Category Archives: Vermont Republican Party

The Company You Keep

Christopher-Aaron Felker, seen here sporting a new fashion-casual look, went before the Burlington City Council Monday night and made an ass of himself.

Nothing new for him. In fact, his entire purpose in life seems to be trolling the libs. I’m going to pay as little attention as I can to his remarks because, frankly, attention is the air he breathes. But his little performance, for that’s what it was, can’t go without notice because it once again raises the question: What is acceptable behavior for a Republican Party official in Vermont?

He is, after all, STILL the chair of the Burlington Republican Committee. If his attacks on the LGBTQ+ community don’t make him persona non grata, then his admission of public vandalism might just do the trick. I don’t know, we’d have to ask Gov. Phil Scott, who shares the Republican brand with Felker — as well as notables like this guy.

The “Paul Bean” who took to Twitter repeating a thoroughly debunked anti-trans rumor is the same “Paul Bean” who was endorsed by Phil Scott in his bid for state Senate last year, and was just appointed by Scott to the State Workforce Development Board. Perhaps Bean will use his position to advocate for the public placement of litterboxes in order to attract members of the “otherkin” community to move to Vermont.

Bean’s appointment was part of the same tranche as ya boy Rob North, ultraconservative Christian who believes that forests, wetlands and waterways are as responsible for Lake Champlain’s pollution as agriculture or any other human activity.

Continue reading
Advertisement

The Honorable Member From Lyndon Would Like Some Cheese to Go with That Whine

First-term state Rep. Charles Wilson (R-Lyndon), seen here doing his level best to stay awake during a budget hearing, has established himself as one of the most complainy of the House Republicans’ infinitesimal freshman class. He’s right up there with Barre Town’s Gina Galfetti for writing op-eds about how badly House Republicans are mistreated by the majority caucuses.

WIlson has characterized global warming as “a hoax and the majority Dems and Progs as “tyrannical.” Which only means that he has never experienced real tyranny, but let’s keep moving. He also sees organic farms as “failing” enterprises that are a waste of farm aid programs, and the state budget as an “obnoxious and unsustainable” document that “tempts unconscionable spending on policies set by unelected consultants and boards of California Dreamers.”

His latest commentary complains that Vermont has a “one-party system.” Which, ahem, Phil Scott. But yeah, the Dems and Progs have built up historic majorities in the Legislature — thanks to the VTGOP’s descent into incompetence and extremism.

One of WIlson’s complaints is that “many Republican bills are never even put forth for discussion — only Democrat and Progressive bills.” Well, sure, that’s what legislative majorities do. But let’s be fair and take a closer look at these “Republican bills” that are languishing in the circular file. I’m sure they’re top-flight examples of deep thought and creativity, right?

Continue reading

A Bit of a Kerfuffle at the Ethan Allen Institute

Hey everybody, meet Myers Mermel, the new president of the Ethan Allen Institute.

For those unfamiliar, EAI is Vermont’s most prominent conservative “think tank,” best known for such influential operations as the seldom-heard Common Sense Radio and a steady supply of seldom-read opinion pieces. It was headed for many years by former vagabond John McClaughry, who remains a prolific writer of those opinion pieces. After he stepped out of leadership in 2013, former VTGOP chief Rob Roper took the reins. Roper retired last March, and was replaced by serially unsuccessful political candidate Meg Hansen.

Well, Hansen didn’t even last a year. She’s been ousted in an apparently messy process that culminated last night in Mermel’s razor-thin election to the presidency. The vote of the EAI board was reportedly five for Mermel, four for Hansen, and two abstaining.

Here I must pause to delineate established fact from informed hearsay. Mermel has confirmed he is now EAI’s president. He would not otherwise comment. Everything else I’m about to write comes from a single anonymous source, because official mouths are firmly zippered shut chez EAI.

Continue reading

Paul Dame Measures Once, Cuts Twice (Updated with CORRECTION)

Update! Dame’s essay has been posted on True North Reports. The “Donahue” typo is fixed, but nothing else.

Update Update. I got something badly wrong. I wrote that Sen. Richard Westman is a Republican presence on the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee. He is not. Dame was right about that, and I apologize for my mistake.

I could write a blogpost every week about VTGOP Chair Paul Dame’s weekly email to party members, but that would be a big waste of my time and yours. Once in a while, though, it’s too good to pass up.

