- You haven't held elective office.

What would you say to people if they ask why you think governor is an entry-level political job if you haven't held elective office?

- Well, first I worked for the governor for two terms.

- As a driver and special assistant.

- Well, yes, but you know the office.

I don't believe that you have to be a career politician to work best for the state.

- Welcome to "One on One," I'm Ian Donnis.

Republicans held control of the Rhode Island Governor's office from 1995 through 2011, but the GOP has been locked out ever since.

Now, two Republican primary opponents, Aaron Guckian and Elaine Pelino, are vying for a chance to change that.

We invited each to join us.

Pelino canceled shortly before our taping.

That leaves Guckian to make his case.

Can he win the nomination and mount a serious challenge in November?

(soft music) Aaron Guckian, welcome to "One on One."

- Good morning, Ian.

- As you know, Rhode Island Republicans have not won a statewide election in 20 years.

Why is the GOP failing to win the support of Rhode Island voters?

- Well, as you know, I worked for Governor and Mrs.

Carcieri the last Republican in office and I was really proud of it.

I drove him during the first campaign.

We got a lot of momentum and we won.

And I think it's just been, it's just been close misses.

Like we had John Robitaille and Mayor Fung and the last one didn't go so well, but I do believe that people are paying attention now and I think they want that moderate voice, specifically with the budget and the taxes and fees that I'm sure we'll get to later in this interview.

- Speaking of the budget, it hasn't escaped notice that state spending has grown a lot in Rhode Island.

The current budget is $15.2 billion, that's up 70% from 10 years ago.

If you were elected governor, what would you do to restrain state spending?

- Well, I have my platform, it's called Rhode Island Works Smarter, where you work directly with the frontline and union workers.

When they find savings or fixed systems, they get incentivized and the rest would lower taxes and fees, grounded or powered by modern technology.

And the most key important part, or the most important part of this whole process is a 24-7-365 anonymous idea portal, where those workers could give their ideas and suggestions into it, and this has nothing to do with being a whistleblower.

So with that, I think it's process improvement.

You can start to save money, because we can't keep doing this.

People are taxed out.

I was at Ed's Roost, a local restaurant in my town, and people are just like, you know, we're not bad people, we just can't take it anymore.

And you know, our property taxes in East Greenwich are going up almost 7%.

There's reasons for that with the schools.

However, it's just unsustainable.

I just got my electricity and heat bill.

I don't know how people are doing it.

It's really, really crushing people.

- Speaking of costs for people, most Republicans like yourself and members of the business community were opposed to increasing a surtax on income over a million dollars.

The top two Democratic candidates supported that, and the legislature supported that, starting with a one percentage point increase in the fiscal year starting July 1st, going up to three percentage points in the future.

If you oppose that kind of thing, we still have a serious problem in America and Rhode Island with income inequality, the widening gap between rich and poor.

If you were elected governor, what would you do to address that?

- Well again, leaning into that Rhode Island Works Smarter platform, I believe, I mean there's almost $600 million worth of consultants baked into this $15.2 billion budget.

And a lot of those consultants are outside the state.

So if we could work directly with the Rhode Island talent and start to get leaner, I think we could use those monies and we could use 'em appropriately.

I mean, housing is crushing people, and I think it's just the way you get there.

I think the biggest thing that people don't understand is it's not only about net migration.

I make the joke about six months in a day with the cocktail, but that's where people look and people that have money, they talk to their professional advisors, accountants, and they start to structure things.

But most importantly, how are we going to attract business here?

I mean, I think we have 59 taxes.

I think that's the 60th.

We have this patchwork.

It's all different types of taxes and when you're in it, you can't see it.

And so many people that are working class, my father's a retired union plumber, mom, retired respiratory therapist, they'll work and like they used to work.

And these types of people, like all of us work constantly.

And if you can't get there, you're gonna get into your credit card debt, which doesn't work.

And finally what I would say is, paying more and getting less.

So, kind of going with what you might say.

