Category Archives: The media

Hypocrisy in the debate debate

Leave a reply

Aww. Scott Milne pulled out of a Republican gubernatorial debate again today.

Can’t say I blame him, since the other three candidates aren’t really seriously competitive, and it might diminish his standing to share a stage with them.

Except, of course, that he’s been doing such a bang-up job of diminishing his own standing with no outside help. Besides, his decision to basically ignore the Republican primary stands in stark contrast to (1) his constant complaining that Governor Shumlin won’t start officially campaigning until after Labor Day, and (2) VTGOP Chair David Sunderland’s constant complaining that VT Dem chair Dottie Deans won’t accept his asinine debate proposal publicity stunt.

Besides, given the state of Milne’s campaign, he could use all the free media he can get. If he had shown up, the event would have probably drawn a lot more coverage.

Also, frankly, Milne could use a little live-fire practice. He’s been depressingly tongue-tied on the campaign trail. He could maybe sharpen his skills a bit in a low-stakes debate where he ought to be able to clean the clocks of his small-timey challengers. He’d better damn well up his game before he gets into the ring with Peter Shumlin, that’s for sure.

I feel bad, being so negative about a guy whose mother died a week ago. But time and political campaigns wait for no man, and he put himself behind this chronological eight-ball by waiting until June to begin his candidacy. I am, literally, the least of his worries.

I guess I missed the memo: We’re taking Dan Feliciano seriously now?

Leave a reply

This doesn’t add up. Take one Libertarian candidate for Governor; have him launch a write-in campaign for the Republican nomination, complete with the public support of exactly one Republican of any renown — Darcie Johnston, a Republican who’s on the outs with her party — shake it all up; and you have a serious, credible campaign? 

Whaaa? 

Libertarian Dan Feliciano held a news conference today, standing behind a folding table in a public park, to criticize Governor Shumlin’s budget policies. Now, a Libertarian presser usually doesn’t draw flies; but this time, WPTZ’s Stewart Ledbetter and the Freeploid’s Terri Hallenbeck showed up. I’m not sure why; Feliciano ain’t winning the primary. And on the Libertarian slate, Feliciano ain’t pulling more than a small minority of votes in November.

Boy, with all this media attention, Darcie Johnston must be happy as a pig in its customary environs. 

And Ledbetter’s story brands Feliciano only as a Republican. It doesn’t mention that he’s the Libertarian candidate. Rather, it puts him front and center in the Republican parade: 

Republicans went on the offensive Thursday, a day after Gov. Peter Shumlin and a panel of state legislators agreed on $31 million in adjustments to the new state budget. 

At a Burlington news conference, Dan Feliciano, a write-in candidate for the Republican nomination for governor, characterized Shumlin’s history of budget management a “carnival of incompetence.” 

Ledbetter goes on to quote Feliciano, give space for comment from the Governor, and finally shoehorn House Minority Leader Don Turner into the final paragraph. 

So, “Republicans” is defined as a lot of Feliciano and a skosh of Turner. Only the latter is an actual Republican. 

In her story, Hallenbeck at least points out that Feliciano is, first and foremost, a Libertarian candidate. Still, she gives his presser plenty of space, tossing in a comment from Don Turner for a bit of variety. 

I guess the Freeploid and Channel 5 wanted to run stories about a Republican response to this week’s budget tweaks. But shining the spotlight on Feliciano? Good grief. I wonder how Scott Milne feels about this; he’s had to cut back on campaign activity because HIS MOTHER DIED THIS WEEK. They haven’t even held the funeral yet, and reporters are chasing after Dan Feliciano because, I guess, Scott Milne isn’t returning phone calls?

If this keeps up, maybe Feliciano will be able to get himself an actual lectern. 

Addendum. Lest anyone think I’m unfairly disparaging Mr. Feliciano, my point is this: Usually, a candidate has to show some level of real support before earning the media’s attention. You wouldn’t see TV cameras at an Emily Peyton presser, for example. It’s just strange that WPTZ and the Freeploid chose to give Feliciano this much attention. And anointed him a central figure in Republican politics. That’s the phenomenon I found worthy of comment. 

