Following his surprise victory over David Zuckerman last November. Lt. Gov. John Rodgers was widely seen as the Great White Hope of the Vermont Republican Party, someone capable of succeeding Gov. Phil Scott. I don’t buy it myself; I think he’s more likely to be the next Scott Milne than the next Jim Douglas. someone who enjoys a brush with electoral success but can never repeat it.

And the primary reason for my belief is that John Rodgers simply does not give a fuck.

The first sign of this was his live interview on local TV the morning after Election Night, when he chose to make his initial public appearance as LG-elect looking like he’d just rolled out of bed and stationed himself in front of the camera wearing a decidedly non-gubernatorial white T-shirt.

The most recent sign is this: Back on February 4, I wrote a post entitled “Bad Grammar, Typos, and Plagiarism: Welcome to John Rodgers’ Official Biography.” In the first line of his bio, he is identified as “the 84rd Lt. Governor of Vermont.” That’s right, “84rd.” There followed a cornucopia of misspellings and offenses against the English language. It was an embarrassment, not only to Rodgers but to the state of Vermont.

You’ll never guess how he responded to this revelation.

Oh, heck, you probably will.

It’s been more than five weeks, and he hasn’t changed anything about his bio. He hasn’t even replaced “84rd” with “84th.” He also hasn’t bothered to alter the opening paragraph of his bio, which was lifted almost entirely from Zuckerman’s official bio, a fact I discovered by looking up said bio on the Internet Archive. Rodgers changed “83” to “84,” but nothing else from Zuckerman’s opening sentence. Not even the “rd” suffix. AND HE STILL HASN’T.

This is no small detail. Rodgers’ official bio is his public face on the Internet, the first match you get when you Google “John Rodgers Vermont.”

And you know, we paid for that bio.

If nothing else, Rodgers might spare a thought for the kiddies. A person in a high elective position should be setting an example. The only example Rodgers sets is that of not giving a fuck.

It’s hard to imagine such a careless individual mustering the organization and effort necessary to successfully run for governor. It was one thing to beat a Zuckerman weakened by years of tacit Democratic Party neglect and hints of scandal over his relationships with Statehouse women, in a year when all Vermont Democrats took it in the shorts. (All five Democratic statewide officeholders lost about 10 points off their 2022 margins, but the other four still had comfortable majorities.)

Reminds me of that time when Milne almost beat a scandal-weakened Peter Shumlin, and never came close to replicating that level of success. Republicans looked at the 2014 results and thought they had a rising star on their hands. They can go ahead and dream of a smooth transition from Phil Scott to John Rodgers. They are in for a major disappointment if Rodgers puts as much effort into running for governor as he has for his official bio.