Take this week’s message. Please, take it. It’s entitled “Democrat Steamrollers” because (1) he’d rather be ungrammatical than refer to the Democratic Party as “Democratic,” and (2) he sees the Democratic majorities in the Legislature running roughshod over everything. In his essay, he takes three big swings and misses all three. Yer Out!

Dame’s complaints begin with the reassigning of Rep. Anne Donahue from the Health Care Committee to Human Services. The House majority had “punished” Donahue “by stripping her of her [Health Care] Vice Chair position and assigning her to another committee entirely.”

A few things. First, he’s deeply concerned about Rep. Donahue’s status but he couldn’t be bothered to spell her name correctly. That’s right, he called her “Donohue.”

Second, exiling Donahue to Human Services is a pretty damn soft landing. That committee is also heavily involved with mental health care, so she’ll still have a chance to put her knowledge and passion to good use.

Third, the Dems’ alleged machinations are picayune compared to what Dame’s fellow Republicans in the U.S. House are doing with their majority. So far, I’ve heard no hint that Speaker Jill Krowinski has ordered a bunch of investigations of Gov. Phil Scott’s family.

Finally, whatever the Democrats may have done to reduce Republican influence is nothing compared to what the Republicans did to themselves by running an incompetent campaign and allowing the Dems to win a supermajority!

Enough of that. Let’s get on to the real whoppers.

Continue reading

Broke. Destitute. Insolvent. Beggared. Strapped. Bust. Pauperized. Skint. Embarrassed. Down at Heel.

The Vermont Republican Party doesn’t have much money to spend right now, but here’s a suggestion: Invest in a metal detector. You might improve your fortunes by finding some spare change and, who knows, maybe a pirate doubloon or two.

This isn’t exactly new for the perpetually impecunious VTGOP. But if anything, it’s gotten worse — especially when compared to the Vermont Democratic Party, which had a gangbusters 2022 by comparison.

The latest Federal Elections Commission filings covered the month of November. It’ll be a few days before we get the year-end reports. But I doubt the situation will change all that much, and the situation merits exploration right now.

(Reminder: Although the VDP and VTGOP are state parties, the vast majority of their financial activity is under federal jurisdiction. The figures that follow are all from FEC filings.)

The VTGOP ended November with a paltry $2,204 in cash on hand. The Dems: $207,060, nearly 100 times as much. And that was after generous Democratic expenditures in the run-up to Election Day. The VDP’s goal was to enter the off-cycle period with enough resources to avoid post-campaign staff cuts. They’ll have to maintain a solid fundraising pace to accomplish that, but so far things are looking good.

Meanwhile, the VTGOP just suffered its worst legislative defeat ever and couldn’t sniff a statewide victory for any candidate not named “Phil Scott.” They need some serious rebuilding, and they have no resources to even begin the work. The numbers tell the tale.

Continue reading

He Knows When You’ve Been Bad or Good, and If You’ve Been Bad He’s Giving You Something From the VTGOP Gift Collection

I hope you haven’t finished your holiday shopping yet because now’s your chance to please the Coolidge lover in your life. And we’ve all got one of them, haven’t we?

Pictured above: Two items from the “Coolidge Was Cooler” line of VTGOP merch. All five items feature the same hastily-photoshopped image of Calvin Coolidge sporting a pair of aviator sunglasses. See, Coolidge was cooler than Joe Biden of aviator sunglasses fame. Ha ha, cough.

This is the best design available from the Vermont Republican Party’s online “SHOP” page. Hard to believe I know, but the rest of the collection is even sadder.

Continue reading

Joe Benning Peeks Over the Parapet and Is Met with a Volley of Arrows

Fresh off a loss in his bid for lieutenant governor, outgoing Sen. Joe Benning wrote an essay on how the Vermont Republican Party can pull itself out of its far-right briar patch and be competitive again. You’d think that some Republicans’ ears would be open after an election where everything but Phil Scott went horribly awry for them.

But the VTGOP is not open to a change of course, judging by the swift, aggressive, and downright accusatory response to his essay. Not to mention the ugly, racist blast of id posted by “Farmer” John Klar at about the same time. You look at the leadership of the VTGOP and the ticket it put before voters, and you have to realize that there are a lot more Klars in this party than there are Bennings.

Benning decried his party’s “loudest voices” and their belief that January 6 was a harmless rally, their “vitriol and hatred,” and their adherence to “every Q-anon conspiracy imaginable.” He wrote that in order to be competitive, “the VTGOP course must remain center/right” to attract support from independents and centrists.

