Author Archives: John S. Walters

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About John S. Walters

Writer, editor, sometime radio personality, author of "Roads Less Traveled: Visionary New England Lives."

Bruce Lisman, cruisin’ for a bruisin’

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The weekly emission of “political analysis” from former Douglas Administration minion Michael Smith arrived, as usual, with my Saturday Times Argus. Most of it was the usual Republican-canted bushwah, but he led off with a paragraph that brought a smile to my lips:

Is Bruce Lisman considering a bid for governor? That’s what some are saying Lisman is telling them. In fact, one local businessman said Lisman told him he is definitely running.

Oh please. Oh please please PLEEEEEEEASE run for Governor. I’m beggin’ ya.

Because if he does, he’ll be setting himself up for his worst moment since that fateful time during the collapse of his former paymaster, Bear Stearns, back in March 2008:

In the middle of the afternoon, Bruce Lisman, the usually taciturn 61-year-old co-head of Bear Stearns’s stock division, climbed atop a desk near his fourth-floor office and demanded his traders’ attention. “Let’s stay focused,” he bellowed. “Keep working hard. Bear Stearns has been here a long time, and we’re staying here. If there’s any news, I’ll let you know, if and when I know it.”

His prediction soon proved inoperative, as Bear Stearns suffered an ignominious collapse in the financial meltdown that almost killed the global economy.

A gubernatorial bid won’t be nearly so cataclysmic — more of a whimper than a bang — but it’ll end just as badly for Our Man Bruce.

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Disconnect

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Well, that was quick. Vermont PBS has reversed course in a New York minute, jettisoning Kristin Carlson as host of its new talk show, now retitled “Connect.” The pressure must have been intense, and not just from this corner, because the decision leaves VPBS in a tight spot. They’ve got a weekly interview program. They’ve aired one episode, and they’ve got one more in the can. And now they’ve dumped the host, and they don’t have a replacement lined up.

According to [VPBS CEO Holly] Groschner, the station is still trying to determine whether to replace Carlson with a single host or a rotating cast of hosts.

Hoo boy. They’ve got about a week to make up their minds. And no, they haven’t called me, ha ha.

The sad part about this is, Groschner still seems blind to the problems with the Carlson hire. VTDigger’s Jon Margolis:

Interviewed Thursday, she wouldn’t agree that it would have been a conflict of interest for Carlson to host the show, saying that, “the perception of conflict is often in the eye of the beholder.”

Oh, so it’s OUR fault for perceiving a conflict.

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Limping to the finish line

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This morning on central Vermont’s meeting place of the minds, the Mark Johnson Show, David Mears announced his departure as head of the Department of Environmental Conservation. The move, he said, has nothing to do with DEC or the Shumlin administration or his performance:

“I was given an opportunity to go back to my old gig teaching law at Vermont Law School, and decided I just couldn’t turn that [down]. …It just happened to be that the position came open now, and law professor jobs don’t come along very often, so I took it…

“In all honesty, I would have liked to have stayed throughout the remainder of the Shumlin administration, but like I said the chance came along so I decided to jump at it.”

I have no reason to doubt him, but as VTDigger’s Morgan True pointed out:

This is where Shumlin’s lame-duck status could be most impactful.

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Seven Shades of Nothing

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After a couple of big surprises Wednesday morning, the rest of Campaign Finance Filing Day was rather a damp squib. Nothing much was revealed. Unless, that is, the “nothing” is in itself significant.

And I wouldn’t be a political blogger if I couldn’t make something from nothing.

And so, theVPO presents the top seven nothings and what they might mean.

In the race for Governor, four of the five top prospective candidates did nothing. A marginal hopeful did the same. As for the potential Democratic faceoff for Attorney General, neither incumbent Bill Sorrell not declared challenger TJ Donovan reported any new activity.

None of this is terribly surprising. Among those potential gubernatorial candidates, only Matt Dunne had an existing campaign structure (dormant since 2010) to accept donations. And by Vermont standards, it’s still extremely early for anyone to be beating the bushes.

The two likeliest Democratic candidates for governor not named Dunne, Shap Smith and Sue Minter, didn’t seek funds for a corner-office run. Smith reported a bit of fundraising for his State House campaign kitty, easily transferable should the need arise. This leaves Dunne with a sizeable lead — but there’s a lot of time to catch up. In this regard, Dunne’s dollar total is less significant than his ability to quickly sign up a brace of top-tier liberal donors in Vermont and in Silicon Valley.

