Highway closure gave Gov. McKee a chance to shine. He still needs a moment.

Longtime residents fondly remember the calm and reassuring authority with which a flannel shirt-wearing Gov. J. Joseph Garrahy appeared on TV in the wake of the historic 1978 blizzard.

It’s a stark contrast with how Gov. Dan McKee has handled the emergency closure of the Washington Bridge due to safety concerns, first missing the initial Dec. 11 press conference after earlier tweeting about a visit a Providence pizza shop. That was mistake one, according to Mike Raia, a public relations consultant and former communications adviser to then-Gov. Gina M. Raimondo.

“Communication is as important to any crisis response as actual operational response,” Raia said. “In these moments, everything you do at the podium, on a radio interview, on your social media matters.”

Relief is on the way in I-195 Washington Bridge saga

Making matters worse: McKee’s testy response to a reporter’s questions two days later about potential leadership changes in the wake of the catastrophe.

“By getting emotional and getting defensive, it undermines the confidence you’re trying to build, it undermines the empathetic connection you’re trying to show to people that are actually impacted,” Raia said.

The blistering rebuke is hardly the first time Rhode Island’s otherwise mild-mannered head of state has bristled at pointed questions from the press, or turned disagreements with fellow officials into headline-making feuds. 

And some warn McKee’s thin skin may prove his downfall.

“He’s not good at pressure situations,” said Mike Stanton, a former Providence Journal reporter who serves as a journalism professor at the University of Connecticut. “All he has to do is cut out the belligerence and go right to the problem at hand.”

Stanton likened McKee to former Boston Red Sox pitcher Craig Kimbrel: on his A game when his team is already winning, but when the pressure ratchets up, he crumbles.

And in the nearly three years since McKee became governor, he’s not taken kindly to news coverage of controversies surrounding his administration.

He routinely criticized WPRI-12 for breaking and continuing to cover the federal and state investigation into his alleged personal ties with the ILO Group awarded a multimillion-dollar education contract on the heels of his inauguration.

 Asked about the delay in Rhode Island Comprehensive Assessment System (RICAS) scores in a Rhode Island Report podcast taped ahead of the 2022 gubernatorial election, McKee unloaded on Boston Globe reporter Ed Fitzpatrick.

To Linda Levin, former Providence Journal reporter and professor emerita in the University of Rhode Island journalism department, McKee’s repeated displays of sensitivity toward questioning suggest he may lack the personal toughness needed to lead. 

“Some people are good lieutenants, and others are good leaders,” Levin said, pointing to Raimondo as an example of the latter.

“McKee did a good job as lieutenant governor, but it’s been difficult for him to take on the nonpolitical responsibilities of being a head of state,” she said. 

Indeed, McKee drew little attention – positive or negative – in his six years as the state’s  second-in-command. One notable exception: his predilection to out-of-state, paid business trips, including one to Asia in 2017 which he failed to disclose to the Rhode Island Ethics Commission in violation of state requirements.

A Cumberland native who got his start in politics at the local level, winning two terms on the town council before ousting the incumbent mayor in 2000, McKee’s small-town charm and business-minded approach won him favor with municipal and business leaders throughout the state.

‘He’s snapping at people’

Not as much these days, with escalating tensions with his former ally, Johnston Mayor Joseph Polisena Jr., turning into a full-on-feud.

Polisena refused to join McKee’s Learn 365 education initiative. Polisena then claimed that McKee attempted to undermine a Christopher Columbus statue unveiling in Johnston in October. Polisena later described McKee in comments to the Johnston SunRise “incredibly thin-skinned.”

In an interview on Friday, Polisena said their relationship went downhill because Polisena, who worked at the State House before becoming mayor, supported McKee’s opponent, Helena Buonanno Foulkes, in the 2022 Democratic gubernatorial primary.

Asked if he believed McKee was still holding a grudge over that, Polisena answered, “I don’t think he is. I know he is.”

Polisena said he wasn’t surprised at how McKee has handled the bridge catastrophe, given his own interactions with the governor.

“I think he’s in over his head,” Polisena said of McKee. “He’s snapping at people, it’s the tone, it’s the retort.”

Despite the dustup, McKee had a 50% approval rating, according to an Oct. 30 survey from Morning Consult. It’s hardly an overwhelming signal of confidence compared with the 83% approval for Vermont’s Republican Gov. Phil Scott. Still, McKee fared better than President Joe Biden, who 59% of local voters said they disapproved of, according to the survey.

That was before the road rage-induced furor from the bridge failure, which has brought on a fresh wave of criticism against the governor.

To be fair, Levin acknowledged the stress McKee was facing, combined with the back-to-back press conferences, touring affected small businesses on Wayland Square and Federal Hill, and emergency meetings that have packed his schedule since the catastrophe started. Indeed, Rhode Island Department of Transportation Director Peter Alviti, who has accompanied McKee in these appearances, appears to have lost his voice amid the grueling schedule.

“I am not excusing the governor, but he’s probably under a lot of strain,” Levin said.

Yet Levin also stressed the duty of leaders to “rise above” picking fights to focus on the crisis at hand. 

President Abraham Lincoln, about whom McKee purchased a biography during a tour of small businesses in Wayland Square on Dec. 13, didn’t win the Civil War by focusing on personal beef. Yet examples of elected officials displaying a short fuse with the press or one another have become increasingly common in recent years.

“It’s this very loud, very noisy, kind of in-your-face politicians treating the press like dirt,” Levin said.

The good news for McKee is that the 24/7 news cycle – and potential future crises – may erase his latest behavior from people’s minds by the time he’s up for re-election in 2026, Stanton said.

“People will remember this, but people also tend to forget and move onto the next controversy or crisis,” Stanton said. “It all depends on how it plays out.”

One point in McKee’s favor: The bridge’s westbound lanes opened Friday – ahead of prior predictions for a weekend opening. McKee has also softened his tone in subsequent public appearances, though he did not directly answer when asked if he regretted the tone of his response to NBC-10 reporter Brian Crandall.

“Yesterday was yesterday,” McKee said Dec. 14. He also expressed openness to an independent review of the bridge maintenance and repair work.

Raia was less concerned with McKee’s lack of apology for his outburst to Crandall than with the absence of an “I’m sorry” to the thousands of drivers sitting in traffic, students and teachers being disrupted by school closures, business owners losing money and sick people afraid they wouldn’t be able to access emergency medical care in time.

Raia recounted his own personal frustration after spending 2.5 hours in the car Thursday night to drive the 17 miles from his Barrington home to his company holiday party at Topgolf Rhode Island in Cranston. 

“The only person who has apologized to anyone from that podium has been [Providence Mayor] Brett Smiley,” Raia said. “I just wanted to hear from someone from the state, ‘We understand, this sucks.’ That goes a long way, strategically, to turning down the temperature of critics and armchair engineers who are second guessing everything.”

McKee’s office did not return inquiries for comment.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said Gov. Dan McKee was at a pizzeria at the same time as the 5 p.m. press conference on Monday, Dec. 11, when the emergency closure of the westbound lanes of the Washington Bridge was announced. The governor visited the pizzeria at around 1:45 p.m. and had a call with Rhode Island Department of Transportation Director Peter Alviti  at 2:52 p.m. when he was notified about the Washington Bridge situation, according to the governor’s office. The pizzeria tweet posted at 3:55 p.m.