Monthly Archives: September 2024

Here’s Another Political Thing Phil Scott Should Do, But Won’t

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The fine fellow above, pictured with a fish he caught last year on Shadow Lake, is former state senator John Rodgers, Republican candidate for lieutenant governor. I know about the fish because it’s featured in one of a series of low-budget official campaign videos in which Rodgers is interviewed by one Rick Lafayette, a.k.a. the lead singer of Kikker, a Vermont metal cover band. Yeah, this guy:

Hey, I didn’t even wait to start digressing this time, I did it right off the top.

Anyway, Rodgers is running against Progressive/Democratic incumbent David Zuckerman. As most of you know, in Vermont we elect the governor and LG separately. And throughout Phil Scott’s seven-plus years in the corner office, a Republican has never been lieutenant governor. This doesn’t matter at all because the LG has no actual, uh, power or authority — except for one big thing, which ought to keep Scott and his allies awake at night.

The LG is in the line of succession. If something were to happen to the govrnor, then good ol’ Progressive Farmer Dave would succeed him. You’d think, then, that Scott would be going all-out to make sure Zuckerman is out of the way. You know, secure the Phil Scott political legacy.

Is he? Not that anyone can tell.

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The Harris Phenomenon

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Pardon my departure from the usual provinces of Vermont politics, but there’s something that must be said and I haven’t heard it anywhere else.

Kamala Harris is on one hell of a run.

I can’t think of a political figure in my lifetime who’s accomplished anything close to what she’s done in the brief period of time since President Biden ended his bid for a second term. I really don’t think I’m exaggerating about this. Compared to the normal, glacial pace of presidential campaigns, the Harris effort is an eyeblink.

Most recently, there was the debate. I believe MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell called it the strongest performance in presidential debate history, full stop. If it wasn’t, it was damn close. Harris got her talking points across, she subtly needled Donald Trump into unhinged rants (transgender surgery on immigrants in prison?????), and she handled his obnoxious behavior with good humor. It was like Bugs Bunny facing Yosemite Sam. She made it look effortless. Or like a woman who’s spent her career having to deal with powerful men.

It’s just the latest chapter in a campaign that formally began only a month and a half ago when Biden dropped out on July 21. This won’t mean much to anyone besides me, but I tested positive for Covid in early August and was sick for a month. My illness lasted almost as long as the entire Harris campaign to date. That’s simply remarkable.

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How Not to Debunk a Myth

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The latest edition of “Brave Little State,” Vermont Public’s question-answerin’ podcast, addresses a widely-held belief that our homelessness problem is largely caused by people moving to Vermont to take advantage of our motel voucher program. And addresses it poorly, incompletely, and at great length.

The episode is entitled “Is Vermont’s motel program a ‘magnet’ for out-of-staters experiencing homelessness?” There is no evidence for the notion. In fact, there is a body of research showing that people in distress don’t cross state lines in any real numbers in hopes of accessing better benefits. Reporter Carly Berlin, whose work is co-published by Vermont Public and VTDigger, gets there eventually, but takes a godawful long time to do so. In the process, she manages to distort the basic issue, omit crucial aspects of the story, and get some key facts wrong.

The fundamental problem isn’t with Berlin or her many co-producers and overseers. (A total of seven Vermont Public staffers are cited in the closing credits.) The problem is that the issue was subordinated to the format. This wasn’t a story about homelessness and benefits; it was A Reporter’s Journey In Search Of Truth, filtered through the highly developed process of long-form public radio storytelling pioneered by Ira Glass’ “This American Life” and refined in this age of public media serial podcasting. The end goal of the production is more esthetic than journalistic.

This question can easily be resolved, but that’s not how you build a podcast. A long-form narrative needs a build, a measure of suspense, unexpected twists and turns, even if the actual path is pretty straightforward. Which is how you wind up with a 38-minute-long piece of audio that kind of bungles the assignment.

