Category Archives: 2014 election

The Milne Transcripts, part 7: No vilification here, nope, no sirree.

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This the penultimate entry in my series of posts from Scott Milne’s trainwreck of an interview on the July 25 edition of WDEV’s Mark Johnson Show. Yes, only one more entry after this. Believe me, there could have been more. The hour-long interview is packed with uncomfortable pauses, inarticulate phrasings, abrupt transitions, unanswered questions, and general bumblefuckery. 

Over and over again in his young campaign for Governor, Scott Milne has insisted he will not “vilify” Governor Shumlin. He said so in his campaign-kickoff speech, and immediately followed that promise with words like ultra-progressive, brazen, bullying, radical, headstrong, and “unbridled experimentation.”

No vilification there, none at all.

Milne was apparently nonplussed by the reporting of his speech in this space and at VTDigger, which pointed out the obvious contradiction. Because early on in his Mark Johnson interview, he stuffed this little gem into a discussion of the Shumlin Administration’s competence:

…it’s hard to get into this game without — you know, I want this, this, these are political objective words not meant to be mean-spirited or, and my tone is, you know, I respect most of what Shumlin and his family have accomplished, so it’s not personal at all, but on the one hand you’ve got this guy who’s a very deft, smooth, political guy. On the other hand, if I compare him to the governors going back to Phil Hoff, he’s the mo — he, he, he doesn’t, he doesn’t stack up well against any of them in my opinion.

Got that? Words like radical, brazen, and bullying are “political objective words not meant to be mean-spirited.” Because he respects “most of what Shumlin and his family have accomplished,” but on the other hand, Shumlin is the worst Governor in Milne’s living memory. 

I’d say he’s trying to thread a needle, except there’s no hole. He’s trying to thread a pin.

The rest of the interview was studded with criticisms, not of the Governor, but of the “Shumlin Administration.” Even when the criticism was clearly aimed at the top man in the operation. Take this:

My read on the Shumlin Administration is they run the state like it is a campaign. They’re always readin’ polls, figurin’ out what’s gonna be popular and pretendin’ they’re leadin’ that parade. And I think that’s the opposite of what we need for leadership.

See, you can’t pretend to be talking about the entire Administration by slamming its “leadership.” When you’re talking leadership, you’re talking about the leader — not the team.

At one point, Milne praised Doug Racine as “a man of great integrity.” Later, Johnson asked if he also considered Governor Shumlin “a man of integrity.” Milne squirmed like a fish on the hook.

Uh, Doug Racine, I think, is uh you know, uh, in my limited dealings with Doug Racine, he’s totally comfortable looking you in the eye and telling you he disagrees with you and trying to convince you to agree with him or disagree with you.  My experience with the Shumlin Administration is, that’s not exactly the — uh, and integrity, uh, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t say anything about Governor Shumlin’s integrity. I would just say, I think that they run the state like it’s a political campaign, and I would like to see the state run like it’s a, a family where we need to make sure that we’re looking out for our own best interests in the long term.

Woof. Even if you like Scott Milne, even if you plan to vote for him, that’s just painful to read.

It’s a common problem with the nascent Milne campaign: he’s trying to carry out complex rhetorical maneuvers, but he just doesn’t have the skills.

This is the problem when a person who’s successful in another field (usually business; see also Tarrant, Rich) takes a leap into the deep end of politics. A good politician possesses a broad range of skills: crafting a message, interacting with the public, giving speeches, being interviewed, managing a campaign, and a whole lot of stamina. Among other things.

Aside from one losing campaign for a much lower office, Scott Milne is a political newbie. You compound that with a very late entry into the race, and this is what you get.

In the last installment of The Milne Transcripts, I’ll recount some of the worst moments from his interview. I’m serious; there’s worse.  

The Milne Transcripts, part 6: The supreme importance of tone

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Yet another installment in my reports on Scott Milne’s rather disastrous July 25 appearance on WDEV Radio’s Mark Johnson Show. It was his first in-depth interview since formally launching his campaign for Governor. As such, it provides a window on the motivations, priorities, and political skills of the likely Republican nominee. 

Vermont Yankee wasn’t on Mark Johnson’s agenda. After all, it’s a fait accompli; Entergy stopped fighting to keep VY open when low natural-gas prices made it a financial loser, and a closing date has been announced. But Milne brought it up unbidden while trying to deflect attention away from a very unflattering discussion of health care reform, in which he appeared to confuse Vermont Health Connect with single-payer health care. (The former is operational, albeit troubled; the latter is Governor Shumlin’s yet-unattained Holy Grail.)