If I wanted you to tax me more, I would like to see it in our roads and our bridges and our infrastructure and our education results, and all the money that we're spending.

And all I see is unfortunately, and I'm a positive person, it's horrible.

I don't even recognize Rhode Island, especially our roads.

- You're saying we're not getting the return on investment?

- [Aaron] Yes.

- A related question.

We've heard rhetoric for a long time as you know about the need to improve public schools.

One of the appeals of your town, East Greenwich, is that the public schools are considered very good, but some communities are worse off economically and their public schools tend to underperform.

The needle has barely budged on improving public education over time.

If you were governor, how would you address that?

- Well, as you know, I'm a public music teacher and I taught in the classroom in North Kingstown.

It was a long time ago, but I have an education background.

It's something called the Mississippi Miracle.

And it's pretty basic.

It's just about reading and writing and math.

And I think also, the teachers out there that I've talked to and I've talked to many, is that they are, they have these handcuffs.

There's so much administrative burden on them.

They have to teach to this test.

And especially in certain urban areas, why are we doing a 10 day test or two weeks or whatever, when it could be a 20 minute screen.

And it's hard for these teachers if you have half that can speak the language and half that can't.

I know that they're addressing it.

However, if we could get this administrative burden away and if the teachers went along with this Rhode Island Works Smarter, and obviously they're all unions, it would be negotiated upfront.

There's expectations and agreements.

I think you could really get them back in the classroom.

And just reading out loud, going back to the basics, they are just, whether they're public school teachers or even charter school, it's just a lot of laborious administration.

With modern technology, a lot of that can be eliminated.

- I think the school issue kind of underscores something that frustrates longtime Rhode Islanders, how the state has many attributes, but there seem like there are some issues like the schools, the search for new engines of job growth, et cetera, that are just perpetual struggles.

What do you believe is holding, and we've seen, although Democrats generally have controlled state government for many years, there were 16 years of uninterrupted control by GOP governors.

Of course they had to deal with the democratic legislature.

But the question is, what is holding the state back in your view?

- I think so many times we're in different corners and I always say it's what we can do, not what we can't do.

Let's just say we disagree on 80%, why don't we work on the 20%?

And a lot of times getting people in a room, having a sandwich, leave your stripes at the door, and then you have to really accelerate things.

I think everything's slow right now.

Everything just doesn't move the way the world is moving, and we really have to accelerate everything, but we also have to go ground up.

People don't want to be told from the top down on what to do.

And we also don't need to bring a circus.

And it doesn't have to be, it's gotta be a crawl, walk, run process.

But, I did it with the dentists.

I can do this.

I've done it in many parts of my life here in Rhode Island, and I think I can do it with the state of Rhode Island.

- To come back to the schools.

I had the top two Democrats for Governor, Dan McKee and Helena Foulkes in for an interview recently.

Foulkes said she would veto the moratorium on charter schools approved by the legislature.

Governor McKee subsequently signed that bill.

Did the governor get that wrong?

- Well, I mean I think if you don't know, he basically has come through government through two things.

He was for small businesses, and he really did a lot with the mayoral academies.

It seems like he's changed, and sometimes that's politically expedient.

I won't do that.

I know what I believe.

I always have been fairly consistent.

I would say almost always consistent on my messaging, but you can vary.

The bottom line is charter schools are good.

I was on the Blackstone Academy Charter School Board in Pawtucket, not to be confused with Blackstone Valley Prep, but it also doesn't mean that you can't work with the teachers in the unions and all the good work they do.

And I think also the safety in the schools has to improve as well.

But we just need to get people together and like I said, remove a lot of that administrative burden so they can get to work.

- Aaron Guckian, you've got to win a Republican primary against Elaine Pelino.

She was invited to appear on this show and she canceled at the last minute, but you would seem to be better known than her, and you seem like probably the favorite in the Republican primary, but Democrats have a lot of support in this state.

We, as we said earlier, we haven't seen a Republican governor win here since 2006, so if you win the primary, what will you do to raise your appeal in the march to the November election?