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The Humanitarian Crisis Is Almost Upon Us, and Official Vermont Is Doing Nothing About It

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Nothing has changed since my August 18 post about pending reductions in the state’s emergency housing program. Well, that’s not exactly true. Nothing has changed in terms of the official response, but there are all kinds of ways in which the situation is looking even worse than previously thought. That light you see at the end of the tunnel? That’s the headlight of the train headed right for us. Today is September 6; hundreds of people in state-paid motel rooms will see their eligibility expire beginning in mid-September, at the same time a cap on the number of motel rooms will take effect.

That cap is 1,100. At last count, there were more than 1,400 households in the program — and a waiting list of hundreds more. Om case you’d forgotten, eligibility had already been restricted to the truly vulnerable: People with young children or disabilities, people who had suffered a natural disaster or are fleeing domestic abuse.

Remember when Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Jane Kitchel sought reassurance that no one in a wheelchair would be put out on the street if the voucher program were cut back, and Department of Children and Families Commissioner Chris Winters replied “Hopefully not”? Well, turns out we definitely will be kicking out people in wheelchairs, and others with severe disabilities, and generally, people with nowhere else to turn.

In Friday’s mail was the latest edition of The Montpelier Bridge and its two front-page articles: “City Moves to Clear Country Club Road Encampment” and “Motel Program Restrictions Mean 100 Local People To Be Ousted.” Yeah, welcome to the greatest nation on Earth.

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Well, Here’s Another Thing — Or a Bunch of Things — Phil Scott Isn’t Doing

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If he didn’t have a decade-plus track record of ignoring the political implications of his work, I’d think Auditor Doug Hoffer pulled a nice little election-year fast one on Gov. Phil Scott. Yesterday, just in time for the beginning of campaign season, Hoffer issued a devastating report (downloadable here) on the state’s failure to implement its 2018 State Hazard Mitigation Plan.

Which can now be added to my extensive list of Stuff Phil Scott Hasn’t Done. Too bad the Democrats aren’t putting up an effective challenge to the governor’s bid for a fifth term. The Hoffer audit would make an effective cudgel.

The Mitigation Plan included 96 discrete actions to reduce the impacts of natural disasters. Hoffer found that only about one-third had been implemented. Even high-priority items were “frequently” unfinished. And this was a five-year plan that expired in 2023, so it’s not like the administration didn’t have all the time it should have needed. Meanwhile, we’ve been beset by disaster after disaster including major flooding in each of the last two summers. Hoffer told VTDigger that full implementation of the Plan “would have made a difference in the last two years.”

The audit was released a few hours after Scott’s weekly press conference, so reporters didn’t get the chance to quiz him about it. But it did lend a touch of retrospective irony to the presser, which began with Scott bragging about once again relaunching his tired old “Capital for a Day’ concept. Nice way to stage high-profile, media-friendly events in all 14 counties while On Official Business, eh?

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The Business Elites Expand Their Portfolio, and Other Notes from the 9/1 Campaign Finance Filings

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Well, those Burlington-area business types have slightly expanded their playing field as they try to weaken the Legislature’s ability to override gubernatorial vetoes. They’d backed a handful of centrist Democratic challengers to Dem/Prog incumbents (most notably Stewart Ledbetter and Elizabeth Brown*, only to see them all go down to defeat. (A similar effort was made by Brattleboro businessfolk in support of an unsuccessful challenge to Rep. Emilie Kornheiser.) They also backed some Republican hopefuls with a chance to knock off Democratic incumbents in November including LG candidate John Rodgers, two state reps running for Senate, Pat Brennan and Scott Beck, and the uncle-and-nephew tag team of Leland and Rep. Michael Morgan, running in a two-seat House district currently split between the two parties.

*We’d previously noted that Brown spent an appalling $35 per vote. It was actually $35.42, for those keeping score at home.

