State treasurer Frank Caprio -- thanks to his aggressive, frontrunning fundraising -- has been first out of the box with campaign advertising for next year's gubernatorial content. Caprio continues to ramp up his visibility, making appearances this week on A Lively Experiment and Newsmakers. And Caprio, who will appear next Wednesday, November 25, as part of Drinking Liberally's candidate series, has a chance to capitalize on the disappointment felt by some attendees after Lincoln Chafee's DL appearance last month.

So here are ten observations about Caprio's nascent gubernatorial campaign, some of them culled from his Newsmakers' taping this morning and a subsequent interview.

1. Caprio's focus on small business is smart politics. The treasurer's first campaign commercial touts the importance of small employers, which provide most of the jobs in Rhode Island. This represents a populist note for a candidate widely perceived as more conservative than his Democratic rival, AG Patrick Lynch. Asked what he would do to help small employers, Caprio calls it unfortunate that most of the state's $75 million in tax grants go to large employers. He tells me:

What I’d like to see is a job credit or tax incentive that when a small business adds an employee, there would be an incentive to do that. Because once you put a little wind at the back of a small business, now that’s going to add additional employees, after you can get over that initial hurdle of adding the first employee.

2. Caprio wants to eliminate the estate tax through a series of other tax changes. Doing so, he says, would enhance Rhode Island's competitiveness.

3. Caprio says the proof is in the pudding. Earlier this year, Anchor Rising called Caprio Rhode Island's fifth-top conservative, and GOP chairman Gio Cicione has said the Democrat would run better as a Republican. So how will he gain the support of the liberal voters whose support he needs to win the Democratic primary? Caprio responded by citing poll results already placing him in a competitive position.

4. Caprio says he'd be way different from Governor Carcieri. If he's elected governor, Caprio says, a key difference would be how he'd sit down with the General Assembly to forge consensus on broad goals.

5. Caprio says there's more proof in the pudding. As the candidate has previously telegraphed, he plans to boost his gubernatorial campaign by pointing to his job performance as treasurer, including his management of the state's investment portfolio. Asked about curbing an estimated $219 million state deficit, he says the state needs to bolster revenue by helping small business, and leveraging technology to operate more efficiently. He adds:

Let's put in each [state] department, an identifiable goal of savings, and let's manage to that savings. That's number 1. And let's have accountability. That's another thing that's lacking many times when you talk about government -- people aren't held accountable. If a private business went overbudget the way some of these departments in the state do, the leadership of that department wouldn't be around too long. 

6. Like Carcieri, Caprio calls himself a big supporter of the green economy. Yet asked how the impasse between National Grid and Deepwater Wind can be overcome, Caprio's answer -- which enviros might consider underwhelming --was continued negotiations.

7. Caprio digs social media. The treasurer has long had a reputation as an early-adapter when it comes to technology. So it's not surprising that he points to his almost 2000 Facebook friends, a proportionally impressive amount, he says, compared with the 11,222 for Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick.

8. Former WJAR-TV reporter-anchor Margie O'Brien has joined Caprio's campaign as its spokeswoman.

9. Campaign finance can be a sticky issue. In August, Caprio's campaign returned $54,000 in campaign contributions from employees of law firms that got state business during his watch. The move came after the ProJo and other media organizations were tipped about the contributions and began looking into them. Caprio now calls himself a leader in returning such contributions. Patrick Lynch's campaign may describe the issue less charitably. 

10. MAD remains a threat for the Democrats. Chafee has time to strengthen his campaign. Democrats Caprio and Lynch, meanwhile, face a sharp contradiction: they each have to wage a fierce campaign to win the Democratic primary, albeit in a way that leaves one of them damage-free enough to win the general election next November.