Republican Don Carcieri announced for reelection June 7. But campaigns don't really begin until they're on TV, and now the governor is there, with an upbeat ad using footage from the kickoff and featuring him speaking by the water at his Saunderstown summer home.

He wants to keep the state moving. "Entrenched" interests fight him. Rhode Island has nearly 15,000 new jobs.

Democratic nominee Charlie Fogarty has stumped intensely, done well in fundraising and public polls, and began TV weeks ago. Was Carcieri asleep? Cocky? "Neither," he tells me. He's a "full-time" governor -- squeezing in campaign activities when he can -- while Lieutenant Governor Fogarty "has nothing else to do."

In a $27,000 June 13-19 poll done for Carcieri, he led Fogarty, 51 percent to 41 percent. Still, he and campaign manager Ken McKay, who would not release the rest of the survey, dismiss the idea of overconfidence.

I asked McKay about a Carcieri brochure that boasts, "CHARACTER MATTERS." McKay said, "Leadership comes from inside a person. It's not about polls. It's not about how can we get people to work together and everybody's smiling. Leadership means doing what you know in your heart is right. Sometimes that doesn't make you popular inside the General Assembly chambers, inside the State House. But it makes Rhode Island better. . . . Charlie doesn't have that quality."

Carcieri's boast of 15,000 jobs sounds good, but he wanted 20,000 by the end of this term. He says it was a "goal." He says Rhode Island has made good progress; Fogarty disagrees.

Fogarty, a former state senator, has been sounding anti-corruption themes. Carcieri says, "This is what I've been working on for three and a half years. I'm sort of amused by it, that suddenly it's like, after he's been here all these years, now he's gotten his voice that this is a problem? I mean it's not exactly a news bulletin."

Fogarty didn't rush to sign on when I suggested recently that lobbyists be banned from making political contributions. Carcieri liked the proposal -- as long as it includes labor lobbyists. (Fogarty is labor's favorite.)

Fogarty says that as governor, he'd voluntarily disclose contacts lobbyists have with him, even if they're casual. I love the idea, but Carcieri says that half the time he doesn't know if people who come up to him at lunch are lobbyists. He calls "really foolish" the notion he should report these contacts.

Carcieri and his wife, Sue, have four children and 13 grandchildren. The grandkids are cute, a good political asset. You catch glimpses of them in the TV ad, in campaign literature, and at events.

Last Thursday, I asked the governor for an accounting of the children and grandchildren. He replied:

"Matt is my oldest. He just turned 40. He's got 3 boys, Nicholas, who's 7, and the twins, Ben and Will, who just turned 5 in April. Alison is next, she turned 39. She's got 4 children: Samantha, who's 12 -- will be 12; Kayla, who just turned 10; Donovan, who turned 7, and Colin, who turned 5. . . . Then there's Jill, who's 38 and she's got 3: Brigit, who's the oldest, who's 13; Chase, who's next, who is 11, and Anna, who just turned 9 last week; we had a birthday party. And then the youngest is Sarah, who just turned 35. She's got 3: Jack, who's 8 . . .; Charlie, who was a boy of summer, turned 7, and then Henry, who's the youngest, who Oct. 11 will be 5."

He beamed, "I'm blessed. I married well, so I've got a beautiful wife. She produced beautiful children, and they married well, so we got nice grandchildren. What can I say?"

M. Charles Bakst is The Journal's political columnist.

mbakst@projo.com / (401) 277-7638