You’d think that efforts to attract tourists to the smallest state in the union wouldn’t have become such a big deal, but Rhode Island's new, $5 million branding campaign is causing as much fuss as the time Providence Mayor Buddy Cianci was forced to resign after assaulting his estranged wife’s paramour with a fireplace poker.

For the past week news swirling around the new "Cooler & Warmer" slogan and sail-like logo designed by Milton Glaser of "I Love NY" fame has dominated the front pages of the Ocean State’s newspapers, led television and radio newscasts, and even catapulted into the national media, especially when it was revealed that for some cockamamie reason a promotional video for the campaign uses video from Iceland within the first 10 seconds.

What happened there?

We get the idea that "cooler" suggests a swinging, happening destination, while “warmer” conveys that visitors won’t be treated like hillbillies or indentured servants. And we also embrace the simple but elegant sweeping logo design – less is more.

But the only nice thing we can say about Rhode Island’s slogan is that it’s no lamer than Connecticut’s: “Still Revolutionary.” Not sure that’s the right message to send travelers during times of terror alerts.

On Friday, Rhode Island dumped the new slogan and its marketing chief, but the damage was done.

Too bad neither state hired the marketing company in charge of California’s tourism campaign. Have you seen that state’s “dream big” ad, featuring a guy riding a unicycle beneath the Golden Gate Bridge (“head in the clouds,”) the gal zooming around on a jet pack at the beach (“bunch of space cadets, all living in a fantasy world"), William Shatner pausing after a fake explosion on a movie set (“I’m drawing a blank … What’s my line?”).

Now that’s a commercial.

Of course, we here in Connecticut don’t need any reminders about what makes Rhode Island, with its hip capital, Newport mansions and white-sand beaches, a great place to visit. Same goes for our own “revolutionary” state’s shoreline, rural, historic and cultural attractions. Like our northeastern neighbors, we have legitimate tourism cred.

We should consider ourselves lucky, unlike poor Idaho. The best it could come up with for a tourism slogan is “Great Potatoes. Tasty Destinations.”