Milne was critical, not necessarily of the shutdown itself — he remained carefully neutral on that — but on the Shumlin Administration’s “tone.” Which, it seems, is one of the biggest bones Milne has to pick with his prospective opponent.

The tone and the style with which the Shumlin Administration went forward with that… we’re going to end up with a nuclear toxic slum on the banks of the CT River for probably 65 years or whatever the maximum decommissioning time is.

…Iif we had a Governor who was much more, in tone, business-friendly and working cooperatively to fix problems even with people that you disagree with, we could have given them a license extension. In exchange, gotten them to pony up the money for the rapid decommissioning.

Mmm, yeah, a couple problems with that. First, Entergy has never shown any willingness to adequately fund VY’s decommissioning; they’ve always played for the maximum amount of time. Given Entergy’s track record, it’s extremely doubtful that a different “tone” would have induced them to agree to a very costly proposition.

Second, Entergy stopped fighting for VY because it had become a financial drain. Why would they agree to commit hundreds of millions of dollars to the decommissioning find at a time when VY was already hurting their bottom line?

For Scott Milne to believe he could have convinced them otherwise reveals a dangerous combination of naivete and unfamiliarity with the issue.

Speaking of naivete, MIlne apparently believes that a different “tone” is all we need to make Vermont a growing, prosperous economic miracle. He’s harshly critical of Shumlin’s economic record, but when asked how he’d do things differently, this is what he comes up with:

Our primary, um, fix that we’re going to offer to Vermont is, uh, a much better tone and friendly tone towards business, and then some specific plans about how to attract business and keep business in Vermont.

His “primary fix” is a “better tone.” He’s vaguely promising “some specific plans” somewhere down the road, but his #1 solution to our economic troubles is a “better tone.”

I dunno. To me, and to many liberals and progressives, Governor Shumlin is awfully solicitous of the business community. He seeks their input, he listens to them, someties he shapes his policies to accommodate their concerns… and he’s certainly attracted more than a Democrat’s usual share of donations from Vermont businesspeople. Indeed, perhaps the biggest reason for the Republicans’ financial woes is that Shumlin has co-opted many of their usual big-money donors. If Shumlin is such a negative for business, why aren’t businesspeople trying harder to unseat him?

Besides, “tone” by itself is nothing. The “tone” makes a difference only as it affects your policies — say, kneecapping Act 250 or otherwise easing regulatory processes. For Milne to call for a new “tone” as the “primary fix” strikes me as disingenuous. He’s presenting himself as a moderate, so the last thing he wants to do is offer detailed pro-business policies. That’d give away the game. Instead, he talks of “tone,” and sounds a bit like a fool in doing so.

The Milne Transcripts, part 5: I’m not telling you

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The latest in my series of posts about Scott Milne’s epically bad July 25 appearance on WDEV’s Mark Johnson Show. Not only is he not ready for prime time, he’s not ready for 9 a.m. on a weekday. 

If the late Fred Tuttle was the Man With A Plan, then Scott Milne, Republican candidate for Governor, seems to be the Man Without A Plan. Time after time during the interview, he refused to take positions on important issues. He deferred until September or even until after the election; he said issues were too complicated for him to immediately answer.

His usual excuse was that he’s only been running for a short time. “I’m new to this game,” he told Johnson at one point, “I should get 30 days.” This is a reference to his campaign strategy: August is for attacking the Shumlin Administration, and September is for unveiling his own policies.

Well, I can sympathize with a candidate who’s just getting started — but whose fault is that? Which inexperienced candidate waited until the last possible moment to launch his campaign?

Er, that would be Scott Milne.

It’s like an actor who agrees on short notice to step into the lead role in a play, but when the curtain rises on Opening Night, he tells the audience he needs more time to learn the part because “I’m new to this game.” You think the audience would walk out?

Sorry, Mr. Milne. You signed up for this. You knew the calendar. The lights are up, the curtain is drawn, and you’re on.

Let’s look at his platform of procrastination, shall we?

— On health care reform, he refused to take a stand on the concept of single-payer (although he also called single-payer “reckless” more than once, so take your pick):

The single-payer is clearly something that we’ll be continuing to look at, and talk to the folks that I’m talking closely with now, and we’ll have some more specific ideas on that before the election.

