Without agreeing with much else, I think Jim Geraghty gets this right, in his Morning Jolt email, today, and that it offers a lesson that Rhode Islanders and their local media ought to take sincerely to heart:

We live in an atmosphere where Democrats aren’t worried about any of their decisions backfiring, because they know the mainstream coverage will always give them the better of the doubt, hammer their opponents, and gloss over or downplay their worst moments. The flip side of the coin is a “Tea Party caucus” (for lack of a better term) that has absolutely no fear of getting bad press — because they feel/suspect/know they’ll get negative coverage no matter what they do. Most of these guys shrug at the Morning Joe panel unanimously denouncing them as fools and unhinged extremists, because they think the only way that panel won’t denounce them as fools and extremists is to stop being conservatives. A lot of those House members feel they might as well vote their principles and draw the hardest line possible — because if you’re going to get bad coverage, you might as well get bad coverage while fighting for a good cause.

I thought of this again when Jessica David tweeted an observation from Joshua Wright:

At the bottom, Rhode Island is the only state that’s lost middle-wage jobs the last few years. Coincidentally, it’s also seen a decline in high-wage jobs, meaning all of its job growth has been in occupations that pay $13.83 or lower.

Rhode Island is a land with no hard rules and an establishment that can’t lose, in large part because the media won’t push in the necessary places, because the only thing worse than a corrupt Democrat who destroys his community is a conservative who actually believes what he says.