Category Archives: 2022 election

Un-Stealth Conservatives: Old Man Yells At Cloud

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I was on my way to compiling another “stealth conservative” post (coming soon) when I came across this guy: Robert Burton, retired ER doc, Republican candidate for state Senate in the Addison County district, and a climate change denier so ardent, so forceful, that he made Ruth Hardy’s eyes bug out her head.

Well, I can’t swear that his rhetoric and her reaction are cause/effect or random coincidence, but I can tell you that Burton’s rhetoric could make any reasonable person’s eyes pop.

Burton has no chance of winning in a race against Democratic incumbents Hardy; and Chris Bray, but his commentary is just too delightful to pass up.

The occasion pictured above was an Addison County candidates’ forum held on September 22 featuring all the House and Senate candidates from county districts. Pretty unwieldy event. Not much time for any single candidate to stand out. Still, a few of them them managed the trick. None more so than Dr. Burton here.

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Stealth Conservatives: Just a Cozy Little Nest of Libertarians

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Must be something funny in the water up Lamoille County way. The blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Libertarian Party of Vermont claims a total of six candidates for the Legislature, all of them running as Republican/Libertarians. They include previous stealth conservative Rebecca Pitre, House candidate Spencer Sherman, and Senate candidate (and perennial also-ran) Dexter Lefavour.

The other three are all from Lamoille County. And they’re running in a pair of two-seat districts, Lamoille-Washington and Lamoille-2, that have been reliably Democratic for a while now. For the VTGOP to be running Libertarians in these districts speaks of a certain amount of desperation. That, or the VTGOP mainstream is the same body of water as the Libertarian puddle. Lamoille-2 is currently represented by Democrats Kate Donnally and Dan Noyes; Lamoille-Washington’s sole incumbent candidate is Avram Patt. His running mate is Saudia Lamont.

Pictured above with putative moderate Gov. Phil Scott is Nichole Loati, candidate in Lamoille-Washington. Her ticketmate is Ben Olsen, who doesn’t bear the Libertarian brand but seems to agree with Loati on pretty much everything. The R/L’s in Lamoille-2 are Richard Bailey and Mac Teale.

This post will focus on Loati, but these four candidates seem like peas in an ideological pod. Loati’s campaign website reveals little of this. She presents herself as “a married mama of six and a small business owner” and describes her politics as “fiscally conservative, socially moderate and hyper-focused on America’s constitution.” (Lower case hers)

But then you get to the details and it becomes clear that while she’s definitely fiscally conservative, she isn’t that socially liberal. Really, it’s hard to find any distinction between Loati and your typical stealth conservative.

Makes you wonder, again, why Phil Scott endorsed her. You might also wonder why she’s been endorsed by other pillars of Republican moderation: former governor Jim Douglas, outgoing state Rep. Heidi Scheuermann, and Lamoille’s perpetual Senator, Richard Westman. Is it time to stop pretending there are two kinds of Republicans, the extremists and the moderates? They’re all on the same side this fall.

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LIe Down With Dogs…

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Ah, what a happy group of Republicans! There’s Gov. Phil Scott, Lite-Gov candidate Sen. Joe Benning, and U.S. Senate candidate Gerald Malloy. I can’t identify all of the other people, but I know quite a few.

Next to the governor is state Sen. Russ Ingalls, almost certainly the most conservative person in the Senate. The people in the back row behind Benning are House candidates Lloyd and Lynn Dike, state Rep. (and VTGOP vice chair) Samantha Lefebvre, and House candidate Joe Gervais. Front row, yellow shirt, state Senate candidate and far-right rabble-rouser John Klar, who posted the picture on his Facebook page. The three on the right are three House candidates: Rob North, James McClay, and Jon Christiano. (North is the subject of an upcoming “steath conservative” post.)

That’s a whole bunch of extremists in the company of Smilin’ Phil.

I previously wrote that the extremists have taken over the Vermont Republican Party. They’re in party leadership, they’re on the state and county committees, and they constitute a goodly share of the Republican ticket.