— He calls Vermont’s economy his top priority. What will he do? “We’ll have a plan for fixing the economy” before Election Day. But he did offer a hint about his plan — albeit a useless one:

Our primary, um, fix that we’re going to offer to Vermont is, uh, a much better tone and friendly tone towards business, and then some specific plans about how to attract business and keep business in Vermont.

Aha. His “primary fix” is a better “tone.” Which makes sense; his primary criticism of Shumlin is the “unfriendly tone” toward business. If we just adopted a better “tone,” our economy would shoot through the roof.

— At one point, a caller asked about the then-extant possibility that Vermont would temporarily house some of the immigrant chlldren who have crossed into the US. He began with some good hemming and hawing:

The, um, situation of, ah, folks coming into, ah, Vermont from Central America is, is a really tough one.

After that inarticulate start, detoured into a standard Republican attack on President Obama, filled with ums, ahs, awkward pauses, and even a “Holy Shamoley,” before Johnson prompted him to answer the actual question.

Uh, I don’t know yet. I mean, I’m not going to jump up and down and say no. … I think it’s a complicated decision that deserves a lot of thought.

And then he patted himself on the back for having no opinion on the issue — because taking a stand would be the easy thing to do. Uh-huh. Also the leaderly thing to do.

— On the vexing subject of reforming public-school funding and organization, Milne plans an even bigger dose of delay:

I don’t think we’re going to have a specific plan before the election. What I’ve promised is, there’ll be a plan from the Milne Administration in the House and Senate in the first half of the biennium.

I can understand why he doesn’t want to stake a position during the campaign; the issue’s a toughie, and he’d be alienating some voters no matter what he said. But again, not exactly Leadership in Action.

All this deferral makes Scott Milne look weak. It’s even worse when he sounds weak as well: his voice hesitant, his sentences often incomplete and littered with “ums” and “ahs.”

Scott Milne posits his procrastination as The Big Plan: the “August Strategy” of attacking, the “September Strategy” of revealing his own ideas. I would argue that this is completely ass-backward: Now is the time when Scott Milne has the stage to himself, because Governor Shumlin won’t formally start the campaign until after Labor Day. Milne should be rolling out his proposals this month, and engage the Governor in September and October, when the two men will be sharing the stage.

Of course, the September Strategy is a convenient rationale for a candidate who’s just getting his feet wet and hasn’t worked his way through the issues. He said so himself, frequently referring to “the people I’m talking to” as he formulates his own views.

Not a good look for a man claiming to offer “leadership.”

Best get crackin’, Mr. Milne. You’re on stage, you’re fumbling it, and you’re losing the audience.

The Milne Transcripts, part 4: The Great and Terrible Doug Racine

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Yet another instlalment in my epic series of posts from Scott Milne’s horrific appearance on WDEV’s Mark Johnson Show on July 25. It was his first long-form interview since formally opening his bid for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, and it was bad on so many levels… 

One of the many intricate dances Milne was trying to perform was projecting an image of moderation without alienating the GOP base. A difficult task, given that some prominent GOPers are already talking up Dan Feliciano, the Libertarian candidate.

During an attack on the Shumlin Administration’s alleged managerial failings, Milne went off on a tangent about the 2010 campaign. As you may recall, after Jim Douglas bowed out of the race, five Democrats jumped in — and Peter Shumlin eked out a win in the primary, with Doug Racine finishing a close second. Take it away, Mr. Bunny…

I would have loved to have seen a Brian Dubie/Doug Racine governor’s race. I think Doug Racine is an accomplished state public servant, a man of great integrity, and I would have loved that governor’s race. I would have supported Dubie in that, but I thought that would have been a good governor’s race with two very different, um, paths forward for Vermont. But where I would have felt like both people were just being totally candid about what they thought, and not trying to read polls and figure out what they needed to say to get elected.

Got that? Liberal Democrat Doug Racine, man of integrity, “accomplished public servant,” and quality gubernatorial candidate, unlike the unprincipled opportunist who won the nomination, and who shall remain nameless because Milne has declared that his campaign will not “vilify” anyone. (Just as I am not vilifying Scott Milne, a fine businessman who possesses many fine qualities — political skill being conspicuously absent from the list.)

