Monthly Archives: October 2016

Big donors, big money in targeted House districts

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Two years ago, the Republican State Leadership Committee funneled $370,000 into Vermont, backing candidates in close races for the Vermont House. The VTGOP won several of those seats and took away the Democrats’ supermajority status.

So far this year, the RSLC has spent a lot less. But a handful of closer-to-home moneybags have taken matters into their own hands. They’ve donated more than $100,000 to individual Republican House candidates and House Minority Leader Don Turner’s political action committee.

In the small-dollar world of State House campaigns, that’s a huge amount of money.

First, a hat tip to Green Mountain Daily’s Sue Prent, who reported on the Franklin County iteration of this phenomenon a couple weeks ago. Turns out, it’s only part of a bigger pattern. But because the money is broadly dispersed, the pattern has attracted little attention.

Two of the donors are familiar names to anyone who follows Vermont politics. The other two might be new to you.

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Phil Scott said something dumb about technology yesterday

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Check that; to judge by his Twitter feed, he said a whole lot of dumb stuff about technology in Monday’s Innovation Week debate in Burlington. But this time, we’re focusing in on one particularly dumb and potentially dangerous item. This was in response to a question about how the state should select and integrate new software.

Scott said the state should opt for more off-the-shelf technology instead of buying custom-made programs. When his excavation firm needed a new bookkeeping program, he was told it would cost $10,000 to $15,000. Instead, the company chose a $200 QuickBooks program, he said.

Hey, yeah! Maybe we could replace the Tax Department with TurboTax! We could shut down Vermont Health Connect and refer everybody to WebMD! That’s the stuff!

Now, I’m not a technology expert, not by a longshot. But even I can see major flaws in Scott’s simplistic prescription. In no particular order:

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I think Phil Scott’s Twitter feed has popped a gasket

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Until now, @PhilScott4VT has been a repository of fatuous truisms and sketchy statistics. But today, something weird is going on. Either the Twitter feed has been outsourced to a rogue fortune-cookie factory, or it’s simply gone off the rails.

Don’t believe me? Then explain any of these gems.

Today’s Special: Mixed metaphor Pasta.

Here’s a policy we can all get behind. And push over the cliff.

Yeah, incentivize our hopes. That’s the stuff.

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Bernie Steps Up (and Pat Already Has)

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Time for a follow-up to my recent post about the lack of support for Sue Minter from Vermont’s Congressional delegation. First, the good news:

Yep, that’s Bernie Sanders deigning to appear at not one, but two rallies on behalf of Sue Minter and the Democratic ticket. I’ll step out on a short limb here and predict that we’ll see more such events before Election Day. Extra added bonus: the involvement of Rights & Democracy. It’s nice to see them make the smart political calculation that a moderately liberal Democrat is a better choice than a questionably center-right Republican.

This erases the only question surrounding Bernie’s endorsement of the Democratic ticket last week: would he step up, step out, and make a public effort on their behalf? The answer is a developing but hearty “Yes!”

And now, the senior Senator from Vermont, Pat Leahy. Last week, I wondered why he hadn’t been more public with his backing of Minter. Well, that post generated a response from the Leahy camp listing all the times and places that the good Senator had appeared with Minter or acted on her behalf.

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A fascinating endorsement

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Well, well. The Burlington Free Press has endorsed David Zuckerman for Lieutenant Governor.

Not that newspaper endorsements are worth the paper they’re largely no longer printed on, but this is the most fascinating one I’ve seen in a while. Zuckerman is arguably the most left-leaning candidate for statewide office we’ve had in a long time with a real shot at winning (sorry, Senator Pollina), and yet the usually conservative Free Press gave him its endorsement without a single mention of Republican Randy Brock.

That’s fascinating thing number one. Number two: when you read the editorial, it’s obvious that this is a bank shot setting up its inevitable endorsement of Phil Scott for Governor.

Number three: the Free Press attempted the rhetorical Triple Lutz of depicting David Zuckerman as a moderating force and a member of that most desirable of political categories, The Real Vermonter.

Sorry about that, Randy.

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The Sue Minter Negative Ad I’d Like To See

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I saw a Sue Minter TV ad the other night, and was unimpressed.