Metapost: Old Hundredth

Leave a reply

Hello, and thanks for visiting The Vermont Political Observer. This is the 100th post in The VPO’s brief history. And the last two days have been two of the biggest days ever for pageviews and unique visitors. I appreciate that very much; the only inducement I can offer is the quality of my writing and insights, and it means a lot to me that so many people have found The VPO worthy of their time.

I am aware, from some of the comments received, that many readers are discovering my work for the first time, and are a bit puzzled by some aspects of it. So let me reintroduce myself and explain what’s going on around here.

I’ve worked in the media most of my life, primarily radio with some professional writing. I’ve won awards for my work in both fields, and I’ve published a book that’s entirely nonpolitical, Roads Less Traveled: Visionary New England Lives. Should be available at bookstores in VT and NH, and through my own website. (The radio work was almost entirely in other states.)

I started writing political commentary in late 2011 as a member of the Green Mountain Daily team. GMD is a group blog with a liberal/Democratic bent. I’m still on the team; my posts are under the pen name “jvwalt.” But after much consideration, I launched The VPO as an outlet of my own. At times, I was overwhelming GMD with my stuff, which I thought was unfair to the group nature of the enterprise.

My writing in both places is a mix of my journalistic experience and my political viewpoint, which is decidedly liberal but not dogmatically so. I often disappoint fellow liberals by taking a contrary position on an issue or openly criticizing Democrats and Progressives when I think they deserve it. And there’s a deliberately iconoclastic edge; if journalism is described as comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, then my role is to afflict politicos who have an exaggerated sense of self-importance or self-worth.

Put another way, I’ve described my function like this: 60% commentator and analyst, 30% liberal firebrand, and 10% poo-flinging monkey. So if you see some brown stuff flying around here, don’t be surprised. One aspect of that 10% is my occasional habit of giving nicknames to people. One of these days, I should list their origins and meanings. (Example from GMD days: I dubbed conservative activist Tayt Brooks “International Man of Mystery” because when he was busy spending Lenore Broughton’s fortune at Vermonters First, he rebuffed virtually all inquiries from reporters.)

That said, I do welcome contrary views. The VPO’s Comments section is moderated, which means I must approve a comment before it’s posted; but that’s just to keep out the trolls. I have yet to reject a comment because of its content.

Regarding the picture at the top of the page: It is Warren G. Harding, our 29th President (but #1 in your hearts, or at least in the hearts of his numerous lady friends). The photo was taken late in his life, while he was President, and seems to hearken back to his pre-political days as a newspaper editor. It’s clearly staged; there’s no paper in the typewriter, and I bet he had secretaries slash lady friends to do his typing for him. But the image of a hard-bitten old-fashioned ink-stained wretch was appealing to me. (My Twitter avatar (@thevpo1) is a picture of George Reeves as Clark Kent, yet another fake reporter. Hmm.)

My hope is that you will continue to find The VPO worth your time. And if you think this site is worthwhile or a particular post deserves attention, I hope you’ll mention it to friends and colleagues. The only reward I get for this work is the knowledge that people appreciate my writing, and aren’t we all searching for validation of our existences?

Stay tuned. At least, I hope you will.

The Burlington Free Press ignores an obvious contradiction, gives Mark Whitworth a free pass

1 Reply

Oh boy, another Monday morning, we’ve had a bare-bones staff all weekend and we’ve gotta have a local story to fill that big front-page hole.

I know! Let’s profile a sage Vermonter type and run a big photo of him in a stereotypical Vermont setting!

And there you have it, on page A1 of today’s Freeploid: Mark Whitworth staring manfully at the camera, with a big pile of firewood behind him.

Whitworth, for those just joining us, is the recently installed head of Energize Vermont, the benign-sounding advocacy group promoting the anti-wind cause. Whitworth took over from that carpetbaggin’ astroturfer, Luke Snelling, who’s gone to San Francisco to seek his fortune by greenwashing corporations with environmental image problems. Which is what he used to do out of the Massachusetts office of his ad agency. Hence “carpetbaggin'” — he may be a scion of a Vermont family, but he wasn’t living here when he fronted for Energize Vermont.

