The Vermont Republican Party held its biannual, or possibly biennual, convention on Saturday. (Above screenshot from the VTGOP’s own website, although they might get around to fixing it after they read this post.) They actually had kind of an impressive speaker lineup, including Reagan-era anti-tax activist Grover Norquist (who must have been wondering how the hell his career descended to the point where he was sharing breakfast with a few dozen graybeards in frickin’ Burlington), Scott Brown, who’s gotten an incredible amount of mileage out of one lucky victory thirteen years ago, and Georgia state Rep. Mesha Mainor, who switched her affiliation from Democratic to Republican after differing with her former party’s caucus on some high-profile issues.

All of which makes me think that there are some conservative deep pockets underwriting the travel schedules of far-right figures, because ain’t no way the VTGOP could have pulled this level of “star” power in the past. But anyway…

Speakers also included professional troll Scott Presler, a gay conservative dudebro who was touted as a get-out-the-vote activist. Not mentioned in your convention program: His stint as a lead organizer for an anti-Muslim hate group, his description of the January 6 “Stop the Steal” election denial gathering as “a civil rights protest,” and his promotion of false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

Oh, and his version of GOTV includes the all-out promotion of “ballot harvesting,” a common conservative complaint about Democrats collecting and delivering ballots en masse. If you’re unfortunately enough to remember the film “2,000 Mules,” which focused on unsubstantiated claims that liberal activists were harvesting huge numbers of questionable ballots, well, Presler wants to take that idea up to 11: “”I don’t want 2,000 mules. I want 2 million mules,” he told a GOP voter training session in Pennsylvania.

I can’t tell you whether he brought the same message to the Waterfront Hilton, but it seems likely.

He’s also lent his name and long, luscious tresses to ridding the Republican movement of so-called RINOs like Liz Cheney and, although he probably didn’t say so in Burlington, our own anti-Trump Gov. Phil Scott.

The Vermont Democratic Party, sensing opportunity, called attention to Presler’s scheduled appearance and urged Scott “to fix his party or own it,” which would be a refreshing departure from Scott’s customary arm’s-length distance from the party whose banner he proudly waves. The Dems’ press release had the desired effect, prompting coverage by, among others, WCAX, WPTZ, WVNY/WFFF, The St. Albans Messenger, the oft-antediluvian Caledonian-Record, and the Albany, NY- based but not to be overlooked WAMC Radio…

… but not a peep from Seven Days or VTDigger.

The former has, sadly, become the norm. Since the pandemic took a sledgehammer to ad revenue, Seven Days has concentrated most of its effort to Chittenden County. Its Statehouse presence has shrunk from three full-timers to two, and those two are frequently deployed on other beats.

The latter, which posits itself as the leading, indispensable Organ of Record for Vermont politics and policy? I can’t explain that.

One might argue that the question of Scott’s relationship to the VTGOP is a settled one, since he hasn’t actively taken a hand in party affairs since 2017. I would argue otherwise, since Scott actively campaigned for a number of far-right legislative candidates in 2022 including, but not limited to, John Klar, Seth Adam Manley, and Jarrod Sammis, not to mention Paul Bean and Rob North, who were not only endorsed by Scott but were later appointed to state boards by Scott. (Bean is no longer in his post, likely because of his public advocacy of extremist views like Litter Boxes in Public Schools and The Evils of Chemtrails.)

I mean, that’s quite the record of supporting candidates who’d probably just as soon eject Our Governor from his Grand Old Party. And it ought to raise serious questions about what kind of party Scott is willing to accept and what kind of people he’d like to see in positions of responsibility.

But no, such questions are beneath Digger, I suppose.

The media outlets that actually covered l’affaire Presler got some boilerplate quotes from Scott about how he was just too busy with flood relief to give a thought to the biannual, or possibly biennual, VTGOP confab. Suuuuure. And if not flood relief, doubtless walking the dog or washing his hair would have taken precedence. I just don’t believe that the flood occupies every waking moment of our governor’s time. In fact, we know it doesn’t because he’s had plenty of time to comment on other issues or take part in public events that have nothing to do with the flood.

But at least those other entities tried. We got radio silence from the state’s most prominent provider of state political coverage. One can hope that they’re going to embark on a deep dive on the subject when we get closer to the 2024 campaign season.