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."

The Incredible Lightness of Phil Scott

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A couple days after our uneventful primary, I roused myself from my Covid-induced stupor long enough to make a guest appearance on The Montpelier Happy Hour*, a weekly podcast co-hosted by journalist/broadcaster Olga Peters and Rep. Emilie Kornheiser, who was fresh off her pasting of a centrist primary challenger. Kornheiser said something that stuck with me. (Which is not unusual.)

* Video here, podcast here.

While campaigning, she asked constituents about their views of Gov. Phil Scott. She was looking for insight into the central mystery of today’s Vermont politics: Why do so many people happily vote for the Republican governor and otherwise elect Democrats up and down the ticket?

The most common response she got: Scott’s calm, reassuring leadership during the Covid epidemic. They still appreciate his even-handed approach, especially in comparison to the nutbag in the White House who talked of injecting bleach and sticking lightbulbs up your fundament. People presumably believe Scott would do the same thing in the next crisis, and that’s comforting.

But here’s the problem. When the times call for a steady hand on the tiller, Scott is that steady hand. When the times call for decisive leadership, Scott is that steady hand.

Vermont faces an array of challenges and crises. He’s been Vermont’s chief executive for seven and a half years now. I dare you to name a single major issue that’s improved substantially since Scott became governor. Instead, we have a perpetual standoff with the Legislature, which is trying to pry the tiller away from his steady hand. He offers much more resistance than direction.

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Bernie Does the Business

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I tell you, Bernie Sanders may not be running as a Democrat, but at the DNC this week he played the loyal party soldier to the hilt. In his Tuesday speech, he devoted about half his 12 minutes to praising the Biden-Harris administration, quickly ran through his Greatest Hits (to a lukewarm reaction from the crowd, more on that later), and called for an immediate cease-fire in the Middle East without mentioning Israel, Gaza, or Netanyahu, or uttering a single word of criticism for American policy.

But the biggest tell of all: After his customary slams at “the billionaire class,” his calls to “get big money out of our political process” and his bemoaning of “billionaires in both parties” being “able to buy elections, including primary elections,” Bernie was followed to the stage by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who is not only a billionaire, but looks like what a 6-year-old thinks a billionaire looks like. I mean, just add a top hat, vest, and gold pocket watch, and he’d look right at home in a Thomas Nast cartoon. Take away the hair and you’ve literally got the Marvel supervillain Kingpin.

And for what must have been the first time ever at a Democratic convention, Pritzker got applause by boasting of being “an actual billionaire.” You want to talk big money buying elections, Bernie? Pritzker bought himself the top job in Illinois by pouring $323 million into his two campaigns for governor.

The speakers list at major party conventions is a carefully curated thing, calculated to send messages and evoke feelings and impressions in the audience. They knew exactly what they were doing when they put Pritzker after Sanders. Hell, Bernie knew exactly what he was doing when he slammed billionaires buying elections — and Pritzker knew what he was doing when he implicitly dismissed Bernie’s rhetoric.

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“I Only Got the Albatross. Albatross!”

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Congratulations to the Vermont Republican Party for scrounging up 21 more candidates for state House! That’s right, in a post-primary meeting, the state committee filled a bunch of vacancies on its ticket and brought its total number of House hopefuls to a seemingly respectable 96. VTGOP Chair Paul Dame boasted of an “excitement and energy” not seen in the party since 2014. Funny thing, he skipped over the election of Phil Scott two years later.

Problem is, when you get up close and examine the merchandise, you realize that pretty much all they’ve got is dead albatross.

Dame speaks hopefully of the additional candidates increasing the party’s chances of killing the Dem/Prog House supermajority. Trouble is, I looked over the list of 21 late adds, and only three of ’em have a measurable chance of winning in November.

Albatross!

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And So We Trudge Predictably Toward Our Next Humanitarian Crisis

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Our political leaders — of all parties — are failing us again. And it was all perfectly foreseeable. In fact, it was quite literally baked into the most recent iteration of Vermont’s grossly inadequate policy on sheltering the homeless.