But this remark was preceded by a direct attack on poor management at two agencies: Natural Resources, and Health and Human Services. The latter helmed, of course, by none other than Doug Racine. Just before this, Milne had slammed Governor Shumlin’s so-called “Team of Rivals” cabinet that included some of his adversaries in the 2010 primary. Milne said “I don’t think those were good management choices.”

Okay, so I guess the “accomplished public servant” Doug Racine would be a crackerjack candidate for Governor, but he has no business heading a state agency?

Of course, Milne made it clear that he, personally, wouldn’t have voted for Racine, but still: making Racine the Democratic nominee is putting him in line to run the entire state government, when you think he’s not even capable of running a subset thereof. It’s like saying Sarah Palin was a darn fine candidate but would’ve made a lousy Vice President.

It was a very poor way to make a very weak point. Milne apparently wanted to have something good to say about a prominent Democrat in order to burnish his bipartisan credentials. In the process, though, he managed to compliment and crucify the same person in the space of two paragraphs.

Stay tuned for more installments of The Milne Transcripts, coming soon to this space. But first, I gotta do some weed-whacking. 

The Milne Transcripts, part 3: The cellphone incident

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Note: It’s taken me longer than expected to spin out this series. I finally finished transcribing the whole damn hour last night. From now on, the postings will be more frequent. Promise!

On Friday, July 25, Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Milne appeared on WDEV’s Mark Johnson Show for an hour-long interview — his first extensive media appearnce since the official launch of his candidacy. It was, to put it candidly, a trainwreck. Lots of stumbles, abrupt changes of subject, talking points cut off in the middle, bad reasoning, and transparent fabrications.

But the most inexcusable moment came about 15 minutes in. What’s rule #1 if you’re a high-profile figure going into a live media appearance?

Turn off your damn cellphone. Or hand it to your trusty aide.

Naturally, rule #1 was unknown to the newbie candidate. We pick up the action in the middle of a lengthy discourse on the management failings of the Shumlin Administration…

When you look at that, and you sort of do this, you know, they’re sort of branding their, you know, Team of Rivals by bringing all of his primary opponents or most of his primary opponents into running state agencies, I don’t think those were good management choices.  I mean one, n, no, um — [his cellphone has started ringing] no, um, just —

Milne pulls his cellphone out of his pocket, but seems unsure what to do. After a few seconds, Johnson bails him out:

Just tell ’em to call into the program. It’s much easier. 244-1777 is our local number, toll free 877-291-8255, we’ve been talking with Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott MIlne.

That gives Milne a chance to fumble with his phone and finally shut it off. It took him a full 15 seconds. And then came a feeble attempt at humor:

Thanks for turning your phone off, Mark.

He chuckles. Johnson does not.

The Milne Transcripts, part 2: The accusation

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Early on in Scott Milne’s epic appearance on WDEV’s Mark Johnson Show last Friday, the Republican gubernatorial candidate unleashed a tough accusation against Governor Shumlin’s team — basically accusing them of bringing political pressure to bear against Republican donors.

Johnson had asked Milne about fundraising, and specifically about his relatively paltry take of $20,000 so far. Milne asserted that things were going according to plan, and said “I’m not all that actively pursuing money yet.” Johnson was surprised by this, and asked “You’re not actively pursuing money?” And Milne responded:

We’ve got a strategy for fundraising. I’ve got a fundraiser on board and she knows what she’s doing. But I’m not going to spend eight hours a day on the phone begging for money, and I’m clearly not going to call people up who donate to my opponent and ask them why, which is a widely known fact about this administration. 

Emphasis mine. Johnson was a bit incredulous, and followed up: “They do that? To people who contribute to you?” Milne’s response:

No, not me. But in the past. Get people on the show and ask them. But that’s clearly part of the Shumlin agenda.

Milne didn’t directly present this as a case of political blackmail, but that was the clear intent. A pretty damning accusation, presented completely without evidence. Yeah, “get people on the show and ask them.” As if victims of political pressure would freely own up to it on the radio.

Well, I ran this by Erika Wolffling, Shumlin campaign staffer this year and in 2012, which would seem to be the year Milne is hinting at. (A pressure play would have been ineffective in 2010, when Shumlin wasn’t even Governor yet.) Her very concise response:

That’s a bizarre statement, and it’s absolutely false.

So there. Ball’s in your court, Mr. Milne. If you have people willing to substantiate your accusation — on or off the record — I would be happy to speak with them. If you’ve read my stuff for very long, you know that I’m a liberal but an honest broker, willing to criticize members of any party if they’re in the wrong. And if there’s evidence that this accusation isn’t “absolutely false,” I’d consider it newsworthy and I would report it in this space. You know where to find me.