Anyway, on to Whitworth who, as the headline informs us, wants Vermont to “SLOW DOWN, ASK QUESTIONS” when it comes to our energy future. Seems we’re in a “rush” to implement renewable energy. Yeah, stupid, isn’t it? Just because global warming is a goddamn crisis doesn’t mean we should “rush” to build our homegrown renewable infrastructure.

The story treats his views with respect, which is not out of bounds for a softball profile of a public figure. But this one line caught my eye, not to mention my ire:

“I’m not pro- or con-wind,” he said.

Cough. Snort. Chuckle. BWAHAHAHAHAHA.

All righty then, Freeploid, riddle me this. This article is on page A6*. On the next page, A7, directly across from this article, is an over-the-top rant of an opinion piece by Whitworth that accuses Vermont’s environmental community of being corporate stooges, and repeats the tired arguments of the anti-wind crowd.

*In order to see the layout, you’ll have to access a print copy of the Monday edition or have subscriber access to the Freeploid’s online e-newspaper. The digital version includes the same content, but it’s scattered around the website. 

He’s “not pro- or con-wind,” eh? And reporter Joel Banner Baird didn’t challenge him on his obviously false and self-serving claim? And the editors didn’t think the article and opinion piece made for an uncomfortable juxtaposition?

He starts his opinion piece by comparing Vermont’s renewable strategy to President Bush’s conduct of the Iraq War. He paints the build-out of renewables a for-profit hustle by what he calls the “Big Green Alliance of Green Mountain Power, policians, and ‘environmentalists.”

Because Mark Whitworth and his allies are pure as the driven snow, and all others have been Assimilated by the Evil Utility Borg. Got that, Paul Burns? Brian Shupe? Jake Brown? Sandy Levine? Chris Kilian? You’re all corrupt. Unless you change your tune and agree with Mark Whitworth.

He accuses GMP and its co-conspirators of seeking to “put 500-foot-tall turbines and massive solar fields wherever we want — on sensitive ridgelines, in wetlands and on prime agricultural soils,” and “string transmission lines all over the place.”

Yeah, no. Nobody’s proposing anything like that. As I’ve written before, and as anyone who checks the public record can see, there are only a handful of places in Vermont where wind is economically viable. And I don’t think any utility, no matter how profit-hungry, would try to site energy projects on sensitive lands. Seeking profit involves knowing when and where to build, and sensible utilities know they have to be careful and appropriate with their decisions. If they aren’t, they’ll waste a lot of time and money on projects that will never be built.

Also, if you want “transmission lines all over the place,” look no farther than Energize Vermont’s own green-energy plan, which relies heavily on Hydro Quebec power from the far north. That’ll require a big fat buildout of high-tension power lines right across the Northeast Kingdom that Whitworth professes to love so much.

Whitworth is a True Believer. He sees himself and his allies as the defenders of Vermont’s sacred honor, and anyone who disagrees is a turncoat and a corporate lackey. He is entitled to his opinion, and I respect his commitment. But he shouldn’t get a free pass from Vermont’s Largest Newspaper.

Art Woolf spews numbers, provides zero insight

Leave a reply

In the past, I’ve given UVM economist Art Woolf two nicknames: Vermont’s Loudest Economist, for his inescapable media presence; and Vermont’s Laziest Economist, for his thoroughly conventional views. Well, now I’ve got a new one: The Human Almanac.

In addition to (Lord help us) educating the next generation of UVM students, Woolf also does a lot of corporate consulting, publishes a costly newsletter, and writes a weekly column in the Burlington Free Press. The latter is where I see his work, and it’s consistently unimpressive. The typical Woolf column includes an oversized chart or graph (to fill space), a shallow review of statistics, and/or a bit of thoroughly conventional wisdom, all served up in a few hundred words.

In his last two columns, he didn’t even bother injecting a bit o’ the old C.W. They were just bland overviews, free of any context or insight.