Until now, Scott has kept his distance. Not any more. He has made common cause with the nutbars. Phil Scott owns this Republican Party and should be made to answer for every one of the people in this photograph.

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Stealth Conservatives: Welcome to Dog Whistle Farm

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This is Allison Duquette, farmer, personal trainer, candidate for Vermont House in the Chittenden-25 district, and ardent deployer of dog whistles.

Duquette goes to great lengths to present herself as a fiscally conservative, socially moderate Republican. Trouble is, she’s just not very good at it. Her brand of dog whistle is so poorly constructed it can actually be heard by human ears.

Chittenden-25 includes Westford and an eastern chunk of Milton. Duquette’s Democratic opponent is Julia Andrews. This is a newly-reapportioned district; Westford used to be in Chittenden 8-3 and has been represented by the very conservative Bob Bancroft.

Duquette and Andrews appeared at an online candidate forum in late September, which can be viewed on Lake Champlain Access Television. Her answers usually started off acceptably moderate before veering right off the cliff. Details to come, but first a note about her Facebook page.

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A Child’s Treasury of Questions About Gerald Malloy

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Oh hey, who dat?

It’s Gerald Malloy, our very own Republican candidate for Senate, yukkin’ it up with insurrectionist fraudster Steve Bannon!

This is an image from Malloy’s October 17 appearance on Bannon’s “War Room” show, during which Bannon called on his legions of followers to volunteer for, or donate to, Malloy’s campaign.

Hmm… October 17… that date rings a bell… right, right. That was the day federal prosecutors called for Bannon to be locked up for six months for defying a Congressional subpoena.

Well, as old Aesop once said, “A man is known by the company he keeps.”

Speaking of which, do you remember the Mark Coester hullaballoo? The archconservative Senate candidate ‘s logging truck was in Colchester’s Fourth of July Parade, festooned with fascist and alt-right banners.

And Malloy for Senate campaign materials.

“…the company he keeps.”

Malloy has been the Republican nominee for more than two months. For the most part, the media coverage of him has been awfully polite and incurious. (One exception: Kevin McCallum’s deep dive in Seven Days.) This is probably because no one thinks he’s going to win, so why bother going beneath the surface? But still, he is a major party candidate for high office. He ought to get as much scrutiny as any other candidate.

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Stealth Conservatives: Graphene, 9/11, and the Mystery of the Eighth of the Month

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Fasten your seat belts. This is gonna be a bumpy ride.

Meet Stephen Bellows, former Republican candidate for governor (he got 5,402 people to vote for him in the primary) and current Republican candidate for Senate in the Grand Isle district. He’s got no hope of beating perpetual incumbent Dick Mazza, but his views are so extreme that you’d think the Vermont Republican Party would formally disavow him. Guess not.

His gubernatorial campaign website (he doesn’t seem to have one for his Senate bid) contains the usual bland-ish talking points: Back to basics in education, cut government regulation, decrease the property tax burden (especially for seniors), tax breaks for military vets, anti-Global Warming Solutions Act, anti-abortion, pro-Second Amendment. Garden variety conservative Republican, right?

Wrong! Oh, so completely and delightfully wrong.

He really let his freak flag fly in an interview on “Sound Off!”, Linda Kirker’s community access TV show. Kirker is a former candidate for the House and a die-hard Trumper who believes that The Big Orange is the only thing standing between us and the globalist/Socialist plot to destroy America. In this company, Bellows may have let down his guard. He certainly didn’t hide the nature of his views.

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How About That, Team Scott is Actually Trying

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Well, well. Somebody in the Phil Scott campaign has turned the spigot.

After sleepwalking its way through 2022, Team Scott got serious about fundraising in the first half of October. Before that, Scott’s fundraising had totaled $151,514, which is peanuts for a gubernatorial campaign. Then, in only two weeks, Scott raised $47,544 according to his latest finance filing (due on October 15).

That’s nearly one-quarter of his campaign total in only two weeks.

Is somebody hearing footsteps?