The Milne Transcripts series will continue very soon. 

VPR gives Peter Welch a big fat sloppy wet kiss

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Well, that’s four and a half minutes of my life I’ll never get back again.

This morning, VPR’s Bob Kinzel delivered himself of a lengthy (by modern public radio standards) piece devoted to a subject that was already in the realm of clear, obvious, unquestioned fact: Congressman Peter Welch likes to work cooperatively with people from both parties.

Everybody knows that. It’s an occasional source of irritation to Vermont liberals, who’d like to see a bit more fire and brimstone from the guy. So why did we need a news story exploring a settled question?

The host’s intro to the piece was all you needed to hear:

Congressman Peter Welch has one of the most liberal voting records in Washington. At the same time, he’s one of the few Democrats to work closely with some of the most conservative Republicans in the House. VPR’s Bob Kinzel has the story.

What followed was four minutes and thirty-eight seconds that added nothing to the above statement. It was one person after another complimenting Welch on his bipartisan spirit and willingness to work with even the most conservative tea-party nutbars in the Republican caucus.

This piece took a great deal of effort on Kinzel’s part. He got quotes from former Governor Jim Douglas, two very conservative Republican members of Congress, and a Congressional correspondent for the beltway publication Roll Call, plus some file tape of Welch at a committee hearing. You don’t often hear that many different people in a single public radio piece.

And for what? To re-establish a universally known fact?

Who came up with this story idea anyway? And how did it get through VPR’s notoriously painstaking editorial process? There was no “news hook” — no current event that shines a spotlight on Welch’s collaborative proclivities.

Plus, it seems inappropriate to send an unvarnished love letter to a person who’s currently running for re-election, for God’s sake. If I were Mark Donka, I’d be complaining vociferously to VPR for broadcasting what amounted to a lengthy advertisement for Peter Welch’s political virtue.

But most of all, it was a complete waste of time for a skilled reporter, VPR editors, and me, the listener.

The Milne Transcripts, part 1: An inauspicious beginning

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On Friday July 25, Scott Milne sat down for his first extensive media interview since launching his Republican candidacy for Governor. He was a guest on The Mark Johnson Show on WDEV Radio; Mark has archived the interview as a podcast. 

It’s a rich vein of material, and I’ll be rolling it out in sections over the next couple of days. I’ve transcribed the first 15 minutes so far, working my way through dense overgrowths of verbiage and sudden shifts of topic, delivered in a quick, stumbly, nervous monotone.

Let me pause here and say that I have a lot of respect for Scott Milne the businessman, and I appreciate his courage in taking on the thankless task of challenging Governor Shumlin. And just as he doesn’t mean to “vilify” Shumlin by referring to him as brazen, bullying, headstrong, radical, and ultra-progressive, I don’t mean to vilify Milne when I say that his performance was so inept as to be almost unlistenable, or that his campaign is off to a terrible, horrible, really bad start, or that any chance he had of mounting a serious challenge to the Governor has already evaporated like the mist of a midsummer morning. Nor when I call him the political equivalent to the 1962 Mets.

Nope, no vilification here.

He came across as a — well, here’s a choice quote:

I’m more interested in the campaign, making sure I’m out meeting Vermonters and reconfirming the reason I got into the race, which is a real fear of the direction the Shumlin Administration is taking the state, and the need for a, hopefully what the people will judge me as an articulate voice of opposition to that. 

Emphasis mine. “Articulate voice of opposition,” my Aunt Fanny.

Milne is a novice to the big political stage, and it may seem unfair to criticize his first sally. But good grief, he put himself in this position by jumping into the race at the last minute. He has no time for missteps, and he surely has no time for on-the-job training. He needed to hit the ground running with a coherent, convincing narrative. Instead, he’s hit the ground face first.

Want more? Oh Lord, there’s more.

There are some real problems with the economy in Vermont, there’s some real lack of leadership from the Shumlin Administration over the last four, or I would argue six years, ’cause he spent his last two years as President Pro Tem of the Senate really running for Governor. So he’s got six years into this, he still can’t even tell us too much about how he’s going to pay for VHC, to say nothing about taking accountability for the total mismanagement of it.

“Six years.”

