Daily Archives: October 5, 2022

The Dem Statewides Are Doing Just Fine, Thanks

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In a post following the September 1 campaign finance deadline, I noted that “three of the big Democratic primary winners emptied their coffers in an effort to get across the finish line.” It put them in a potentially hazardous position for the general campaign.

Well, it would have if their Republican opponents weren’t all unknown, unfunded, and largely unloved.

I speak of Charity Clark (attorney general), David Zuckerman (lieutenant governor), and Sarah Copeland Hanzas (secretary of state). Zuckerman had $16,771 in the bank on the first of September; Clark actually entered September with a $1,200 shortfall, Copeland Hanzas had about $12,000 on hand, but only because she reported loaning her campaign $14,000. So, according to her own report, she had a $12,000 deficit outside of her own pocketbook.

Well, hold on a minute. According to her campaign manager Lizzy Carroll, that $14,000 number was a mistake. The actual self-loan was $3,500, which is not insignificant but it does make her bottom line look a lot better. The deficit falls from $12,000 to about $1,500. (She carried forward a $1,160 surplus from past campaigns, which would lower her real deficit to less than $400.)

So, where are the three of them now?

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When Political Journalism Collapses In On Itself

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The folks at VTDigger, home of The Best Political Journalists In the State, Bar None*, do a lot of good work. But once in a while, they step on a rake.

*As described by Managing Editor Paul Heintz at last week’s gubernatorial debate. Which begs the question, how many political reporters do we have, actually?

The latest Digger digger concerns extremist Republican candidate John Lyddy, who’s running in the Windham-6 district currently represented by retiring Democrat John Gannon. Lyddy is an election truther and self-described January 6 insurrectionist who was outed by the Vermont Democratic Party in a Sunday press release. Digger picked up the release and did the absolute minimum with it.

The real story here is that the Vermont Republican Party welcomes the likes of Lyddy with open arms. In fact, its legislative ticket is loaded with hard-core Trumpers, bigots, and Covid deniers. An organ with the Best Political Reporters Etc. might be expected to go out and get that story — seek out and identify all the extremists on the VTGOP ticket and ask what it indicates about the character and direction of the party and its legislative caucuses. Seems like the “moderates” are being weeded out and replaced with people in the Art Peterson mold.

But Digger didn’t do any of that. Instead, the story was framed as your standard political “he said, he said” story:

Vermont Democratic Party targets GOP over House candidate’s Jan. 6 involvement

See, the real story isn’t that the VTGOP’s door is wide open to the John Lyddys of the world. No, it’s that the Democrats are attacking the VTGOP.

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