s early lock on the treasurer’s job “is a very scary proposition to a lot of progressive Democrats,” says one Democratic observer. Having someone sympathetic to the GOP side would represent a coup for Carcieri, the source says. Citing how David Caprio has been part of efforts to unseat [William] Murphy, this Democrat adds, “They’re not true Democrats. They’re more in touch with the Carcieri clan than the Democratic Party.”

Meanwhile, the governor’s spokeswoman, quoted in today’s ProJo, was rather muted in commenting on the bond plan:

Governor Carcieri issued a letter earlier in the month allowing the sale of the tax anticipation notes. He did not address the issue publicly yesterday, but his spokeswoman Amy Kempe played down the significance of the move.

“It’s one of the tools in the arsenal that the state has,” she said. “It’s something the state has done before to manage its cash flow.”

Hmmmm.