- Well, you gotta start with your infrastructure, your door knockers, your phone calls, you gotta raise the money.

I've proven that I can raise the money and I was the only Republican, I think I was one of three statewide that hit the matching funds last time.

I won day of and I got 43.1% of the vote, so I had a great run for lieutenant governor last time I was very proud of, and I think it's very simple.

People are really frustrated and it's costing too much, and I'm saying paying more and getting less.

So people usually will vote with their wallets, and it's kind of like tax issues.

It's almost kind of the same thing, when Governor Carcieri ran with his big audit.

I would say my thing is like a modern day big audit, because everyone else is trying to save and yet they keep spending, and at some point people are gonna say, enough's enough.

- You're the former head of the Dental Association of Rhode Island, which was a conduit for money from an environmental settlement reached by Attorney General Peter Neronha to help promote dental care for poor children in Providence.

There were some Republican lawmakers who cried foul about that.

They insisted it was illegal, but they didn't ultimately make a legal challenge.

Was that a legal use of the money in your view?

- I'm not a lawyer so I always stay in my lane.

My job was to advocate.

I worked with the Attorney General.

I identified the need for over 500 kids alone, Ian, in Providence need emergency dental care that require anesthesia.

That also includes our special needs community and if you can't chew, you can't eat.

When you talk about basic human needs, I think a lot of people don't think about oral health.

So, I was really happy that those monies were distributed.

I'll leave it up to the legislature and the lawyers to figure that out, but my job as the Executive Director of Rhode Island Dental Association, I'm supposed to be, or I was the leading advocate for oral health.

That was a huge win.

And those monies are being used.

Also expanded the certificate of need of the Surgery Center of Rhode Island in Warwick.

So now our pediatric dentists are doing the work, also with a facility fee of a thousand dollars, which helped get that open, because you can die from a tooth infection.

Finally, right now, as you know, we're in this healthcare hurricane.

We passed, and I'm waiting on the health insurance commissioner to come up with his recommendation.

They're going to analyze '23, '24 and '25 the years of, and they're supposed to get to a number on what that reimbursement rate should be.

And I don't know why it's taken this long.

They have till October, but I'm gonna call it out, and that will be a perfect formula for the state to use moving forward in regards to reimbursement rates.

So the next question, as I say.

(both laughing) - Certainly.

Aaron, you have a pretty eclectic resume.

As you say, you've been a teacher, you've been a Chairman of the Warwick Sewer Authority, you've worked for the Rhode Island Foundation, you had a very respectable showing four years ago in running for Lieutenant Governor, but you haven't held elective office.

What would you say to people if they ask why you think governor is an entry level political job if you haven't held elective office?

- Well, first I worked for the governor for two terms, and I understand that wasn't elected.

- As a driver and special assistant.

- Well yes, but you know the office, and you also know how the office works very important.

Second, I don't believe that you have to be a career politician to work best for the state.

You know, it's a valid point.

However, I'm 50 years old.

I've done a lot of great things in my life I'm very proud of.

And I also can represent and I'm a coalition builder, I'm a problem solver, and I've proven that I also can raise money, which is also important.

And I also have a creative background.

I think that, I'm an opera singer, I'm a trumpet player, we have this world of AI, but creativity is gonna be more and more important, so we're not all drones and, and I think I can bring that creativity to the office and also really advocate for people that need to be heard.

I'll be a giant voice for common sense.

- One of the challenges you face is raising money compared to the top democratic candidates who've already compiled millions of dollars.

You have less than $100,000 in your campaign account.

Will the matching funds program operated by the state enable you to have enough money to raise your profile?

- Well, as you know, and we talked about this earlier, is our RIGOP convention is this Thursday, which will give me the endorsement.

We have one of the latest endorsement processes in the country, got one of the latest primaries in the country.

It really puts people like me at a disadvantage.

Most of the people are, if you look across the country, especially for governor, self-funders, I do believe that might be an advantage for me.

But everyone that says whether I go outside this state and especially in Washington DC, call me when you get this endorsement.

The issue is, I got five days until the end of the quarter.

