Heard on the hustings: state Representative David Segal could announce a run for Patrick Kennedy's soon-to-be-vacated Congressional seat as soon as next week.

Segal, the conventional wisdom has it, would pose a threat to Mayor David Cicilline's Congressional bid - vying with him for liberal and Providence votes. But if there is a broader anti-Cicilline vote out there - rooted, more, in his mayoralty of a big city and his brother's legal woes than his politics - Segal could conceivably help to divide it, and deliver victory for Cicilline.

Now that Senate Republicans, under intense political pressure, are allowing debate on financial reform to move forward, we may see something rare in our choreographed democracy - a real, unpredictable jousting over a major bill on the floor.

Senator Jack Reed, the third-ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, will be a key figure.

Just a day after the federal government gave approval for the controversial Cape Wind project off the coast of Massachusetts, new hope for a stalled off-shore wind farm in Rhode Island.

Plans for the 100-turbine project hit a major roadbloack when the state's Public Utilities Commission rejected plans for a small, eight-turbine project off the coast of Block Island that was to serve as a dry run for the larger project.

The ProJo, this morning, plays catch up on the latest political nugget - in this case, Speaker of the House Gordon Fox's endorsement of Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline for mayor.

The news, if less than earth-shattering - Fox and Cicilline have been close for years - was a nice little coup for new web site golocalprov.

An interesting gubernatorial debate afoot, that will touch on some important issues that might otherwise get short shrift in the campaign. All the major candidates have committed to attending. From the release:

The Women’s Fund of Rhode Island and The Poverty Institute are co-hosting a gubernatorial candidates forum on Tuesday May 4, 2010 at 6PM at the Lincoln School.

A new Rasmussen poll is getting some attention because it shows Democrat Frank Caprio running nack-and-neck with independent Lincoln Chafee in the gubernatorial race. The poll also shows Caprio faring better than fellow Democrat Patrick Lynch in a match-up with Chafee.

A couple of observations:

• As PoliticsDaily points out, Caprio leads Lynch in part because of his claim on Republican voters: he draws 19 percent to Lynch's 7 percent.

Even as the ProJo shows some signs of financial stability, its circulation takes another big hit. Providence Business News has the numbers:

The Providence Journal’s circulation continued to fall by double digits in the six-month period ended March 31, according to figures released Monday by the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

Advocates of offshore wind in Rhode Island, and up and down the East Coast, will be watching closely for a forthcoming decision from the Obama Administration on a long-discussed wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts.

The decision could have big implications for the entire industry. From the New York Times:

For the last decade, the backers of a huge wind power project off the coast of Cape Cod have navigated through stormy community meetings, hidden regulatory snags and verbal cannon blasts from the Kennedy family and a pair of Indian tribes.

Senator Jack Reed has been at the center of a months-long effort to tighten restrictions on derivatives - financial instruments at the heart of the economic meltdown.

He has been working with Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, on a derivatives bill that was to be near the center of a larger financial reform package now consuming Washington.

Treasurer Frank Caprio's plan for pension reform - moving public employees into hybrid defined benefit-401(k) plans - has met with some healthy skepticism on Smith Hill, given that it is not accompanied by an actuarial study that lays out all the numbers.

But Smith Hill sources say Speaker of the House Gordon Fox and House Finance Committee chairman Steven Costantino, who have met with Caprio, are intrigued by his plan.

Cumberland Mayor Daniel J. McKee tells N4N he will not run for Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy's soon-to-be-vacant seat. McKee, who will run for re-election as mayor, says he decided to stay put and pursue his work on a new kind of charter school and what he believes is a coming transformation of local government that could involve consolidation of services regionally.

Just in time for Earth Day, Providence mayoral candidate Angel Taveras has released a five-point environmental plan that is sure to appeal to the progressive, East Side bloc he is counting on come fall.

Among the proposals: increased composting, green buildings, the hiring of a city energy manager, turning abandoned lots into community gardens, and creating a renewable energy revolving loan fund that would allow residents to purchase wind and solar.

Gordon Fox's ascendancy to the speakership has meant a more prominent role in the Rhode Island House of Representatives for the Progressive Caucus, a loosely organized group of lefty legislators.

But the caucus, for all its gains, is in flux. One of its brightest minds, Representative Raymond J. Sullivan Jr. of Coventry, has taken a job with Congressman James Langevin and is on his way out.

I made reference in this space, yesterday, to a report from Washington publication The Hill that had Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, saying he "basically" had a deal with Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, on derivatives reform - a key part of a larger financial overhaul hanging in the balance in DC.

Carcieri spokeswoman Amy Kempe is calling CREW's ranking a "ridiculous" and "comical" enterprise. "They were so responsible and ethical," she says of the organization, "as to never contact this office."

Noting that nine of the 11 governor's on the group's list are Republicans, she says CREW has "an agenda."

"Governor Carcieri is one of the most accessible, ethical, and transparent elected officials to serve in Rhode Island," she says.