Category Archives: 2016 election

Hey look, Doug Hoffer may have a fly to swat

2 Replies

Don’t ever accuse the VTGOP of not being generous. They’ve apparently gifted Auditor Doug Hoffer with a new toy to play with a “serious” challenger for his post. I haven’t seen a news release or anything; all I’ve seen is this Tweet from VTGOP Executive Director Jeff Bartley.

Yay! Dan “Mr. Four Percent” Feliciano! The man who can never quite make up his mind whether he’s a Libertarian or a Republican. But no matter what the label, there’s one thing you can count on:

He. Won’t. Win.

Continue reading →

Good Ol’ Norm: Bloodied but not unbowed

5 Replies

Heh-heh. Just as I predicted, Senator-in-Purgatory Norm McAllister has filed petitions to run for re-election.

Heh-heh-heh. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Sorry. Political junkies get a little excited at the prospect of chaos among the comfortable class. And I bet the Franklin County GOP is wetting its collective pants.

VTDigger broke the news; McAllister dropped off his petitions at the Franklin County courthouse this morning, and (showing uncommon restraint for him) was not immediately available for comment.

Need I remind you: McAllister faces two trials on numerous sex-crime charges; he allegedly coerced women (over whom he exercised some measure of control) to have sex with him. He was arrested on the Statehouse grounds in the last days of the 2015 session; the Senate then spent the entire off-session with its head stuck in the sand, hoping Norm would just go away. When he didn’t, the Senate decided to suspend him for the remainder of the session.

So now that he’s thrown his hat in the ring, let the speculation begin…

Continue reading →

The “moderate” VTGOP is a mythical beast

33 Replies

A few interesting things came out of the Vermont Republican Convention on Saturday — besides revealing that Phil Scott can’t take a rhetorical punch.

I thought it shone a harsh and unforgiving light on the idea that Vermont Republicans are a breed apart — the last surviving redoubt of moderate Republicanism. That’s largely a fiction created in a desperate effort to appeal to the liberal Vermont electorate. It takes on the veneer of reality thanks to the thoroughly moderate image of Lt. Gov. Phil Scott. But the party ranks are full of garden-variety 21st Century Republicanism. Vermont Republicans may have thrown in the towel on social issues like marriage equality and abortion rights*, but they are a stoutly conservative bunch when it comes to brass-tacks issues like government spending, regulation, and taxation.

*Well, let’s say they are withholding the towel. I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts they’d change their tune if they ever achieved political power.

After all, this is a party that eagerly embraced John Kasich, a man whose tax plan would make Ronald Reagan blush with embarrassment. George W. Bush, too, for that matter.

But there were signs aplenty at the Convention that this is a party with a strongly conservative core.

Continue reading →

Phil Scott doesn’t like politics

10 Replies

Good on Bruce Lisman for finally taking a tough stance in his primary battle with Lt. Gov. Phil Scott. At the VTGOP convention on Saturday, Lisman came equipped with a newly-printed flyer that tied Scott firmly to the coattails of Gov. Peter Shumlin.

It got under Scott’s skin in the best possible way.

“This is D.C. tactics at its worst,” Scott said from the stage Saturday, holding up a copy of the flier before tossing it to the floor. “I gave Bruce a pass when he did opposition research on me… I can’t give him a pass on this. At least he’s showing me his stripes.”

Yeah! How dare he launch an accurate attack on Good Ol’ Phil?

C’mon, now. Phil Scott was a member of the Shumlin cabinet! He was right there in all the meetings, taking his place at all the photo-ops, and generally trying to depict himself as Not Your Typical Republican, a guy who can work constructively with anyone. Well, now it’s coming back to haunt him — from the right wing.

Continue reading →

A possible compromise on superdelegates

8 Replies

For those looking forward to shouting, fist-shaking, and furniture-heaving at Sunday’s state Democratic Convention, well, there’s a chance that good sense and a common carrot-topped foe may carry the day.

A group of folks affiliated with Rights and Democracy, the lefty grassroots organization, have put together a resolution on the contentious issue of superdelegates. And surprise, surprise, it doesn’t demand immediate action and it doesn’t demand that the four Hillary Clinton superdelegates switch over to Bernie Sanders.

The resolution notes the “inherent unfairness” in changing the rules in midstream for this year. Instead, it calls on the state and national parties “to require that superdelegates be bound on a first ballot to cast their votes in the same proportion as the popular vote in their home state primary election or nominating caucus” … “beginning with the 2020 presidential election.”

That strikes me as eminently reasonable. It would allow the party to reward top officials with delegate seats, but would tie first-ballot votes to the express preferences of the electorate. The supers could cast subsequent ballots, and conduct other party business, in accord with their own consciences and beliefs.

As for this year’s four supers who have promised their votes to Clinton, here’s the key passage of the resolution:

Continue reading →

The two triangles

5 Replies

With the entry of Shap Smith into the race for lieutenant governor, the two high-profile Democratic primaries have assumed weirdly parallel dimensions.