But I do have a great group.

It's not easy to get these dollars for the matching funds because you have to have the background and experience and back office and I've got that ready.

So yeah, but not every time do the people that have the most money win, and although it's important.

I believe I'll raise enough money to get my message out, which is enough's enough and this is just, people can't take it anymore.

- One of the hotly debated issues at the general assembly this session was the cost of energy, which tends to be higher in Rhode Island than a lot of states.

Governor McKee wanted a more aggressive cut in energy costs.

People, the legislators who opposed him on that issue said that you have to invest in renewables now to make them cheaper in the future.

How do you come down on that argument?

- Yeah, I mean, look, we had one of the worst blizzards of all time.

I talked to a lot of seniors.

These green mandates are just too much.

And it doesn't mean that that shouldn't be a vision, that we want to get there.

However, it's not working right now.

I think there's a lot of different ways with advanced energy.

And I put a press release out that on day one I'll have a commission, and that commission will be made up of unions and maybe the Quonset Development Corporation and other leaders to try to get grants, federal grants.

So we are a great pilot state.

There's things that they're doing with small modular reactors.

There's things that they're doing with fusion with Commonwealth in Massachusetts.

The grid, we have to work with Rhode Island Energy and we have to use everything we have, 'cause obviously this isn't working.

And if you're having energy bills north of $500 for electricity or heat, it just doesn't work for people.

And again, it's just too expensive.

So we have to get people again in the room, the experts, and say, what can we do?

And then work with our federal delegation and see what we, what kind of creative things they're doing.

We don't have to create the wheel either, or recreate the wheel.

There's a lot of different states that are doing things and countries that we could work with, like the Netherlands, and what they're doing with airports and advanced energy in Europe.

So, that's my answer to that.

- In addition to elections this year in Rhode Island, there are midterm congressional elections.

Republicans face headwinds in the aftermath of the war in Iran and higher energy prices.

Do you think President Trump has made it harder for Republican candidates to win in Rhode Island?

- Well, look, I voted for President Trump, to be clear.

I'm also for the Second Amendment.

I support the Second Amendment and all the amendments.

But to get to that point is, yeah, this Iran situation is very, very tentative.

And gas has gone up dramatically.

If the administration and we're not able to get out of Iran and lower gas prices, it's gonna be very difficult, 'cause that's what people see and feel every day.

And believe me, I feel it too.

And 60 to 70% of our goods are still moved by truck, right?

So it affects everything.

I do believe that we're getting there.

I know the vice president is over there.

I've seen oil going down, and if gas is able to go down, and if we do eliminate or at least prevent a nuclear threat, I'm all for it.

I'm not running for Congress and I'm not running for federal office, but I would say both presidents or many presidents and leadership has always talked about Iran and not being a nuclear threat.

So I don't have the inside information.

I'm not there and I don't like to speculate, but I know one thing if that all the stuff that is being stated, I'm glad we're in there and if we can get out appropriately and gas can come down, well great.

- It sounds like you're saying the administration's war has been worth the cost.

Is that right?

- Well, it all depends.

It's a huge risk.

And again, I'm not a foreign policy expert and I'm not running for Congress.

I think though, if it protects the world from a nuclear threat, then you'd always say that.

But again, I don't want to kind of talk about Washington as much as I want to talk about the state and how we can improve it on a day-to-day basis.

That would be my job as governor.

And I also don't want to run to Washington.

I don't want to be the next senator or constantly be outside the state.

You're gonna see me.

My parents live a mile down the street from me, so does my father-in-law.

And I'm just a big Rhode Islander and hoping to make big change here come November.

- You're literally a big Rhode Islander.

(Aaron laughing) - Yeah, I'm six-seven for all the kids out there, they love it, I'm the six-seven candidate.

- And Aaron, I understand fully that you're running for governor, not for a federal office, and that you don't aspire to run for a federal office.

But I've gotta ask you another question about President Trump, because he is the head of the Republican party right now.

Has he damaged the country by continuing to promote his false notion that the 2020 election was stolen?

