Category Archives: Vermont Republican Party

Congratulations to the VTGOP for Finding a Candidate to Run Against Becca Bal — Oh.

1 Reply

The Vermont Republican Party’s effort to build a strong statewide ticket are proceeding apace. Mark Coester, who has once before been disavowed by the VTGOP, has announced he’s running for Congress. He is, so far, the only Republican challenger to Democratic U.S. Rep. Becca Balint.

Coester is seen here in the only video that comes up when you search YouTube for “Mark Coester Vermont.” It’s a 21-second clip of Coester meandering along the U.S.-Mexico border wall, pausing in front of a small section that’s either unfinished or damaged, gesturing at it, and saying “Ran out of concrete?” He’s carrying a big ol’ sidearm, just in case he has to Halt A Incursion or something.

This is kind of normal behavior for Coester, whose campaign website promotes him as a man who would bring “common sense and traditional values to Washington, D.C.” He speaks of government accountability and term limits and 100% Fair and Honest Elections and — my favorite bit — decries “the constant bickering, finger pointing and blame games that go on in politics.”

If you’ve read my coverage of far-right stealth candidates, you’ll recognize the warning signs. This guy is a Trump-lovin’ conspiratorialist.

Continue reading →

The VTGOP Is on the Verge of Blowing a Great Opportunity

2 Replies

Gov. Phil Scott and his party are going in opposite directions in just about every way, and that’s bad news for both sides. And great news for the Democrats.

This campaign season ought to be a good time for the VTGOP. Scott is pushing hard on “affordability” and there’s every reason to think it will resonate with the voters. Many people are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet. Few think of themselves as comfortable.

And while Scott has a simple, compelling narrative, the Democrats are trying to address tough issues through the messy process of legislating. And yes, the Dems are looking for revenue to pay for the things they see as necessary. It’s not an easy case to make. If you want a depressing example of the Dems’ messaging problems, take a listen to the February 28 edition of Mark Johnson’s “802 News” podcast. He interviews several Democrats about the school funding situation, and they all say it’s complicated and will take time, probably years, to sort everything out. It was a bleak outlook on the verge of a Town Meeting Day where many Vermonters rejected school budgets with big tax hikes.

And all the while Scott is hammering on a single point. I’m not saying he’s right; I’m saying it’s politically effective. And it should pay dividends. The Dem/Prog supermajorities ought to be in mortal peril. Scott should be able to emerge from 2024 with a stronger hand.

But he probably won’t because the Republicans are completely unready for the moment. The party is underfunded, under-organized, and dominated by extremists. Case in point: recent events in Windsor County.

Continue reading →

In Re: Coyote V. Boulder

2 Replies

You probably know what happens when a bunch of Trumpers walk into a courtroom seeking their twisted idea of justice. Unless a like-minded judge happens to occupy the bench, they get laughed out of court.

Well, it happened again today in a Windsor County courtroom. (Technically it happened in digital space; the hearing was conducted remotely via the Webex meeting app.) The Trumpers entered looking for redress, and wound up flattened under the Big Boulder O’ Justice.

The case involved an ongoing dispute between the leadership of the Windsor County Republican Committee and a band of die-hard Trump backers. This has mostly been reported in the pages of the Vermont Daily Chronicle because political journalism in the mainstream press is pretty much dead in Vermont. (I do wish the VDC would learn how to spell John MacGovern’s name, though.)

Close observers could have foreseen the outcome simply by looking at the forces arrayed on each side. The plaintiffs were represented by Deb Bucknam, a former Republican nominee for attorney general (she got her ass kicked by TJ Donovan in 2016) and a former officer of the state party, who now found herself suing that very institution. She really Perry Masoned the case, assembling at least 13 exhibits of evidence and stretching out the hearing to the point where the judge asked her if she could, you know, get to the point.

The defendants, Windsor County Republican Committee chair John MacGovern and VTGOP chair Paul Dame (and the state party itself), didn’t bother hiring lawyers. They didn’t assemble any evidence. MacGovern even admitted that he hadn’t read some of Bucknam’s exhibits, partly because she hadn’t provided some of them until mere hours before the hearing. In short, neither Dame nor MacGovern took the proceeding very seriously. And by God, they were right. The judge dismissed Bucknam’s case after deliberating for about 10 minutes.