Benning’s essay was a thoughtful reflection on political reality in Vermont from a conservative Republican. It was posted on, well, two of those “loudest voices,” the Vermont Daily Chronicle and True North Reports. (Note: A somewhat different version of his piece has been posted on VTDigger, for those who’d rather not give those right-wing “news” operations even a single precious click.)

And oh boy, the comments. They came in bunches, and they were angry.

Continue reading

Loss, Loss, Loss, Loss, Loss, Loss, Loss, Loss, Loss, Loss, Loss, Loss, Win, Loss, Loss, Loss, Loss, Loss, Loss, Loss, Loss, Loss, Loss, Loss

Congratulations to Jarrod Sammis, newly elected member of the Vermont House in the Rutland-3 district…

… and the only one on my long list of far-right Republican candidates who didn’t lose.

For those keeping score, and you bet I am, that’s one win and 23 losses. Which kinda explains my previous post about how the Vermont Republican Party has led itself, with supreme confidence, deep into the political wilderness with no idea what to do next except Keep Striding Forward!

That 1-23 record wasn’t the only bad news for Team Extreme. They also lost a bunch of races featuring far-right candidates I never got around to covering. Remember that 16 of the 21 Republican Senate candidates were extremists? Well, 12 of them lost. They may have picked up one seat at best. In the House, where the Republican ticket had 42 in irregular earth orbit, 35 of them lost. And that included three incumbent representatives who won’t be coming back: Vicky Strong, Sally Achey, and VTGOP Vice Chair Samantha Lefebvre.

Instead of bulking up their ranks and possibly upending caucus leadership, the extremists actually lost ground. It was a thorough rebuke for ultraconservatism in Vermont.

But let’s start with their only bright spot, the guy with a YouTube channel full of inflammatory videos that revealed an unhealthy fascination with guns and a probably-controlled desire to train them on socialists and communists. The channel he quickly deleted when it became public knowledge, claiming he did so to [checks notes] protect his family’s privacy. Sammis eked out a two-point win in reliably conservative territory. Bully for him.

Continue reading

The Leadership of the VTGOP Should Be Defenestrated Immediately, But It’s Not Gonna Happen

Phil Scott? Untouchable. Every other Republican? Radioactive.

That’s pretty much the only thing you need to know about the 2022 election in Vermont. Scott cruised to victory; the rest of the VTGOP, which followed a Trumpier path, got absolutely steamrolled.

And they leave Scott in a significantly weakened position for the next two years. Barring any late turnarounds, the Dem/Prog caucus in the Senate will stay at 23 out of 30. But the House, oh my God. It’s looking like a net 11-seat pickup for the Dem/Prog caucus, which means they will have more breathing room than they’ve ever had for veto overrides.

As it looks now, the House Republican caucus will be reduced to a paltry 38 seats. Yikes.

It’s absolutely clear why this happened. The voters rejected far-right candidates almost across the board. The vast majority of my “stealth Republicans” lost their races, usually by big margins. The only bright spot for the VTGOP was Franklin County, which also happens to have the sanest of the county committees. Republicans took all but one Franklin County seat in the House and Senate. That’s two of the seven Republican senators and seven of the 38 House Republicans, all from Franklin County alone.

The party’s state leadership is to blame. They followed this path. They recruited a bunch of unelectable candidates. They turned their backs on Phil Scott. They should collectively resign in shame, but they probably won’t. They’re too deep up their own asses to realize that everything they did was wrong.

Continue reading

The Vermont Republican Party Has Been Assimilated

When I started my series on “stealth conservatives,” i had no idea it would go on so long. Or that I’d get nowhere close to finishing. I’ve done 20 of those pieces and I could do a lot more.

It’s no longer accurate to say the Vermont Republican Party tolerates a few extremist candidates where they have no other options. It’s that extremists account for more than half of all Republican candidates for the Legislature, and the vast majority of the first-time candidates.

The Republican Party of Phil Scott and Jim Jeffords and Bob Stafford and Dick Snelling is dead. It’s kicked the bucket, shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible.

The bottom line: By my count the Republicans have a total of 100 candidates for House or Senate, and 58 of them are out on the fringe. Well, really, the fringe has become the center of an extremist Republican Party.

The 58 includes 15 incumbents. The rest have never held state-level office. The new Republican caucuses will swing dramatically to the hard right, with all that that entails for the quality and civility of legislative sessions.

Continue reading