Peter Shumlin’s been Governor since January 2011. Three and a half years. I don’t know what Milne is hoping to pull off with this six-year bit — which he also hammered home in a media scrum after his campaign launch. It’s transparently phony and unconvincing.

Milne then pivoted to another talking point, delivered with the same skill and grace.

Secondly, we’ve got this big problem with the school system, and we’ve got a Governor who, between vacations in Bimini or wherever his Caribbean vacation home is, and flyin’ all over the country to raise money from special interest groups, he found all kinds of time to do that during the Legislative session, but didn’t find the time or the need to roll up his shirtsleeves, walk across from the Pavilion fifth floor to the Capitol, sit down with House and Senate leaders and get something on the table that’s going to restructure property taxes so that, you know, you’re talking about my announcement in Barre, I stopped at Central Market, which has been there for at least two generations, I stopped in there for a coffee on my way over to my announcement on Wednesday at the Aldrich Public Library, ran into three people all of whom supported me emotionally, all of whom live in Florida and don’t live in Vermont anymore.

You can practically smell the smoke when he shifts mental gears from one talking point to another. He sounds like he’s been stuffed full of briefing notes and hasn’t had time to digest them. They just come spewing out in raggedy chunks whenever he opens his mouth.

Again, I am not vilifying Scott Milne, whom I respect as a person and businessman.

That’s enough for part 1. Coming up in the second installment: Milne makes a striking accusation against Governor Shumlin, the man he is not at all vilifying. And he provides not a speck of evidence.

Stay tuned, and getcha popcorn ready.

The Progs’ problem child

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As I’ve often said before, I have no patience for the petty disputes and long-held grudges that are often a feature of Dem/Prog relations in Vermont. And although there have been minor offenses aplenty on both sides, I think the Democrats have some additional responsibility to be the adult in the room. They’ve been around a lot longer, and they already rule the roost; the Progs are hardly a threat. Former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau famously compared US/Canada relations to an elephant and a mouse sharing a bed, and the same can be said of the Dems and the Progs: The Prog mouse can disturb the Dem elephant (instant mixed metaphor, sorry) by accidentally tickling it. The elephant can disturb the mouse by rolling over and crushing it.

That said, there’s a member of the Progs’ statewide ticket who is, inadvertently, doing all he can to annoy the elephant. That would be Ben Eastwood, Prog candidate for Secretary of State.

Yes, the same Ben Eastwood who shot down a motion to endorse Democratic incumbent Jim Condos by calling him a “crony capitalist” because of his former employment by Vermont Gas Systems. Which also, it must be said, gave Eastwood a clear shot at the Prog nomination.

Well, Eastwood has spent the first couple months of his “campaign” barely addressing the office he’s running for, and making often-incendiary comments on his current fixation: the Israeli military action in Gaza. He’s agin’ it, very strongly. And he has a right to express his opinions, but when I look at his Facebook page of message after message about the Middle East, I wonder if he’s really serious about becoming Secretary of State. The last time he mentioned the campaign on his Facebook page was June 12, when he’d just finished collecting petition signatures to qualify for the ballot.

Yes, I know he’s not going to win and so does he. But if he accepts a party’s nomination for a high office, he should at least present the appearance of engagement.

Beyond that, he’s been picking a fight with a couple of well-known Democrats over on Green Mountain Daily — Dem state committee alternate member Jack McCullough and Montpelier City Clerk John Odum by name. The details of the argument are many, and if you want to follow it, click on the link. The point is, Ben Eastwood, Progressive Party candidate for Secretary of State, is stirring up trouble with Democrats on an issue that has nothing to do with Vermont politics. He should know better, and he should be more responsible.

After all, this is happening at the very time that Dean Corren, Progressive candidate for Lieutenant Governor, is actively seeking Democratic support — and trying to overcome any bruised feelings that might exist from past Prog-to-Dem insults.

Seeking support from, among others, the colleagues and friends of Jack McCullough.

Here’s a tip, Mr. Eastwood. If you accept the honor of a party’s nomination, you assume responsibility for being a public face of your party and fostering your party’s image and prospects. You have a duty to focus on your own campaign and the office you seek, and temporarily stick a sock in it regarding other issues.

Any member of the Democratic state committee would be well within their bounds if, when called upon by Dean Corren, they asked him about his running mate, Ben Eastwood. It’d be perfectly appropriate for any member of the media to ask Corren if he supports Eastwood.

