This vaguely mobsterish-lookin’ guy is Joe Luneau, St. Albans auto dealer and Republican candidate for House in the Franklin-3 district currently repped by Democrat Mike McCarthy. This is the photo he chose to plaster on at least two of the many mailers he’s sent to district voters. Seems like there might have been better choices in his collection, but then some people just don’t photograph well. (See also: Kenney, Ted.)

Someone in Franklin-3 shared scans of the Luneau oeuvre with me, and if the Republicans fail to make significant gains in the Legislature this November, the mindset that produced this stuff will be partly to blame. Luneau’s pitch is that Vermont is a hellscape featuring out-of-control drugs and crime, Soviet-level taxation, and prices so high that everyone’s running for the border. (Narrator: No, they’re not.)

(Not mentioned, at all, is the one thing that could make Vermont an unlivable hellscape, and already has for many: climate change-related natural disasters. Recall that Vermont finished near the top among the 50 states in federally-declared disasters between 2011 and 2023.)

Here’s the problem. The message surely resonates with the Republican base, but does it help reach voters across the divide? Because it’ll have to; Luneau ran against McCarthy in 2022 and lost by 15 percentage points. The same challenge faces Republicans across the state — the need to convince lots of people who voted Democratic in the past — and they seem to be approaching it in the same ham-fisted way as Luneau.

I feel safe in saying that because Luneau had his postcards designed, printed and mailed by NH-based Spectrum Marketing, which has done the same work for dozens of Republican legislative candidates around the state. It’s safe to conclude that Luneau’s bumpf is representative of the effort as a whole.

Luneau has sent most of his money to Spectrum. In addition to eight separate billings of $1,323.18 for “postcards,” he’s also gotten his yard signs ($705) and door hangers ($1,035) from Spectrum.

By the way, Luneau initially thought so little of a 2024 rematch that he never filed petitions to run for office this year. He won the nomination as a write-in, with no Republican candidate listed on the Franklin-3 primary ballot.

But after he won the primary, St. Albans-area business leaders lined up to give him money. Give him credit for getting most of his four-figure checks from actual constituents and their businesses, instead of depending on the Barons of Burlington. His donors include Handy Toyota (where Luneau is employed as Director of Operations), Handy Chevrolet, Handy Buick GMC Cadillac, Daniel Handy ($1,000 apiece), Carry Handy and David Handy ($500 apiece), Gosselin Rental and Gosselin Construction ($1,000 each), D&B Housing ($1,000), and Giroux Rental ($1,000). He’s raised a total of $23,719, of which only $1,245 came in increments of $100 or less.

Perhaps the sudden tide of money caught Luneau unprepared, because his spending seems decidedly unbalanced. There’s virtually nothing in his expense reports besides printed material from Spectrum ($12,325.44) and online advertising (total of $9,000 paid to a pair of St. Albans companies, Driven Marketing and Business Marketing Solutions). No love for the Messenger?

So let’s get to the postcards. The first features a small black-and-white photo of McCarthy (because all Democrats are shown in black-and-white, don’tcha know) alongside a quote from him opining that concern about crime in St. Albans has included “some exaggeration and misconception.” On side two, seen below, Your Vaguely Mobsterish Champion snaps back.

A couple of notes. First, there is no proposal anywhere to put a safe injection site in St. Albans. The Legislature approved one for Burlington. That’s it. Also, I’d like to know what he means by “Bail Reform,” because it seems at odds with “Ending Catch & Release,” a policy that exists only in the minds of conservative politicians.

The next mailer blames the Legislature for the school funding mess that left lawmakers with two choices: Allow property taxes to rise, or adopt Gov. Phil Scott’s fiscally unsound plan to effectively borrow against future Education Fund revenues to pay down this year’s bill.

Lovely generic clip art, that. The back of the mailer features the grimacing mug of Joe Luneau seen at the top of this column, and a promise to CAP PROPERTY TAXES, presumably no matter what that might do to the schools.

The final mailer in our sample slams black-n-white McCarthy for, you guessed it, increasing taxes and fees, while Luneau is proudly, resolutely AGAINST (all caps his) any such nonsense, no matter what public purpose the money might fund. Here’s another screenshot, provided for one unmissable design fail.

Okay, what’s with the line “YOUR 2024 STATE REPRESENTATIVE VOTING GUIDE” that seems to be listing downward? (Or maybe the line above is listing upward, I haven’t measured.) Real professional quality work there, Spectrum. Also, what “voting guide”? This is a frickin’ postcard.

Overall, it’s a cornucopia of needlessly busy design, ALL CAPS, clashing fonts, file photos, and the inevitable demonization of the incumbent. I can just see Luneau looking over the Spectrum sample pack and muttering to himself, “Yeah, that’s the stuff!”

Problem is, he may think it’s “the stuff,” but it won’t help him reach even a fraction of the 57% vote share McCarthy received in 2022. There may be enough dissatisfaction to cut into McCarthy’s margin this time, but remember this: 2022 was a non-presidential year. This year’s turnout will be at least 20% higher. And in the last presidential election, Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by a better than two-to-one margin.

That heavily Democratic electorate, strongly inspired to defeat Trump once again, will be storming the polls this fall. Luneau will have to reach a lot of those folks if he’s going to win, and he seems to have no clue how to do it besides resorting to the same ol’ conservative bag of tricks, executed poorly.