It was a negative spot aimed at Phil Scott — but it misses the mark. It tries to paint Scott as a proponent of higher taxes, which is (1) inaccurate and (2) highly unlikely to succeed. It also furthers the Republican talking point that taxes are political poison, which is counterproductive to sensible decision-making.

The sad thing is, there’s so much material for a better spot.

“What material?”, you may ask.

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The Bourgoin reverberations

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I imagine Vermont’s psychiatric community is nervously anticipating the fallout from the horrible wrong-way crash on I-89 that killed five high school students. Lawmakers will be looking to assign blame and prevent future tragedies, and they’ve often used the psychiatric community as a whipping boy.

There are things the Legislature and administration could do, but based on past performance, I have little faith they will come to the right conclusions.

A couple of points. First, the Howard Center is in deep shit. Second, here’s the lesson I hope is drawn from this: when you have an under-resourced mental health system with a chronic shortage of inpatient beds, you foster a bias against hospitalization.

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The nastiest campaign in Vermont history?

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Scott Milne is running a truly bizarre campaign, entirely based on attacking incumbent Sen. Patrick Leahy. Milne’s entire “platform” consists of (1) Pat Leahy’s been in Washington too long, and (2) he’s been a successful fundraiser. Like Rudy Giuliani and “9/11,” Milne can’t open his mouth without the number “42”, as in Leahy’s tenure in the Senate, tumbling out. Milne has made no effort to outline policy differences or present his own ideas.

This may not be the nastiest campaign in state history; God knows the 19th Century featured tactics that might make Donald Trump blush. But it’s certainly the nastiest campaign in living memory.

And it’s getting worse, and louder, and nastier.

Start with Milne’s weekend rejection of Trump. He couldn’t get through three paragraphs without a gratuitous slam at Leahy. In fact, the Leahy slam was the lede in Milne’s statement.

Then came the news that Vice President Biden will campaign in Vermont. Milne couldn’t stop himself:

 “Sen. Leahy and Vice President Biden have spent the past 42 years together in Washington, and they both supported Hillary Clinton against Bernie, so it is not surprising that they would be campaigning together.”

A sensible candidate would have kept his mouth shut. Why call attention to a high-profile fundraiser benefiting your opponent? But Milne appears to suffer from a unique variant of Tourette’s, which compels him to whine about Pat Leahy with every breath he takes.

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I want no part of Brian Savage’s locker room

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In last weekend’s stampede of Vermont Republicans distancing themselves from Donald Trump, there was one high-ranking GOPer who clings stubbornly to The Donald.

That would be Assistant House Minority Leader Brian Savage of Swanton. According to VPR, he first posted a Facebook message saying he was done with Trump, making the dutiful Republican shoutout to his daughter and two granddaughters.

He then apparently thought better (or should I say “worse”) of it, because he later deleted the Facebook post and undeclared his unendorsement of Trump.

“Was it the right thing to say? Is it the right thing to say amongst people? No,” Savage says.

But, he says he agrees with Trump’s characterization of the exchange as ill-conceived locker-room banter.

“We’ve probably said similar things in our lifetime, you and I,” Savage says. “It’s just that the microphone probably wasn’t on.”

Yeah, er, no. Please don’t indict the entire human race with your locker-room misogyny, Mr. Savage. Maybe you talk that way in a roomful of The Boys, but I, for one, have never ever boasted about my ability to commit sexual assault.

Then again, Savage is a Franklin County Republican, so perhaps he shares a locker room with Norm McAllister.

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The DMV needs an overhaul

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Ah, the Department of Motor Vehicles: everybody’s stereotype of a complacent, hidebound bureaucracy, where the lines are long and the staff’s hostility is held in check by its somnolence.

The image is unfair to the reality. The DMV has made strides to enter, if not the 21st Century, at least the late 20th. But now it faces new challenges not of its own making, and there needs to be a shakeup in its future.

Among those challenges: responsibility for voter registration which it seems to be fumbling, and an attitude toward the new driver’s privilege cards that seems to have awakened the inner Barney Fife in some DMV employees.

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