This week’s entry is “Vermont Fertility Rate 15% Lower Than U.S.” And, well, that title just about covers it. The column is full of shameless padding, like this:

The average Vermont woman will have 1.6 babies over her lifetime. …Of course, no one has six-tenths of a baby, but when we’re dealing with large numbers of women, and large numbers of babies, fractions and decimals do play a role.

Do tell, Art. I was picturing a landscape littered with partial baby corpses. Glad you set me straight.

He also stretches the content with a parade of irrelevant, or marginally relevant, statistics:

The fertility rate for the U.S. as a whole is 1.9 babies per woman over her lifetime, so Vermont’s fertility rate is about 15 percent below the U.S. average. By contrast, Utah, the state with the highest fertility rate, is 25 percent above the national average.

It’s like a high school student writing a five-page paper.

The “bulk” of the column is given over to a recitation of current and past numbers from the US and the world, followed by one paragraph listing possible reasons why Vermont might have a low fertility rate. That paragraph ends with:

We really don’t know the full reasons.

For this, we need an expert?

Woolf wraps things up with this thrilling conclusion: low fertility has consequences for the economy.

Last week’s entry in the Woolf oeuvre was even less meaty “Vermont Immigration patterns Differ From U.S.”

Stop the presses!!!!!

Do you mean to tell me that Vermont has fewer immigrants from Latin America than, say, Florida or Texas? I am shocked, shocked.

But yes, that’s the knowledge bombshell Woolf drops on our heads: Vermont gets relatively few immigrants, and most of ’em are from Canada or Europe. No shit, Sherlock.

Woolf doesn’t even try to contextualize this nothingburger of a column. The big conclusion reads like this:

Sometimes it’s hard for Vermonters to understand why the concerns and passions about immigration run so deep. One reason is that our immigrant population, and our experience with immigrants, is very different than it is in the rest of the United States.

I really, really hope that Woolf’s own ($150 per year plus tax) newsletter has more to offer than his Freeploid blurts. For that matter, I hope he’s doing some more substantive academic work to justify his UVM sinecure. Because judging by his newspaper columns, Art Woolf is a man without substance.

This could be bad. Really bad.

Leave a reply

Today was Day One of the new regime at the Tennesseean, Nashville’s daily newspaper. If you’re wondering why this is relevant to a Vermont political blog, well, the T’n is part of the Gannett chain, and is the “beta” version of Gannett’s “newsroom of the future.” As in, Coming Soon to a Gannett Paper Near You, i.e. the Burlington Free Press.

(Sharp-eyed journalism observer Jim Romenesko pointed out today that this is the second time in eight years that Gannett has launched the “newsroom of the future.” Guess it didn’t take the first time.)

Screen Shot 2014-08-07 at 9.33.14 PMThe Tennesseean is still in the process of downsizing and downgrading its newsroom staff, but today’s was the first edition under Executive Editor Stefanie Murray, head cheerleader for the new N.O.T.F.  And there, on the front page, was a story about the Kroger supermarket chain, a major T’n advertiser, lowering prices in its stores. 

And this is news…… why?

But wait, there’s more. If you went to the T’n website today, the homepage was dominated by — mirabile dictu — an ad from Kroger touting its new low prices! Wow, wotta coincidence.

This screenshot only includes the top half of the print edition’s front page. (Full front page can be seen here.) Below the fold is an almost equally ghastly front-page “news” story about twerking as the new fitness craze. I kid you not.

Seems to be a very aggressive application of the T’n’s new commitment to “audience analytics” driven journalism. Give the peoples what they want, and the stupider the better.

Coming soon to a Freeploid near you.

Extreme Makeover, Freeploid Edition

Leave a reply

Gannett is taking the inevitable next step in its pursuit of profit: spinning off its newspaper business, formerly the heart and soul (such as it was) of the corporation. The publishing arm will start with a clean slate, unlike some other spinoffs that loaded corporate debt onto the new entity; but it also strips away whatever fiscal protection was offered by Gannett’s moneymaking broadcast properties.

