The Rhode Island Democratic Party has hired Jonathan Boucher, a Warwick native who served as deputy field director for Frank Caprio's gubernatorial campaign, as its news field director.

Boucher, who was also a regional field director for the state party's coordinated campaign in 2010, last worked in New York on a campaign to eliminate budget cuts to education.

No great surprises in the Democratic and Republican leadership votes on the House side after this year's elections. GOP State Representative Robert Watson recently won re-election as minority leader. And House Speaker Gordon Fox easily cruised to re-election as the top pol in the chamber.

But here's an interesting little nugget: sources say Watson promised not to throw Republican votes behind any dissident Democrats looking to unseat Fox as speaker.

When former Democratic Party chairman Bill Lynch left his post to run for Congress, it was but one in a series of departures that left the party with little infrastructure heading into one of the hottest political seasons in decades. New chairman Ed Pacheco has now named a new team for the party. Seems to have a progressive tilt.

My look at the wide-ranging fallout from Representative Patrick Kennedy's decision to stand down at the end of this term should be on-line shortly and will hit the newsstands tomorrow. The piece focuses on the likely contours of the race to replace Kennedy in Congress. But it also looks at the burgeoning race for Providence mayor, in the wake of incumbent David Cicilline's decision to run for Kennedy's spot.

Thanks to Chris for passing along this (not particularly surprising) story from the Hill:

It does not pay to be a Democrat in Utah or a Republican in Rhode Island, according to a new series of polls released by the Gallup Organization. That is because those states tilt most heavily to the right and left, respectively.

Good timing is perhaps the most valuable of all political commodities, so with a Democrat coming into the White House, it makes perfect sense that Bill Lynch, chairman of the RI Dems, has made a pitch to be our next US attorney.

Brother Patrick, who is running for governor, has enjoyed relatively good poll ratings in the last year or so -- particularly for someone working in the political minefield-laden office of AG.

Mark Weiner, the prodigious Democratic fundraiser and Clinton confidante, and his wife have combined to donate $100,000, the maximum allowable, for Obama's inauguration. Steven Stycos reports in this week's Phoenix.

Obama set the strictest limits ever for a presidential inauguration, limiting individual donations to $50,000 and declining contributions from corporations, unions, lobbyists, or political action committees.

From the Young Dems:

As the primary season comes to an end and we get closer to the Democratic National Convention in August - the RI Young Democrats are preparing for a busy summer and fall. We hope you'll join us at our next meeting:

TONIGHT, Tuesday, June 10th at 6:00PM at the Wild Colonial, located at 250 South Water Street in Providence.

Via Halperin:

Courtesy CNN

OBAMA PUNCHES BACK– HARD.

In South Dakota, the Senator fires back against Bush and McCain following Bush’s “appeasement” remark.

“That’s exactly the kind of appalling attack that’s divided our country, and that alienates us from the world… So much for civility.

In April 2007, I reported on how Erica Sagrans, a Brown alum and former Phoenix contributor, isn't the only staffer in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office with a Rhode Island connection. The speaker's press secretary is Brendan Daly, the brother of Channel 12 newsman Sean Daly.

Yesterday, Politico reported on how Brendan Daly is among those featured in a new book on some of DC's players:

Kudos + congrats to my friend Matt, an occasional Phoenix contributor, who graduates this week from Roger Williams Law School.

The RI Populist was today among the winners of the Metcalf Diversity in Media Award (named for former ProJo publisher Michael Metcalf), which are presented for public-interest reporting by Rhode Island for Community and Justice:

Hillary's role as the first truly credible female presidential candidate has offered a lot of grist for the gender mill, from her attempts, via macho swagger, to emasculate Obama, to calls that our concepts of power be separated from such reductionist terms as "pussy" and "balls."

Now, Barbara Ehrenreich has a related great read in the Nation:

From today's NYT:

Sizable victories — the Clinton camp believes it could win West Virginia by 25 points or more — might put pressure on Mr. Obama to agree to her demands to seat the disputed delegates from Michigan and Florida, some of her advisers say, which would let her claim a victory on a battle she has fought for months.

Bill Moyers was being interviewed on NPR today as I prowled for lunch in the N4N-mobile. He made the point that the uber-controversial Jeremiah Wright's most controversial statements are a relative blip in the scheme of the pastor's ministerial career.

That won't make a whit's worth of difference this fall, of course, assuming that Obama is the Democratic nominee.