Category Archives: 2016 election

How to kill a political career in one easy step

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Ruh-roh, Raggy. Looks like a budding politico is in danger of failing to get out of the starting gate.

Following the news that D.C. journalist (and Vermont native) Garrett Graff was coming home to run for lieutenant governor, Seven Days’ Paul Heintz pointed out the elephant in the room: State law requires candidates for the state’s top two offices to “have resided in this State four years next preceding the day of the election.”

Secretary of State Jim Condos felt the need to consult with the Attorney General’s office over that tortuous bit of legalese. Well, he has, and in a follow-up post by Terri Hallenbeck, the news isn’t good for Young Graff.

…Condos said that after studying residency requirements for candidates in the Constitution of Vermont and consulting with the Attorney General’s Office, “We are not sure how Mr. Graff could meet this.”

Hoo boy. This could be the biggest political boner in Vermont since “Six Teats.”

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The Phil Scott conundrum

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Two truisms at war:

1. Vermont faces big challenges, and Vermonters are hungry for a new direction.

2. Phil Scott is the apparent front-runner for governor.

Does anybody else see anything wrong with this picture?

Just about everyone agrees that we face a bunch of big problems. Some solutions are in process, more or less successfully (Lake Champlain, school reorganization, health care reform) and others lie squarely in front of us (the annual budget gap, an outmoded tax system, soaring Medicaid costs, bad demographics, wage stagnation).

Vermont Republicans offer an apocalyptic vision of a Vermont bankrupted by Democratic mismanagement and prodigality. Democrats and Progressives acknowledge a long list of challenges we face.

And yet Phil Scott, a man who’s made his political bones by being inoffensive, and whose “platform” so far is about as radical as a bowl of oatmeal, looks to be leading the field. And those Republicans, who view Vermont as teetering on the brink of disaster and in need of far-reaching, fundamental change, would be perfectly happy to elect good ol’ Phil.

Er, that’s the same Phil Scott who happily served in Governor Shumlin’s cabinet and worked with the administration on a variety of issues. At least, he happily did so until he got the gubernatorial itch himself, and started distancing himself from the incumbent.

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The increasingly random race for lieutenant governor

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It gives me a tingle to see that the Democrats now have three declared candidates for lieutenant governor, and their ages add up to less than 100 (34 + 29 + 28 = 93). Maybe this puts the last nail in the coffin of Sen. Dustin Degree’s claim that the VTGOP is the party of youth. (Heck, if you add any two of the Dems together, they’re younger than the lone Republican candidate, 72-year-old Randy Brock.)

Otherwise, though, the latest entry into the field leaves me wondering: Who asked for this?

Garrett Graff is an accomplished young man. I look forward to hearing what he has to offer, and God knows he’s got plenty of time to reveal it. But look: he hasn’t lived in Vermont since he graduated from high school in 1999. He’s been part of the D.C. media scene since 2004. He is only now relocating to Vermont, just in time to make noises about a candidacy.

Of the five declared candidates for Official Senate Gavel-Warmer, two are perfectly understandable: former State Senator and Auditor Randy Brock, and State Rep. Kesha Ram. After that, the field has an appearance of randomness.

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Evidence of Bruce Lisman’s appeal (hint: microscopic)

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This week’s “Fair Game” column by Paul Heintz had some notable tidings near the end: Campaign for Vermont, the public policy nonprofit founded — and almost exclusively funded — by Bruce Lisman, appears to be on its last legs.

Now that Lisman is fully ensconced in his campaign — and has turned off the $1.35 million spigot that funded CFV — the organization appears to have fallen on tough times. Earlier this month, policy and operations manager Ben Kinsley decamped to the Lisman campaign. And now executive director Cyrus Patten says he’s on his way out the door.

According to Patten, who apparently isn’t averse to spilling bad news now that he’s out the door, CFV has a mere $40,000 left in the bank.

Lisman and Patten were constantly bragging about CFV’s alleged influence in the Statehouse and its progress in building an independent political movement, but there was precious little objective evidence to support their claims. After Lisman stopped writing the big checks, Patten claimed that an aggressive fundraising/membership campaign was starting to pay dividends.