For readers of the Burlington Free Press wondering what its future will look like, I suggest media coverage of its sister paper, the Tennesseean. The Nashville daily is being transformed into a “beta” newsroom, a new-world model for affiliated papers to follow. The topline looks good: The Tennesseean promises a larger reporting staff and more local journalism.

But the attic is full of spiders, and if I were a senior Freeploid employee, I’d be preparing to be “future endeavored” into a lousy job market. The best summary, with plenty of links, comes from the Poynter Institute. And it includes such gems as:

— The newsroom will, indeed, have more reporters — but fewer others, including far fewer editors. The total staff will shrink from the current 89 to 76. That’s a 15% cut.

— Every newsroom staffer will have to reapply for new jobs and no one is guaranteed a new gig. Out goes seniority! I bet those redefined jobs will offer lower pay and lousier bennies. Also, senior staff had better be as up-to-date with the digital world as your average twenty-something J-school grad, or they’ll be out on their ears. With, according to Nashville Public Radio, “a small severance package.” Lovely.

— The lack of editors will put the onus on reporters to produce “publication-ready copy” because there won’t be enough editors to give stories a second look. Expect a lot more typos, bad grammar, and stories rushed to publication.

Every reporter I know has seen stories ripped to shreds by unskilled, or agenda-driven editors. But there’s a reason that traditional journalism demands mediation between writing and publication: it’s the quality control. It is, literally, the most significant difference between traditional media and the likes of Yours Truly. I write what I know and feel, based on experience, and I can post anything I want to. The editorial system breeds a certain level of professionalism, which is why the Freeploid can expect to be paid for its content and I cannot. (I’d like to be, hint hint, but I can’t expect it.)

— “Audience analytics” will rule the roost. Executive Editor Stefanie Murray, the Tennesseean’s own Jim Fogler, says “We’re going to use research as the guide to make decisions and not the journalist’s gut.” Wonderful; we’ll be setting our journalistic priorities based on pageviews and reader surveys. Er, I mean “audience surveys,” because “reader” is so 20th Century.

I realize that newspapers face a difficult future. Their old sources of advertising are drying up, and digital ads don’t fill the gap. Unless you’ve got something else going for you, like donor support (VPR, VtDigger) or a healthy, ad-rich print operation (Seven Days), you’re dependent on ad revenue. (The traditional paper got at least two-thirds of its revenue from ads, not readers.) The Tennesseean is one more experiment in creating a sustainable future. But the minions of Gannett are furiously lipsticking this pig — presenting the “new” Tennesseean as a model of intensive, community-oriented journalism. It’s not. It’s another effort at slashing costs to maintain profit margins.

The Freeploid has a whole lot of experienced senior staffers who work very hard. Their experience can lend context and depth to their reporting. If the Tennesseean’s “beta” test goes well, in terms of profitability, expect the winds of change to blow strong through the Freeps’ offices in the near future.

The Milne Transcripts, part 8: Open mouth, insert foot, BITE DOWN HARD

Leave a reply

The final installment in my only apparently endless series of posts from Scott Milne’s disasterrific July 25 interview on WDEV’s Mark Johnson Show, available for your cringing pleasure on Johnson’s podcast site. 

This time, we bring you some of Milne’s most spectacularly inarticulate moments. 

As you may recall, in part 1 of this series I reported Milne’s desire to fill “the need for a, hopefully what the people will judge me as an articulate voice of opposition to that.”

Keep hoping, brother. Milne went on to embody the polar opposite of “an articulate voice” of anything. At times, he sounded more like an unprepared high-schooler bullshitting his way through an essay than a serious, major-party candidate for the state’s highest office.

Milne had a lot of trouble with health care reform. For several minutes, he got confused between Vermont Health Connect (the current system) and single-payer health care (Governor Shumlin’s ultimate goal). But he began his tiptoe through the minefield with this answer to Johnson’s basic question, “New problems with Vermont Health Connect have been revealed this week. What would you have done differently?”