In addition to the trouble Eastwood is stirring up right now, there’s also the problem of his publicly-available record. He is either a vaccine truther or he’s strongly sympathetic with those who believe that vaccines are poison. He’s vehemently opposed to wind power. And he’s given hints of secessionist leanings.

To top it all off, remember the Progressive gubernatorial primary two years ago, when the Progs chose not to run a candidate and anti-wind extremist Annette Smith launched a last-minute write-in bid to secure the Prog nomination? Party stalwart Martha Abbott agreed to put her name up as a write-in, to keep the nomination from falling into Smith’s hands. After all, it would have been harmful to the Progs’ aspirations to have a person with an extreme and non-Prog agenda as the party’s standard bearer.

Well, Eastwood apparently wasn’t aware of Smith’s candidacy until after the fact, but he then wrote “I wish I’d known about Annette Smith’s write in campaign, and I would have written her in…” 

He would have written in Annette Smith over Martha Abbott? In spite of the clear and obvious wishes of his own Progressive Party?

And now, two years later, he gets one of the top spots on the Progressive ticket?

He certainly isn’t treating that honor, nor the office of the Secretary of State, nor the Progressive Party, nor the Democrats, with the respect they deserve. In so doing, he is hurting the Progs’ case to be taken seriously as a fully-formed, mature party capable of governing. Having someone like Eastwood on the statewide ticket makes ’em look more like a larger Liberty Union Party than a convincing alternative to the Democrats.

Serious-minded Progs, the likes of Corren and Chris Pearson, must be desperately hoping that Eastwood’s candidacy comes and goes without doing too much damage to the Progressive brand they are working so hard to create.

Another step down the rabbit hole for the VTGOP

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Terri Hallenbeck has livened up Your Monday Freeploid with an incendiary piece about Dan Feliciano, Liberatarian candidate for Governor. Well, the incendiary part isn’t about Feliciano; it’s about signs of Republican support for him. Hallenbeck quotes a few Republicans expressing interest in Feliciano because of his steadfast opposition to single-payer health care.

Including, most notably, one of the Vermont Republican Party’s top officials:

“I see people responding favorably to that,” said Mark Snelling, the Republican Party treasurer and son of former Gov. Richard Snelling and Lt. Gov. Barbara Snelling.

Snelling has yet to commit to a candidate. “I’m going to be interested in watching Dan Feliciano,” he said.

Oh, that’s just great. How about a little party loyalty there, Mark? I bet your far more distinguished parents are spinning in their graves.* Remember, this is the guy whose tenure as treasurer has corresponded to the bleakest period in history for the party’s finances. He was also, it must be said, part of “Angry Jack” Lindley’s team, and won re-election as treasurer last fall in spite of Phil Scott’s efforts to reshape the VTGOP hierarchy.

*Mark Snelling has corrected my egregious blunder; Barbara Snelling is, in fact, “alive and well.” I apologize, and thank him for the correction. 

Going even farther into quisling territory is state committee member Patricia Crocker, who outright says she’ll be voting Feliciano. Now, the state committee has a lot of members, so Snelling’s Lib-curious comment is more noteworthy than Crocker’s complete betrayal.

Hallenbeck also reveals that there was a petition movement in June to get Feliciano on the Republican primary ballot, which could have made the primary verrrrrry interesting. A sizable minority of the state committee was willing to back perpetual loser John MacGovern for party chair rather than voting for Phil Scott’s choice, “Super Dave” Sunderland. It would have been fascinating to see how much of the hard-core Republican primary electorate would have opted for Feliciano instead of the putatively moderate Scott Milne.

Especially since Milne’s initial forays into campaigning have been awfully dismal. More on that later.

Feliciano is encouraging supporters to cast write-in votes for him in the August primary. And Snelling openly muses that a Feliciano challenge to Milne would actually be a good thing:

Winning a write-in campaign for governor is a very long shot, Snelling noted. “I would be doubtful it would be possible,” he said. But Feliciano’s presence in the race could play a part in changing the debate, particularly on health care, Snelling said. “I would think the campaign trail is going to move Scott Milne to come out stronger.”

Hallenbeck chose not to quote, or seek comment from, notoriously unsuccessful Republican operative Darcie “Hack” Johnston, who has already voiced support for Feliciano. Johnston’s opinion shouldn’t have much pull in GOP circles, but I bet she’s still influential among the True Believers who’ve been dragging the party into electoral irrelevance.

With friends like those, Phil Scott and Super Dave don’t need enemies.