Each has three candidates.

Each has two men and one woman.

Each has two figures from the Democratic mainstream (one man and one woman), plus one man with a more independent streak.

(Matt Dunne may argue about the “mainstream” characterization,but let’s put it this way. He’s been a Democrat for quite a while. He held elective office as a pure-D Democrat. He’s not a narcissistic cuss like the other man in the gubernatorial race.)

There are parallel dynamics and uncertainties. Each woman is, obviously, in a position to capitalize on the pro-woman vote. (A lot of us want to improve Vermont’s woeful record on electing women to high office.) If she can do so and her two opponents split the “male” vote, she has a path to victory.

Each woman has also gotten off to a rocky start, and (so far) failed to galvanize broad support. Not that any of the men has been setting the world on fire.

Continue reading →

So, Shap.

4 Replies

The all-but-certain became reality yesterday. Outgoing House Speaker Shap Smith announced he will run for lieutenant governor. Thus making him a political rarity: a person who launches a campaign for one office, abandons it, and resets a candidacy for a different office. (He had killed his bid for governor last fall due to his wife’s illness.)

I’m not surprised. In fact, I’ve been promoting the idea since I first reported it way back on February 8.

At this point, it would be awfully difficult to re-enter the gubernatorial race. …But lieutenant governor? That wouldn’t be so hard.

… Also — and this is crucial for Smith’s personal situation — the job isn’t all that tough. He bangs the gavel in the Senate, he does some soft appearances around the state. He can pretty much set his own schedule.

He’d have a high-profile role at the center of state government. And it’s a great way to build name recognition for a future run at the top job — something Smith would still like to do.

Hey, I was right! You know what they say about blind squirrels and acorns.

Continue reading →

What Bernie should do now

5 Replies

There are signs the Bernie Sanders campaign is nearing a bitter end. Which would be a shame, because he has come so far and has the opportunity to do so much more.

More high-level staffers have left. The fundraising momentum has slowed. Bernie’s sounding a little cranky on the stump, and some of his supporters are moving from denial to anger in the Five Stages of Grief.

I’m not here to litigate the details of the Nevada thing or any other offense against human decency slash blip on the radar screen. I’m here to lay out a productive way forward for the Sanders campaign.

He can stay in the race until the convention. Got no problem with that. He should, however, spend his time on the positive message that’s inspired his millions of followers, rather than focusing on the minutiae of process.

Continue reading →

The Progs demur

1 Reply

The Progressive Party’s State Committee met on Saturday, and decided to stay out of the race for governor. Which strikes me as a small but measurable setback for Peter Galbraith, the self-described progressive choice.

As reported by Seven Days’ Terri Hallenbeck, the Committee did endorse Sen. David Zuckerman for lieutenant governor and the re-election bid of Auditor Doug Hoffer. No surprises there.

But the Committee opted not to endorse any of the three Dems running for governor, even though Galbraith, Sue Minter, and Matt Dunne each addressed the gathering in hopes of earning the nod. There were two major factors in the non-decision, party chair Emma Mulvaney-Stanak told me.

First, the Progs’ 2010 decision to stay out of the gubernatorial race in hopes that Peter Shumlin would deliver on single-payer health care and other key issues. “That left a very bad taste in Progressives’ mouths,” she said, and little enthusiasm for supporting a Democrat.

And second, the Democratic candidates failed to inspire the Committee. “None brought a Progressive ‘wow factor,’” she explained.

Their presentations were pretty similar. They didn’t exactly make a strong case for why the Progressive Party should endorse them. They seemed unwilling to go beyond what the Democratic establishment supports

All three have tried to wrap themselves in the Bernie Sanders mantle. But Galbraith more insistently than the other two. Was Mulvaney-Stanak surprised that Galbraith didn’t impress?

Continue reading →

A skeleton or two in Ms. Bucknam’s closet (UPDATED)

4 Replies

On Friday afternoon, we learned that Saint Johnsbury-based attorney Deb Bucknam had declared her candidacy for Attorney General on the Republican ticket, thus assuring the VTGOP of at least token representation in the race against Democrat TJ Donovan.

At the time, I noted the trail of online writings that reveal Ms. Bucknam to be a hard-right conservative who doesn’t believe in public education or global warming, wants to privatize Social Security, and thinks Calvin Coolidge was a great president. Among other things.

Well, a VPO commenter has disclosed a potentially disqualifying item in Bucknam’s legal career: back in 1992, her law license was suspended for 30 days* and she served a further one-year probationary period for “a pattern of misconduct” that encompassed “multiople offenses” including “outright lying to clients” and “chang[ing] the fee arrangement” without prior agreement with the clients. (All quotes from the Professional Conduct Board’s Notice of Decision, PCB File 89.53.)

*Note: Bucknam posted a Comment (below) letting us know that her suspension was overturned by the Vermont Supreme Court; she was instead “reprimanded and placed on probation,” she says. My own searches did not uncover any mention of the Supreme Court action. The facts of the case otherwise remain the same.

Continue reading →