The damning details are available in “Vermont’s New Motel Room Limits Are Primed to Push Out Hundreds of Households This Fall,” posted Friday by shared VTDigger/Vermont Public reporter Carly Berlin (because homelessness isn’t a big enough issue to warrant separate reportage, apparenty). It’s not a pretty picture, not at all.

The headline should come as no surprise whatsoever, since the “new motel room limits” were designed “to push out hundreds of vulnerable households this fall.” The program is rolling out precisely as intended. Except, as Berlin’s piece makes clear, the looming reality is somehow even worse than that.

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The Myth of Democratic Intolerance

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In the wake of primary defeats suffered by business-backed “Democrats” challenging incumbents, Gov. Phil Scott and VTGOP Chair Paul Dame have taken to blaming everyone but themselves. The primary electorate, said Scott, includes “the extremes” among voters, resulting in “more polarization.” Dame put it less politely, saying the VDP “is no place for moderates any more.”

Yeah, well, bullshit.

Here’s what happened. A few people with no history of involvement in Democratic politics decided to run as Democrats. They were allowed to do so. Their campaigns were generously bankrolled by well-known conservative donors, including prominent Republican figures like former gubernatorial candidate Bruce Lisman. They were openly endorsed on primary day by the sitting Republican governor. And the voters opted for incumbent Democrats instead.

That doesn’t make ’em intolerant. It just means they’re not gullible enough to fall for the okey doke.

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Phil Scott’s Cunning Primary Day Plan

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It’s been years since Gov. Phil Scott has had to run a competitive race, and maybe his political team has gotten soft or something. Because when it comes to shooting oneself in the foot, it’s hard to top a Republican governor texting voters in Vermont’s most progressive Senate district on behalf of the centrist candidate. Who, spoiler alert, lost.

I mean, who’s in charge over there? Baldrick?

This wasn’t the governor’s only ill-considered stomp into Democratic primary turf. His team also sent texts on behalf of Elizabeth Brown, faux-Dem challenger to incumbents Tom Stevens and Theresa Wood. Both are committee chairs and influential members of the House Democratic caucus. Ya think they’ll remember this little misadventure with gratitude? Ya think the admin’s relationship with the Legislature just took a small but discernible turn for the worse?

My guess? Either Team Scott is just desperate to move the needle on legislative races or they’ve got too much time on their hands, what with a snoozer of a contest against Dem nominee Esther Charlestin their biggest “challenge.” Maybe they should just take the rest of the year off.

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A Happy Little Primary Night Cash Fire

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Tuesday’s primary election turned out to be a snooze. The most interesting development was how much money was wasted trying to unseat a small number of Democratic incumbents. They all won, as far as I can tell.

Firmly atop the Futility Rankings is former TV anchor Stewart Ledbetter, who finished fourth in the race for three state Senate seats in the Chittenden Central district. He raised almost $60,000 and spent a bit under $40,000 (tentative). He “earned” 3,159 votes, which cost him and his well-heeled donors about $12.56 apiece. Bargain!

Elsewhere in the “beat the Democrats” game, House Ways & Means Chair Emilie Kornheiser brushed off a challenge from business-backed Dem Amanda Ellis-Thurber, while the Waterbury duo of Reps. Tom Stevens and Theresa Wood defeated “affordability” Dem Elizabeth Brown, who spent gobs of cash and didn’t really come close to pulling off an upset.

Two quick takeaways: If there’s an anti-tax revolution brewing in the hinterlands, it did not show itself in the results. At all. And those allegedly smart business leaders just squandered a whole lot of money trying to push the Democratic caucuses toward the center. They might have scored one small victory, as Danforth Pewter chief Bram Kleppner took a Democratic nomination for House in Burlington. But that’s about it.

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One Neat Trick for Concealing the Reach of Your Political Donations (CORRECTION)

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Correction. I got a crucial detail wrong in this post. Donors do not file information. The donor info is gleaned from candidate filings. Misspellings and carelessness with donor names and addresses is their fault, not the donors’. The broader point remains, that the blizzard of typos makes it extremely difficult to track donor activity, but that’s not the result of their malfeasance, deliberate or otherwise. Also, my apologies for the delay in correcting; I’ve still got Covid and have precious little energy at all.