On the Republican side, the losing 2012 nominee, Randy Brock, didn’t report anything. The putative front-runner, Lt. Gov. Phil Scott, didn’t do any new fundraising — but he has nearly $100,000 left over from his 2014 campaign, so he’s definitely in no hurry.

And then there’s Dan Feliciano, former Libertarian turned kinda Republican, who’s been pondering a second run for governor.

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Matt Dunne lays down a marker

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There are still many reports yet to be filed, but it looks like the big news from today’s midyear campaign finance deadline will be Matt Dunne’s hefty, and heavy-hitting, finance report. The former State Senator and onetime gubernatorial candidate reports $115,000 in fundraising — but since the report was prepared, he says, he’s added another 20K to the total, bringing his tally to $135,000.

Which is particularly impressive when you consider that he’s done almost all of that work in the last ten days. “Governor Shumlin made his announcement [of non-candidacy] only four or five weeks ago,” he said. After that, Dunne deferred to his political mentor, Congressman Peter Welch, who announced he would not run for governor on June 26 — the very day that Dunne was going out of town for “a long-planned family vacation.”

And yes, if you scan his list of contributions, the earliest date you’ll see is July 6. And the first names on the list: the heavy Dem donors Jay and Caroline Canning. Jay owns the upscale Hotel Vermont. Dunne kept his virtual rolodex* spinning as he contacted well-heeled Vermonters and his many acquaintances in Silicon Valley; Paul Heintz has many of the details in his “Fair Game” column. Suffice it to say that he’s cut a swath through the roster of deep-pocketed Democrats. (A couple names not mentioned by Heintz: Will Raap of Gardeners Supply, the Growald family of Woodstock, and from across the river, former Democratic Party National Committeeman Peter Burling and members of the Taylor family. Dunne’s wife is the author Sarah Stewart Taylor [hi, Sarah]; it’s always nice when you can marry well.)

*Come on, you don’t think a Google executive has an actual Rolodex, do you?

It’s hard to interpret this as anything but a strong marker — a sign to other potential candidates that Dunne is dead serious and has a lot of support, in spite of his nearly five-year absence from statewide politics. Absence, at least as a visible part of the process; he says he’s been heavily involved in various endeavors in Vermont that have kept him very much in circulation.

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Deep-pocketed Lieutenant Governor hopeful stakes his claim

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Well, here’s an interesting tidbit from Campaign Finance Reporting Day. (July 15 is a deadline for campaign finance reports.)

Brandon Riker, Brattleboro resident and (as far as I know) the only declared candidate for Lieutenant Governor, has raised over $100,000 for his campaign.

That number almost made me shoot Vermont Coffee Company coffee out my nose.

And then I looked down the list of major donors, and one name dominated the list.

“Riker.”

Young Brandon has given his own campaign $58,500. Other people named Riker (Brent, Craig, Julia, Leslie, Barbara, Dale, and Stephanie) have kicked in $28,000.

Nice to be a member of a family that can spare 86 grand on a newcomer’s first political campaign.

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And now, the next phase of the “Get Rid of Norm” campaign begins

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Yesterday, prosecutors and defense in the Senator Norm McAllister Incredibly Gross and Offensive Sexual Exploitation case got together and released the “discovery stipulation,” or in English, the projected timeline for a trial.

And as VTDigger’s Morgan True reports, it’s scheduled to take place “smack in the middle of the 2016 legislative session.”

Bwahahahahaha.

Wouldn’t that be fun? If McAllister remains determined to hold on to his seat, he’d have cameras following him everywhere he goes in the Statehouse, and following him back and forth to the courthouse, and reporters asking all sorts of embarrassing questions of fellow lawmakers (“Hey, Senator Mullin, got a minute? I want to ask about your old roomie.”), especially Republicans, and especially Franklin County Republicans.

Of course, legal experts say that delays are virtually inevitable, so the likely outcome is that the trial will happen sometime later next year. Buzzkill. Even so, the cameras and reporters will be swarming.

But with the legal schedule set, Republicans will redouble their efforts to convince McAllister to deliver the face-saving resignation they all desperately want. As Senate Minority Leader Joe Benning told me last month, once the discovery stipulation is revealed, “the process will be clear and Norm will have to face it.”

That is the hope, anyway.

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What’s your favorite boondoggle?

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Hey look, the state’s talking about boosting passenger trains! Cue the Republican Outrage Machine.