Guess that was just a steamin’ pile of bullshit.

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All boot, no cattle

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So the five major-party candidates for governor got together earlier this week for Gov Pitch, a forum on boosting Vermont’s economy hosted by the fine folks at Fresh Tracks Capital. A couple of items caught my attention: Bruce Lisman’s curious choice of footwear, and the impenetrable vagueness of the Phil Scott campaign.

First, Bruce’s Boots.

Four of the five were dressed for business, including well-polished footwear in black or brown. Bruce Lisman, apparently desperate to come across as a true-blue Vermonter, sported a pair of beige shitkickers — the kind of boots you’d normally wear in a barnyard. Here’s a piece of a Seven Days photo:

Matt Dunne, Bruce "Boots" Lisman, Shap Smith

Matt Dunne, Bruce “Boots” Lisman, Shap Smith

I seriously doubt he ever wore those to his digs in the dark heart of Wall Street. Then again, we’re kinda-sorta supposed to forget about his decades-long immersion in the culture of high finance and accept him as a born-and-bred Vermont boy. Just like, mmm, Rich Tarrant.

Anyway, nice try, Bruce. But in the future, you might just stick with the Guccis and try to prove your bona fides with the substance of your remarks.

On to Phil Scott, whose campaign has trumpeted his LEADERSHIP but said little to indicate where, exactly, he wants to LEAD us.

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The Progressives are kinda screwed

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Whiter the Progressive Party? I don’t know; there isn’t a clear path forward, and obstacles litter the landscape. They’ve gained strength in the legislature, mainly by running candidates on the P/D or D/P tickets; but they’ve just about reached the limits of that tactic, and may have hit a glass ceiling.

The Progs are anxious to make a splash in 2016, having sat out the last three gubernatorial elections in order to give Peter Shumlin a better shot at creating a single-payer health care system, hahaha. His abandonment of that goal, barely a month after his third re-election victory, plus the Dems’ habit of triangulating to the center on a host of issues, has left the Progs in a bitter mood. They’re itchin’ for a fight, and would especially like to field a credible candidate for governor.

That’s looking increasingly unrealistic. For starters, nobody seems to want to run.

This is an unintended side-effect of the Prog/Dem strategy, which has put several Progs in positions of legislative influence. Examples: Tim Ashe chairs the Senate Finance Committee; Anthony Pollina has a bully pulpit in the Senate; organic farmer David Zuckerman is vice chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee; and Chris Pearson is vice chair of the House Health Care Committee. One could argue that the Progs have been granted more influence than their sheer numbers would warrant. Or, in the words of Lyndon Johnson, the Democrats saw it’s better to have the Progs inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.

And indeed, it’d be hard to give up that level of influence to make a long-odds, short-funded bid for higher office.

Compounding the difficulty is that any high-profile Progressive would likely depend on public financing. That was a difficult enough pursuit in previous years (just ask Dean Corren or John Bauer). Now, it seems to have become completely untenable.

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A curious endorsement

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So last Friday, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Matt Dunne endorsed Bernie Sanders for President. Which struck me as an interesting, nay curious, move — partly due to policy, and partly due to timing.

Above all, and pardon me if my blogger cynicism is showing, it struck me as less a heartfelt choice for President and more a positioning maneuver in the Democratic primary. It seems designed to reinforce Dunne’s claim as the outsider in the race, since many current Dem officeholders have opted for Hillary Clinton. Policy-wise, I’d expect Dunne to have more common ground with a centrist than a Democratic Socialist. Indeed, in his endorsement Dunne tried to paper over the potential differences between himself and Sanders by emphasizing what “Bernie has been talking about” over the solutions Bernie proposes.

All along, Bernie has been talking about issues of critical importance at this moment in time: the loss of our middle class, addressing global climate change, fixing our broken healthcare system, providing needed support for our veterans and seniors, and giving the next generation the opportunity to graduate from college debt free.