The flurry of activity meant that for the first time in three campaign finance cycles, Scott actually outraised his challenger, Brenda Siegel. She took in $16,613 in the first half of October for a campaign total of $163,342. That’s a solid pace for only 15 days. As usual, Siegel donors far outnumbered Scott’s. She’s received donations from 875 individuals and groups compared to Scott’s 545.

Neither candidate spent much money in the period. Siegel has more than $84,000 in the bank, which should allow her to finance a significant TV ad buy. Scott has $91,519 on hand, plus a nice $272,000 kitty left over from previous campaigns, so he’s got plenty to spend if he wants to.

Now, let’s take a closer look at who suddenly opened their wallets for the governor.

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Stealth Conservatives: Election Truther Gets a Leg Up From Phil Scott

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Say hello to Seth Adam Manley, Republican candidate for House in the Chittenden-22 district. Mr. Manley believes the oft-debunked claim that voting machines can be hacked, says global warming is just part of the natural cycles of the planet’s climate, thinks Ron Santis’ transport of immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard was an act of compassion, believes that crime has skyrocketed because we defunded the police, opposes abortion rights and whatever he thinks critical race theory is, and refers to transgender women as “biological males who identify as female.”

Oh, and he was appointed by Gov. Phil Scott to the Essex Junction Board of Civil Authority, which oversees elections.

Yep. Mr. Moderate picked an election truther to a body responsible for elections.

Scott also appointed former VTGOP chair Deb Billado, a hardcore Trumper, and election truther Brian Christie to the same board.

This summer, Scott had to appoint justices of the peace for Essex Junction after it became a city this year. His nominees will serve until city voters elect Justices of the Peace in November. But they’ve already kicked up a fuss or two at BCA meetings.

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Stealth Conservatives: Trump Was Anointed By God to Save America

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Ah, the last dying embers of Republican power in Vermont. Jim Douglas and Brian Dubie. Those were the days, eh?

Now, who’s that nice little old lady between them? That would be Maryse Dunbar, Essex resident and two-time candidate for the House. Lovely, right? Nice of Brian and Jim to lend her a hand.

She’s also gotten a big assist from VTGOP chair Paul Dame, who sent an email blast soliciting support for Dunbar. Cool. I assume he’s fully informed about Dunbar’s political views, and they must be consistent with his vision of Republicanism.

Now let’s take a look at Dunbar’s Facebook page and… oh dear.

Yep, that’s Our Lord and Savior guiding the hand of God’s Chosen One, Donald J. Trump. Funny thing, this is not an outlier on Dunbar’s Facebook page, a melange of conspiracy theories, Christian nationalism, and Covid denialism of the rankest sort.

In other words, she’s just another Vermont Republican candidate in the year 2022.

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Like It Or Not, This Is Your VTGOP

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Taking a pause from my ongoing series about stealth conservatives and other extremists who litter the Vermont Republican Party’s ticket this year, to note that these people can’t be classed as the exception. They are the norm. It’s Phil Scott who’s the exception. The party he once knew and loved is no longer with us and it ain’t coming back.

For example, take the above photograph and focus on the four centermost figures. The fellow with the bright red bowtie is Samuel Douglass, stealth conservative candidate previously uncovered in this space as a guy who thinks Fox News isn’t conservative enough. The gent to his right is the Patron Saint of Plausibly Moderate Republicanism, Jim Douglas. Behind Douglas is VTGOP chair Paul Dame. To Douglas’ right is state Rep. Samantha Lefebvre, one of 2020’s successful crop of stealth candidates.

Oh, and she’s now the vice chair of the Vermont Republican Party.

Yeah, I missed the memo. The VTGOP website includes no information about party officials, presumably to avoid embarrassing any of them. But the original caption to this photo identified her as vice chair.

It’s another sad step toward the outer boundaries of political sensibility for the once-dominant party. Its top positions are held by extremists of various kinds, and its slate of candidates is lousy with election truthers, QAnon adherents, Covid deniers and hard-core Trumpers. And maybe the odd militia type. Not to mention the virulently anti-trans chair of the biggest city party in the state.

Ladies, gentlemen and others, this is your VTGOP. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.

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