The [Vermont] Agency of Transportation has issued its first statewide rail plan in nearly a decade. The proposal envisions new passenger routes to Burlington, Montreal, Manchester and Bennington…

… The combined price tag for the 20-year plan totals $665 million, well more than the $380 million in state and federal funding anticipated over the same time frame.

I can hear it now: a waste of taxpayer dollars! Unconscionable subsidies for a bygone system! Passenger rail serves only a small affluent clientele of train buffs!

Republicans, after all, have been trying to kill Amtrak for years because they believe passenger rail should pay its own way.

Which sounds nice in theory, makes a good sound bite. Problem is, there isn’t a transportation system of any kind that can stand on its own two feet. They all require massive subsidization.

Roads and highways, well, that’s easy. Construction and upkeep is entirely a taxpayer-funded enterprise, with the very occasional exception of toll roads. If we actually apportioned the costs on the basis of usership, the cost of long-distance trucking would go through the roof. Cargo trains would suddenly seem like a bargain by comparison. And if inter-city commutes reflected their true costs, well, let’s just say CCTA would have to greatly expand its LINK service.

But air travel is the big enchilada. An airport manager once told me, “Airports inherently lose money.” The infrastructure and security costs are borne by taxpayers, most of whom rarely or never use the facilities. (Talk about taking from the poor and giving to the rich.)

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A cup of weak tea… with Kristin Carlson

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Last week, I reacted to the news of Vermont PBS’ new program, “Connect… with Kristin Carlson” with a measure of skepticism over the host’s dual role — as host of the show, and as lead spokesperson for Green Mountain Power, the state’s largest utility.

Since then, the show has had its premiere. And sorry, I didn’t watch. I did, however, listen to Carlson’s July 9 interview with WDEV’s Mark Johnson about the new show. During the interview, Johnson quizzed her about the conflict of interest questions. And her answers were surprisingly weak and one-dimensional. Uncharacteristically so, for a person with double digits’ experience in TV news who’s now one of the most prominent corporate spokesflacks in Vermont. I presume she does a better job when she’s representing GMP.

Anyhoo, kind of an underwhelming performance. Her fallback position, expressed several times, was that this is not an “issue” show, but a show about “sharing the stories of Vermonters.” She’ll avoid talking with people who would create an obvious conflict — which could include quite a swath of Vermonters, depending on how you interpret “conflict.” She wouldn’t interview GMP President Mary Powell — or anti-renewable activist Annette Smith, for that matter. But how far does she take it?

Is anyone involved in energy issues, or environmental issues, or business, on the no-show list? To be on the safe side, they probably should be; but the bigger that list becomes, the more incomplete the show becomes.

Johnson asked about potential guests who don’t have an obvious conflict, but “you never know where a conversation is going to go.” Her response?

… I do a lot of the pre-interviews with people, talk to them about what we’re going to talk about, and if I get into an area where I might think ‘Okay, this might be a little, mmmm,’ then we just won’t do it.

My prediction? If she plans to err on the side of caution, this will by necessity be a pretty toothless show. Or at best a deficient reflection of Vermont’s character.

But that’s not the real problem.

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The Deep Derp of John Ellis Bush

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Pardon the diversion from my usual focus on Vermont politics, but I just couldn’t resist.

When I first heard about Jeb Bush’s “Americans need to work harder” statement, two thoughts came mind:

1. Isn’t he supposed to be the “smart” Bush brother?

2. Is this really what it means to be a moderate, “responsible” Republican in 2015? And if so, how is the VTGOP going to try to package and sell this manure pile to Vermont voters?

I was paraphrasing his actual quote; here’s the original, as stated in his interview with the New Hampshire Union Leader:

“My aspiration for the country — and I believe we can achieve it — is 4 percent growth as far as the eye can see. Which means we have to be a lot more productive, workforce participation has to rise from its all-time modern lows. It means that people need to work longer hours and, through their productivity, gain more income for their families. That’s the only way we’re going to get out of this rut that we’re in.”

There’s a lot of bad to unpack in that single paragraph, but let’s move on to Bush’s attempt to re-contextualize that little turd he laid on the heads of American workers:

“If we’re going to grow the economy people need to stop being part-time workers, they need to be having access to greater opportunities to work,” he told reporters.

… “You can take it out of context all you want, but high-sustained growth means that people work 40 hours rather than 30 hours and that by our success, they have money, disposable income for their families to decide how they want to spend it rather than getting in line and being dependent on government,” Bush said.

In actual fact, his clarification isn’t much of an improvement on the silver-spoon original.

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