And now that same bunch of Vermont-scale plutocrats is throwing their weight, in the form of four-figure donations, behind Rep. Chris Mattos, running for Senate in the Chittenden North district currently repped by Sen. Irene Wrenner, and Steven Heffernan, Republican Senate candidate in Addison County. (A district that, according to Matthew Vigneau, solid Twitter follow and bigger election nerd than I, hasn’t elected a Republican to the Senate since the year 2000. Which was the year of the great civil-unions backlash that saw Republicans win in multiple unexpected locations, so grain of salt required.)

I haven’t come across any similarly blessed Republican candidates for House, but I didn’t do an exhaustive search. Then again, perhaps these low-grade plutocrats have decided (as have I) that the House is a lost cause for the Republicans.

So who’s giving how much to whom?

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Statewides: The Haves and the Have Nots

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The September 1 campaign finance reports crystallized something we already knew: This is shaping up to be an unsurprising political season because there’s such a deep divide between those on top and those trying to get a leg up. The former include Gov. Phil Scott and a whole bunch of Democrats; the latter include every other Republican minus a few who’ve been blessed by the patronage of Burlington’s business elite.

The exception to the Democratic rule: Esther Charlestin, who entered September financially underwater in her long-odds (and getting longer every day) gubernatorial campaign. Somehow, the financial gap between Scott and Charlestin managed to grow in August.

This isn’t a typo: Charlestin has raised only $21,137 and spent $22,309. On primary night, Charlestin told VTDigger she would “go hard” in the general campaign, which meant knocking on doors, seeking endorsements, and “raising a lot more money.”

But she didn’t do that. For the entire month of August, Charlestin raised $4,505, which isn’t anywhere close to “a lot more money.” I can’t say how much of this is her doing and how much is Democratic donors turning their backs; Charlestin didn’t score any donations above $250, and that came from longtime Progressive stalwart Martha Abbott. Hey, Dems: Do you like your candidate or don’t you?

Meanwhile, Scott continues to raise far more money than he needs, and spend money like he’s got an actual battle on his hands instead of an almost certain walkover.

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The Ledbetter Campaign Was an Historic Waste of Resources

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The September 1 campaign finance deadline has come and gone. There will be plenty to report on, but we must begin with the final numbers for ex-TV anchor Stewart Ledbetter’s failed bid for state Senate. It’s one for the history books. Ledbetter managed to turn his broadcasting fame and an immense pile of cash into a fourth-place finish in a race for three Democratic nominations.

The carnage: Ledbetter’s campaign raised a total of $68,557, including $10,518 between August 1 and primary day. That has got to be an all-time record for a Vermont legislative campaign. If anyone can think of a more costly effort, I’ll amend this post*. And Ledbetter raised all that money for a primary. He didn’t even make it to the general.

*VPO reader and Middlebury College professor Jason Mittell points out that although Ledbetter had the biggest campaign fund, he was actually “bested” in spending per vote. By Mittell’s reckoning, Elizabeth Brown, business-backed Democratic candidate in the two-seat Waterbury district, spent an incredible $35 per vote received**.

**And we have a winner! Reader David Ellenbogen points out gas station magnate and G.W. Bush megadonor turned ambassador Skip Vallee. He ran for state Senate in 2000 and finished eighth in a race for six seats despite spending (according to Seven Days) an incredible $123,000, including $60,000 of his own money. Vallee remains unchallenged as running the most expensive campaign for a legislative seat in Vermont history. Unlike Ledbetter, however, Vallee at least advanced to the general and spent his wad over the full campaign season, not just the primary.

He spent a total of $58,495 on his campaign, including an amazing $28,962 after the end of July. He was spending money at a frantic pace when many voters had already cast their ballots. It’s understandable, since there must have been a desperate scramble to shovel cash into any available furnace. Even so, he managed to leave more than $10,000 unspent.

Ledbetter got 3,159 votes in the primary. Which meant he spent $18.51 per vote.

Apologies for all the italics, but the numbers are simply astounding. And not in a good way.

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