Gerald Malloy, fresh off his razor-thin defeat at the hands of Peter Welch in 2022, is ready for another go. Having lost to Welch by a mere [checks notes] FORTY PERCENTAGE POINTS, Malloy thinks he can do far better against [checks notes again] the most popular Vermont politician of our century, Bernie Sanders.

Yep, Scary Bird Man is running for Senate. Again. Optimistic or deluded? You make the call.

I hope you’re ready for a return of the most bizarre yard signs in Vermont history: an eagle staring you directly in the eye, accompanied by the cryptic legend “Deploy Malloy.” You know, the signs described by VTDigger as “simple yet arguably menacing”? Now available in a wide variety of merch, including some high-test nightmare fuel for the kiddies.

Yikes.

Malloy claims to be a true Vermonter; his Twitter feed is full of references to his travels around the Green Mountain State. You’d never guess that he didn’t buy property in Vermont until the year 2020, that he still owns a house in Baltimore worth between one and five million dollars, and that his work on behalf of defense contractors, per VTDigger, “is based in the Washington, D.C., area.”

Not that I like defining politicians on the “real Vermonter” scale, but Malloy is about as phony as they come. He’s had a second home here for only three years or so.

His campaign pitch is just as transparent and just as phony. He trumpets himself as a fiscal conservative, downplaying his far-right stances on abortion, immigration, Donald Trump, and the validity of the 2020 election, all of which I summarized in this 2022 post. Also worth mentioning: in August 2022, when asked which Vermont political figures he admires, Malloy named two of the most ultraconservative members of the Legislature: Vicky Strong and the odious Art Peterson.

We should also note Malloy’s support for, and active participation in, Convention of States Action, an organization calling for taking a crowbar to the U.S. Constitution. You know, that document supposedly perfect in every way and perhaps even handed down, Commandments-style, by the Lord God himself? Yeah, some conservatives aren’t quite so sure about that anymore.

COSA wants a Constitutional convention, but only on a limited basis. The convention, in its imagination, would be “restricted to proposing amendments that will impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, limit its power and jurisdiction, and impose term limits on its officials and members of Congress.”

That’s where you’ll find Gerald Malloy on the political spectrum: about as far rightward as you can get before the spectrum takes that weird U-turn somewhere in RFK, Jr. territory and kind of meets up with the far left 

The high point of Malloy’s brief political career was his unexpected victory in the 2022 Republican primary, when he beat establishment choice and heroic mayonnaise advocate Christina Nolan by a slim 42-38 margin (once and not future Ethan Allen Institute chief Myers Mermel finished third with 18%). It was all downhill from that one shining moment. Let’s just say the magic is unlikely to be rekindled in 2024.