In what’s generally been an underwhelming primary season to date, one of the biggest developments has been the outpouring of support going from a bunch of Burlington-area business leaders to a relative handful of candidates. Look at the donor lists of the top earners and you see a bunch of the same guys (well, almost entirely guys) giving four-figure checks to the same people: Stewart Ledbetter, Scott Beck, Elizabeth Brown, John Rodgers, Pat Brennan, etc.

It would be highly instructive to track how much each of these minor tycoons is investing in political centrism and where they’re putting down their markers. And it’s almost impossible to do so, thanks to how the Secretary of State’s campaign finance portal processes donor reports and how the donors seem to be taking full advantage of a loophole on offer.

What’s happening is that donors submit reports with slightly different iterations of their names and addresses. When you search for donors, each report shows up as if it’s a separate person. For instance, if you search for “Lisman, B,” you get not one, but 30 separate matches. If you search for “Broughton, L,” you get 40.

Forty.

And most of them have few if any donations listed. If you want to find out how much Lenore Broughton has given to whom, you’ll have to open each and every one of those 40 in turn. It’s maddening.

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More Money Than Sense, and Other Notes from the Latest Round of Campaign Finance Reports

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August 1 was another campaign finance deadline, the last before our August 13 state primary. As usual, there was plenty of interesting stuff to be found. And as usual, there was a dearth of coverage in our sadly diminished media ecosystem. VTDigger waited a few days to put together a solid campaign finance database helmed by its longtime (by Digger standards) data reporter Erin Petenko. But any effort, by anyone, to identify trends or develop insights? Haven’t seen any.

Meanwhile, those who follow me on Elon’s Hellscape know why I’m late to the party. After doing a fair bit of spadework around the deadline, I came down with Covid. It was a pretty severe case for a few days and I’m still on the mend, but I feel able to put words on the screen for the first time since last Thursday.

Anyway, got some things to say. Let’s do the toplines first and then get to the details.

  • While the vast majority of candidates have trouble scratching a few bucks together, there are a few who have more money than they know what to do with. The primary’s one week away, early voting as been going on for roughly a month, and they’re sitting on large quantities of unspent cash.
  • Many of these hopefuls have been generously funded by a cadre of Burlington-area business types, who may look at their investments post-primary and despair at the improvidence of their strategery.
  • Two candidates got a rocket strapped to their backs by those business leaders in July. John Rodgers, running for lieutenant governor, and Rep. Pat Brennan, running for state Senate. They went from near zero on July 1 to huge, nigh unspendable hauls on August 1. Congrats, I guess?
  • Gov. Phil Scott’s campaign has far outstripped Democrat Esther Charlestin. Why his people are bothering to beat the bushes, I don’t know. I remain convinced that he’d be better advised to mothball his campaign and start a PAC — or a Super PAC — and spread his influence around.
  • The oddities around Thomas Renner’s campaign for lieutenant governor continue to proliferate. His fundraising slowed to a trickle in July, but he spent very little and has a sizeable unspent reserve. I still don’t know what his campaign is about. Or who’s running it, for that matter.
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The Scott Administration Would Very Much Like to Convince You That It Cares About Education

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I remember a moment, long ago in a much simpler time, when the Shumlin administration came under scrutiny for hiring communications staffers for multiple state agencies. In fact, hey, here’s the story from Seven Days way back in 2012, reporting that while candidate Peter Shumlin had vowed to cut communications people from state agencies, his administration eventually tried to hire even more of ’em.

Well, now we have a job listing from Gov. Phil Scott’s Agency of Education seeking a “Director of Policy, Strategy, and Communications” at an hourly rate of $40.83, which amounts to an annual salary in the $80,000 range.

Okay, so the idea that comms people are a luxury seems kind of quaint nowadays. But wait, there’s more!

The Director, according to the job description, “will oversee a team of three digital communications and policy specialists.”

Yep, that’s right. The Education Agency doesn’t just need a flack. It needs a gaggle of flacks to handle both external and internal communications. This “team” would not only handle the press, legislative relations and interagency communications — it would also serve as a middleman between AOE leadership and its own people.

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