Take the last one, for example: Sanders and Dunne both want to give students “the opportunity to graduate… debt free.” But I don’t think Dunne would back Bernie’s call for free tuition or anything like it.

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Bruce Lisman has some stuff to sort out

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Well, our very own Wall Street panjandrum has formally launched his gubernatorial bid with a bold, perhaps unprecedented, first move:

He okayed a campaign logo without a speck of green in it.

Instead, he bravely opted for a sky-blue field, backing what appears to be the label from a long-lost brewery: Lisman Lager, the beer that claims to be different from all the others but tastes oddly familiar.

That’s the bold move. The rest of his launch was a pastiche of mixed messages and same-old same-old.

Let’s start with his Jeb! problem. As a presidential candidate, Jeb Bush had to decide how to address the legacy of George W. Bush. And he hasn’t. He’s tried to present himself as his own man, but that effort is undercut every time he rushes to W’s defense. He winds up talking much more than he should about 9/11, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Lisman’s “George W. Bush” is his Wall Street career.

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Hillary for President

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Been thinking about this for a long time, waiting to see if something would change my mind. Could still happen, but for now, I’m settled.

If the presidential primary were today, I’d vote for Hillary Clinton. With apologies to Bernie, to all of Bernie’s supporters in Vermont, and to those who believe theVPO is a “hyper-partisan, far left blog.”

Why Hillary? Glad you asked.

First and foremost, Clinton is much more electable than Bernie Sanders. The policy differences between them are less important to me than keeping the Republicans out of the White House. Especially with at least two Supreme Court seats likely to come open in the next five years. It’s just hard for me to see Bernie appealing to a national electorate, especially if the Republicans come to their senses, reject the absolute crazies, and nominate someone plausible like Jeb! or Rubio.

Clinton is the best person to take on the partisan snakepit of Washington. She’s been through the wars, over and over again. She can handle it. I believe she would accomplish more than a President Sanders, even though she’d have a less ambitious agenda.

Last Sunday on “Meet the Press,” Chuck Todd asked Bernie how he’d advance a Democratic Socialist agenda through a Congress that might still have Republican majorities. Bernie acknowledged that he couldn’t do it on his own — that he’d need a “political revolution” with masses of voters demanding change. Call me cynical, but I don’t see that happening. Most people can’t be bothered to do anything more than vote once every four years. Maybe a Sanders presidency would energize the masses, but I doubt it.

Gender definitely plays a role. When other factors are equal, I’ll vote for the female candidate because women are so grossly under-represented in American politics. There is value in having a woman President, in terms of personal connection to gender issues and in sheer symbolic terms. The more glass ceilings we can break, the better.

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Milne for Senate?

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Curious item landed in my inbox this morning: an email from Scott Milne.

Well, not a personal email — it was a blast message to his mailing list, entitled:

Scott Milne challenges Pat Leahy to get money out of politics.

The message slams Leahy for holding a fundraising event over the weekend, at which attendees were (according to Milne) charged “$5,000 for face time with Vermont’s senior Senator.” Milne compares this unfavorably with Leahy’s predecessor, St. George Aiken, who “spent $17.09 on his entire last campaign for the Senate in 1968 [and] spent a total $4,423.03 for all six of his U.S. Senate campaigns combined.”

Well, in 1968 Aiken occupied both the Republican and Democratic slots on the ballot, and managed to win re-election with, ahem, 99.9 percent of the vote, which makes me think he wasted seventeen bucks. The bulk of his career took place when the GOP absolutely ruled the roost in Vermont. But I can just hear Milne say, “Leahy is as bulletproof as Aiken; why raise money at all?” To which Leahy would reasonably reply, “In politics, you never know.” Especially since conservative groups have begun to spend money on Vermont elections. It’s only prudent for Leahy to build up a warchest.

But the biggest question raised by Milne’s email is simply, Why? Why is he attacking Pat Leahy?

If this were any politician not named Scott Milne, the answer would be obvious: he’s going to run for U.S. Senate. In Milne’s case, it might simply mean he got out of bed this morning and decided to write a letter.

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