Whether you’re for or against Obamacare, i.e. the Affordable Care Act, it’s a national law and I think the Founding Fathers set up this federal government that enables states to do a lot of things and enables states to be the incubators of best practices. And one of the fundamental principles of our campaign is that the more locally a decision can be made, the better it is. I would trust a decision by a selectboard or a city council over a state legislature when it makes sense, and clearly a decision made by a state legislature over the federal government when it makes sense.

That was just the preamble to a long, discursive response that could be boiled down to “Shumlin bad.” See what I mean about the unprepared high schooler?

But wait, there’s more. Milne repeatedly called the Shumlin Administration “reckless” in establishing Vermont Health Connect — but at the same time, he refused to take a stand for or against single-payer. That triggered this exchange:

Johnson: You called the Governor reckless on health care reform. You said it was too bold a move. How can you possibly go forward with single-payer?

Milne: Um… That’s a pretty, um, now I see why you’ve got your own show, Mark. Um. You know, it’s part of our strategy to get elected to spend August talking about the Shumlin Administration and their lack of management expertise, which is part of leadership, and the reckless ideas that have given them a greater opportunity to mismanage the affairs of the state. Um, I think that, ah, folks in your seats, i.e. the press, have let the Shumlin Administration get away without answering questions for six years. I’m new to this game; I should get 30 days.

Johnson: What questions haven’t the press asked Shumlin about health care?

Milne: I didn’t say you didn’t ask ’em, I said you let ’em get away without answering ’em. He hasn’t answered how he’s going to pay for it.

Johnson: Is that the fault of the press for not getting the answer out of him?

At this point, Milne seemed to realize that he’d just directly insulted his host, a longtime member of the Vermont media on radio and in print, and all of his colleagues in the media. You know, the folks who’ll be reporting on his campaign. And suddenly, his brain sounded Retreat!!!

Milne: No, no. I mean, but, but I’m saying — uh, no, it’s not the way I — I think, I think it’s, um, I think, I think um, it’s a, it’s a great question. I think it is not the fault of the press, but that, um, letting somebody get away with changing the subject when there’s, you know, an elephant in the room that they’re ignoring, uh, we should be reminding people about the elephant and not talking about the distractions.

Ugh. It’s not the press’s fault, but they did let Shumlin get away with it. In other news, the bank was robbed but it’s not the guards’ fault.

I could bring you many more examples of Milne’s inability to produce coherent sentences, but I’ll just skip to the end of the interview. Johnson, taking some pity on his shriveled husk of an interviewee, tossed Milne a softball for his final question: “Tell us about a life experience you’ve had that would convince people that you should be Governor.”

Fasten your seat belts. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride…

Um, well, let’s see. A life experience I’ve had that would convince people I should be Governor. Um, hopefully the opportunity to meet me over the next 60-90 days, have a conversation, realize I’m really not trying to sell you anything. I mean you talked about fundraising, I’m a little uncomfortable calling people asking for money, but, um, I, I think my whole life experience is one of growing up in Vermont, um, been interested in what’s going on, I’ve met every Governor of my lifetime in Vermont, which is one of the great blessings of being in Vermont, it’s sort of like being in New Hampshire every four years, you can meet primary candidates for Presidents if you want to.

Um. Got a good history in Vermont. I’ve got a political science degree. Paid attention to issues. But I guess my whole life is, you know, there’s reasons why maybe you don’t want to vote for me, and, ah, hopefully you realize I’m, uh, in this, ah, not for my personal ego, uh, I don’t know that this is a great, um, experience for my business, uh, but I just felt like, um, somebody needed to step up and point out the real danger to our future that’s, um, to me very, very apparent if we continue down the road we’re on and it, ah, and the Shumlin Administration seems to be doubling down on everything they’ve done over the last four years now and, they start doing an about-face in the next 60 days, my guess is going to be because they read a poll and realized that’s what they had to do.

Yeah, that “life experience” question is a real stumper. Good grief, Johnson gave you a chance to be a relatable human being and garner some sympathy for your quixotic cause. And all you could do was kick it around for a couple of minutes and leave people wondering what the hell you were talking about.

There you go. My eight-part guide to one of the most disastrous interviews in Vermont political history.

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

Leave a reply

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

Leave a reply

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.