Category Archives: 2016 election

Will the VTGOP run an anti-renewables campaign?

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Sign, sign, everywhere a sign…

— 2010 Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Dubie emerges from five years of political hermitage to reveal himself as a vocal anti-wind advocate. He insists his stance has nothing to do with a proposed wind farm near his house, ahem.

— Lt. Gov. Phil Scott, the likely GOP gubernatorial candidate, doesn’t like ridgeline wind. He has described a road-to-Damascus moment when he was biking in rural Vermont, saw wind turbines on a ridgeline, and thought they looked ugly.

— Former Douglas Administration Ag Secretary Roger Allbee comes out of the weeds with an essay questioning whether wind and solar energy are in keeping with “Vermont’s environmental heritage,” which he describes in extremely rosy terms.

— Senate Minority Leader Joe Benning, a potential candidate for Lieutenant Governor, has expressed (on this very site) his opposition to any more large-scale renewable projects in the Northeast Kingdom.

— Then you’ve got VTGOP Chair David Sunderland, who has said “there’s science on both sides” of the climate change issue.

Taken together, that’s quite a few signs that the Vermont Republican Party will be running an anti-renewable campaign in 2016. Well, they’ll dress it up as favoring local control and taking “sensible” action (meaning little or none) while providing plenty of lip service about climate change.

This is one of the potential negative effects of a Phil Scott governorship: he would be a major obstacle to further progress on renewables.

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A wild Saturday night with the Windsor County GOP

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Sing it with me, boys and girls: “One of these things is not like the others…”

Feliciano, Tate, Dame, Lisman

That, my friends, is the star-studded lineup for Saturday night’s “gala dinner” hosted by the Windsor County Republicans. Well, that plus a “Soap Box” for any Republican candidate who shows up and wants to charm the crowd with some campaign bumpf.

Constant Readers will recall that Windsor County GOP Chair John MacGovern had touted the event with a list of “invited speakers” featuring a whole bunch of Republican notables: at least three presidential candidates, any and all Vermont Republican hopefuls, plus VTGOP godfather Jim Douglas.

Well, apparently most of those folks declined the invitation. Instead, we get the odd quartet pictured above: three of the most conservative politicos in the VTGOP, plus wealthy gubernatorial candidate Bruce Lisman.

And don’t forget the Soap Box!

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Ooh, Republican slapfight!

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The Vermont Republican Party, said by Sen. Dustin Degree to be the party of youth, now has a 72-year-old running for Lieutenant Governor to go with the 68-year-old (Bruce Lisman) and the 57-year-old (Phil Scott) running for governor.

The latest AARP-eligible to grace the Republican campaign is Randy Brock, former state auditor and state senator, and spectacularly unsuccessful candidate for governor in 2012.

The best account of Brock’s announcement comes from the Vermont Press Bureau’s indefatigable Neal Goswami, who got the dirt on a freshly opened rift on the VTGOP’s right wing.

Recently, Brock had met with former VTGOP Treasurer Mark Snelling (65 years old, Dustin). The subject: the two men’s shared interest in Vermont’s Bucket of Warm Spit.

Snelling said he and Brock had a recent meeting in which the two agreed to ask the state party to host a meeting with candidates interested in the position “to try and maximize the talents within the party.”

But Brock called Snelling Wednesday night to tell him he was announcing his candidacy.

Sorta like two boxers ready for a fight. The bell rings, and one fighter suddenly says “Hey, look, it’s Muhammad Ali!” Second fighter turns his head; first fighter whomps him in the gut.

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A handful of numbers, signifying not much

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Today’s big political news is yesterday’s release of a new poll from the Castleton Polling Institute. It measured name recognition and favorability for the declared gubernatorial candidates. The headline number, that Phil Scott has 77% name recognition, is not a surprise at all. He’s the only one in the field who’s run statewide general-election campaigns, and he’s done so each of the last three times. He’s also held numerous high-profile events, such as his Job For A Day Tour and the annual Wheels for Warmth charity drive. It’d be a shock if he wasn’t the most widely recognized.

(The importance of statewide campaigns in building familiarity can be seen by Scott Milne’s very strong 74% and Randy Brock’s respectable 60%.)

Overall, it’s so early in the campaign that the poll is largely meaningless except as a baseline for future polls. That’s exactly the word chief pollster Rich Clark used in characterizing the survey; he downplayed “any sort of predictive value.” Indeed, there’s nothing here that a good candidate can’t overcome in the 11 months until the primary. But hey, the goat’s been slaughtered, so let’s read the entrails.

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Nap Time with Uncle Jim

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I just had the misfortune of listening to former Governor Jim Douglas “interviewing” Lt. Gov. Phil Scott. It was an interview in the strictest sense of the word: Douglas talked, and Scott talked back. But if you were expecting insight or depth from this meeting of veteran public servants, you had to be sadly disappointed.

At the very least, I was hoping for some hot man-on-man action: the top Republican of the 2000s and the top Republican of the 2010s slapping each other on the back so hard they risked injury. But it was far less than that. It was bland. It was issue-avoidant. It was… DULL.

The occasion: Douglas was guest hosting Common Sense Radio on WDEV. Scott was the guest on the second half of the show, from 11:30 to noon. Well, they didn’t actually start until 11:35 because commercials, and Douglas wrapped it up at 11:56, God knows why. Early lunch date?

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The cat came back

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Hey, remember when Peter Galbraith gave up his bought-and-paid-for State Senate seat last year, to pursue a loftier cause?

The Townshend Democrat said his growing involvement in an informal effort to find a political solution to the Syrian civil war won’t allow him to continue serving as a state senator.