- Well, I called the Lieutenant Governor right now, and I conceded, I did everything you're supposed to do.

I believe in fair elections.

I would say that given what's going on in California with Pratt, and also when I looked at my numbers, I won day of, and yet the ballots were 75% in her favor to 25% in my favor.

Now, you could call that organized.

I would say that we need to truncate this.

I'm all for early voting.

I think even we could have a vacation day on voting day, but I think it should be three to five days, I think this two weeks, almost three weeks, just way too much for things to happen.

So I would push back a little bit, but I also understand your point.

- What do you say to answering the question though?

Because certainly we hear a lot more questioning of the validity and integrity of elections nowadays due to President Trump's rhetoric.

And, he has circulated the idea that illegal aliens are frequently voting in elections, and we know that that is an extremely rare event.

So has he eroded, do you fault him for eroding confidence in elections?

- Well I would say, again, that we have to make sure that voter integrity is happening.

The Secretary of State has a job to do, and I do believe that, that some of these numbers don't add up.

But I would never say, I would just say it's the process.

It happened in 2020, I almost think we should just go back to where it was with some guardrails and different things.

What happened in LA and with Pratt, I'm still scratching my head.

Specifically with a state like California, it's taken seven days to count the ballots.

It just shows that there's a disconnect here.

And I think people have a right to ask the questions.

However, I would do it in a different fashion, and I would try to do it within, if I was going to have questions, I'd do it under closed doors and say to the Secretary of State, what are we doing wrong?

How can we make this process better?

And much like Rhode Island Works Smarter, process improvement.

- To come back to Rhode Island.

Do you have an out of the box idea that you haven't already mentioned to improve Rhode Island?

- Yeah, I'm really excited about announcing a housing proposal that I'm gonna do on Thursday.

I think that there's, again, going back to recreate the wheel, there's things in history that if we just apply, I think we could just use that model that's been successful and apply it to Rhode Island, and I'll just use the word turnkey as sort of the carrot.

But it was something that was, it was used actually over two administrations, and I look forward to announcing that on Thursday.

- Can you tell me a little bit more about what the proposal is?

- Generally speaking, what they did with LBJ and Nixon was they got private developers and they called it a turnkey, and they were able to streamline processes and make a commitment.

Unfortunately, in Rhode Island, and I saw this as the Chairman of the Warwick Sewer Authority, is that if you're developing, and I also learned this in banking, a quick no is better than a prolonged maybe.

And so many times, whether it's the Superman building or what happened with Exeter and the Schartner farm, it's these things that go on forever.

And it doesn't mean that locals shouldn't have input, but the bottom line is we need to get a shot clock, and we need to get people at least saying, okay, within a certain amount of time they need an answer.

And they did it with housing, and I think that through my Rhode Island Works Smarter and saving some dollars and then adding that and then maybe matching it with a federal monies, we would have skin in the game.

We can streamline processes and we can actually add some housing to the state without a millionaire's tax.

But there'll be more to come.

- To close, on a lighter note, what's your favorite place to eat in East Greenwich?

- Oh, well, I would probably have to say Richard's Pub.

I've known Rick a long time.

It's one of those places that's open a little bit later.

So if you go to a University of Rhode Island basketball game and I just, I grew up in that town and I just love, I have the colors, actually I have, and it's actually Governor's Crimson.

So when you go through the different types of colors, so it's a maroon sort of crimson base.

And I love it because that's what I'm all about.

I'm all about Rhode Island.

I'm all heart.

I'm doing this for my family in a state that I love.

You know, I respect everyone that jumps into this race.

And I also love Ed's Roost, too.

My diner down there, our breakfast place.

- Aaron Guckian, Republican candidate for Rhode Island Governor, thank you so much for sitting down with us.

- Yeah, very grateful.

Thanks for all the good work you do.

Thanks, Ian.

- Thanks for watching "One on One" with me, Ian Donnis.

You can find all of our past interviews on the YouTube channel for Ocean State Media.

We'll see you next week.

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