Well, that noble sentiment appears to be inoperative. Or so reports the (paywalled) Vermont Press Bureau:

Will former Windham County Sen. Peter Galbraith join the crowd of candidates hoping to succeed Gov. Peter Shumlin? It seems more and more likely. Galbraith has not returned calls regarding that inquiry, but sources say he is actively considering it.

GalbraithOh, good Lord. Longtime readers know how I feel about Galbraith; he spent $50,000 of his oil fortune to grab an open Senate seat in 2010, and quickly made himself a hated figure in the Statehouse because of his immense self-regard (even by Senate standards!) and his habit of loudly promoting his own ideas. Made you wonder how he ever made a living as a “diplomat.”

Well, apparently his ego is getting in the way of his peacemaking impulses. The people of Syria will just have to wait, while he ponders a vanity candidacy for governor.

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Mike Smith, unofficial publicist for the Scott campaign

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If the past couple of Sundays are anything to judge by, Mike Smith may be trying to recast himself as less of a partisan figure. The new host of Not The Mark Johnson Show on WDEV has been a devout Republican throughout his adult life, as far as I can tell; and until recently, his weekly opinion columns have consisted largely of Republican boilerplate.

The last two have been resolutely nonpolitical. But if he’s trying to rebrand himself as a nonpartisan for the sake of his radio credibility, he’ll have to watch what he says on WCAX, where he’s an occasional political analyst.

Several days ago, after Sue Minter formally entered the gubernatorial race, Smith appeared on Channel 3 along with fellow analyst Steve Terry. (Presumably they’re the Point-Counterpoint of WCAX.) And here’s an excerpt from their not-terribly-interesting analysis.

Steve Terry: This is now a wide-open race. It gives Democrats, those who vote in the primary, a real solid choice.

Mike Smith: The ability of both Shap Smith and Sue Minter to distance themselves from the Shumlin administration is going to be key for them.

Steve Terry: One of the things that I’m looking at among the three Democrats is how strong they push a single issue of job creation. They may mention jobs a little, but it’s never blank equals jobs.

Mike Smith: Right now, Phil Scott owns that fiscal message.

Okay, bud. Hold it right there.

“Phil Scott owns that message”?

Pray tell, why?

Phil Scott has done nothing to claim ownership of that message. Well, unless you count his endless Worker For A Day publicity stunts.

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Tweeting past the graveyard

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Gee, what’s on my Twitter feed this morning? Ah, a fresh bit of puffery from VTGOP Chair David Sunderland!

Fact-checking time!

RealClearPolitics’ average of the top national polls: John Kasich in 10th place with a measly 2.5%.

If that’s a surge, he must have started from negative 10.

Now, if Sunderland is talking New Hampshire specifically, he’s got a bit more ground to stand on. In RCP’s average of NH polls, Kasich is in third place with 10.3%. And he has legitimately “surged” in the Granite State; two months ago, he was down in bottom-feeder territory.

That’s a creditable figure. And a testament to the relatively clear-thinking nature of the NH Republican electorate, which is more interested in frugal, responsible government (and less interested in fact-free, over-the-top rhetoric) than Republicans nationwide.

In short, Sunderland got it right if he meant a very localized surge. But nationally? Kasich’s going nowhere.

Vermont Republicans: Not buying the snake oil

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This week, the Castleton Polling Institute released a presidential poll of Vermont voters. The number that made headlines: Just as many Republican voters favor Bernie Sanders as any Republican candidate.

The actual result: Bernie’s in a three-way tie with Donald Trump and Ben Carson among Republicans, at a measly 12%. (It’s also worth noting that Hillary Clinton gets 4% support among VT Republicans.)

That’s interesting. But to me, there are two more notable takeaways from the poll.

First, Vermont’s Republican electorate remains splintered and undecided. The fact that no candidate got more than 12% is awfully telling. The real winner is “Not Sure,” with 28%. In other words, Vermont Republicans are thoroughly underwhelmed by what they’ve seen so far. I mean, 16% of them are backing a Democrat, for goodness sakes. That’s almost half who can’t settle on a Republican candidate.

Second, the state’s Republican electorate is relatively immune to the blandishments of snake-oil salespeople.

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Brainstormin’ with Mr. Google

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The candidate works the room.

The candidate works the room.

Matt Dunne, former state senator, current Google exec and Democratic candidate for governor, is slow-rolling his campaign unveil with a series of Community Forums around the state. On Tuesday night, he made a stop in downtown Montpelier; about 20 people gathered in the upstairs offices of Local 64, a coworking space. (Appropriately trendy location, yes?) Some nibbly snacks were on offer, as well as appropriately local beer. (Your Reporter contented himself with an excellent iced tea purchased at the North Branch Cafe downstairs.)

The takeaway: ehh, it was a perfectly cromulent way to low-key a campaign launch. Nothing wrong with the idea. But I have to admit, I take these kinds of events with a massive grain of salt.

First, it’s not exactly a new concept. Bruce Lisman reintroduced himself to Vermonters with a Listening Tour, and Phil Scott spent a few nights last winter holding Economy Pitches. If Matt Dunne is trying to present himself as a different kind of candidate, borrowing chapters from the Phil Scott Playbook isn’t the best way to make that case. (Nothing against Phil, he’s just not a cutting-edge kind of guy.)

Second, when I walk into a room containing oversized pads of white paper on easels and a goodly supply of Sharpies, something inside me shrivels up a little. I guess it’s all those idea sessions I sat through in my previous working lives. The assembled are addressed with great earnestness, we offer ideas, they get written down on the white pads, the full pages get taped to the walls, everybody leaves, and — in my experience — nothing much comes of it.

Dunne promised otherwise. “The whole list will be posted online,” he said at the event’s conclusion. After seeking further input, he said, the ideas gathered at the forums “will be incorporated into our platform.”

I kinda hope not. But we’ll get to that later.

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