Continue reading →

Top VTGOP Official Accuses… VTGOP? … of Deploying a “Dishonest Mechanism”

Leave a reply

Former Vermont Republican Party chair — and current Vermont Republican Party Treasurer — Deb Billado has a beef with, um, the Vermont Republican Party. Billado is reportedly “the head of the Donald Trump campaign team in Vermont.” She claims that state party leaders fixed the presidential primary in Nikki Haley’s favor, presumably when she wasn’t in the room. From the Vermont Daily Chronicle:

“Republican leadership invited that very dishonest mechanism to get someone elected and nominated, only to have them drop out the next morning,” Billado said in a phone call to VDC Wednesday morning.

The irony is so thick you couldn’t cut it with a machete. Billado’s beau idéal is the all-time champion of election skulduggery, having (1) sought Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, (2) tried to blackmail Ukraine into providing bogus evidence against Hunter Biden, (3) sought foreign interference in the 2020 election, (4) fought to overturn the results of that vote after being told over and over again, by aides, lawyers, and the courts that there was no evidence of fraud, and (5) sparked an attempted insurrection on January 6, 2021.

Billado is fine with ignoring all of that. What she sees as a “dishonest mechanism” is Vermont’s long-established open primary system in which any registered voter can participate in the party primary of their choosing. She whines that only Republicans should be allowed to vote in the primary. Which would be a neat trick, since Vermont law does not allow voters to register a party preference. Perhaps she’d administer a loyalty oath at the polling place.

Continue reading →

Nikki Haley Organizes Vermont Team

9 Replies

A few days ago, the Nikki Haley campaign announced the formation of a Vermont State Leadership Team. I didn’t take much notice at the time because it’s not going to make the least bit of difference. Donald Trump is going to steamroll his way to probably all of Vermont’s 17 delegates as he grinds along to his inevitable nomination.

The only things that can stop him are (a) a quick and decisive criminal conviction or (b) a clear and obvious slide into dementia. Haley’s not going to do it, and her newly formed Vermont committee doesn’t have a prayer of carrying her to a primary win.

I wasn’t going to bother covering it at all until a Haley supporter took to The Formerly Robust Platform Formerly Known as Twitter to complain that there had been no coverage of the Vermont announcement. “Shameful that press has not covered this news in Vermont — it’s a big deal,” wrote Court Mattison. “Haley would help win down ballot and bring balance to #montp.”

Well, okay, your wish is my command. But be careful what you wish for.

Continue reading →

Hey, Let’s Take an Early Check on the Republican Ticket and… Oh.

3 Replies

The Vermont Republican Party has a long record of losing statewide races except when the name “Phil Scott” is on the ballot. Scott is still undefeated for the entirety of his political career going all the way back to 2000, when he rode the anti-civil union wave* into the state Senate. Otherwise, it’s been solid goose eggs for the VTGOP in statewide contests since the Jim Douglas era, if memory serves.

*Seems unbelievable now, but the Republicans nearly swept Washington County’s three Senate seats that year. The late Bill Doyle** finished first, Scott second, and Republican J. Paul Giuliani almost ousted two-term incumbent Democrat Ann Cummings. But we were all much older then, we’re younger than that now.

**Correction: “The late Bill Doyle” is still with us at age 97. My apologies.

Otherwise, the top of the Republican ticket has featured tons of fringey no-hopers with a sprinkling of old-fashioned conservatives. Lately it’s been more of the former, as the far right has seized control of the VTGOP apparatus. And it’s looking like 2024 will be no exception. Not only do we have the soundly defeated Gerald Malloy making another bid for the U.S. Senate, but the even more soundly defeated Gregory Thayer has staked his claim to another bid for lieutenant governor. (The Vegas wise guys have set the over/under on joint campaign appearances featuring Thayer and Scott at… zero.)

Continue reading →

The Death of Nuts-and-Bolts Political Reporting

2 Replies

My previous post concerning the party reorganization process could have been written a couple weeks earlier. That’s when the information became available. I just plain didn’t get around to it immediately because (1) other stuff got in the way and (2) I was pretty confident that no other media outlet would bother with it.

And I was right. Nobody in Vermont covered it. In fact, nobody in Vermont is covering the nuts-and-bolts of politics anymore. Party reorgs, hirings, departures, leadership changes, party finances: they’re off the agenda. No one routinely (well, really, ever) attends state party committee meetings, conventions, or big fundraising events.

You also see a lot less reporting on individual politicians’ campaign finances. Filing deadlines used to be big occasions. Back when reports were filed in person, political reporters would gather at the Secretary of State’s office to grab the reports and file stories. Everything’s digital now, so all you have to do is open up the SoS campaign finance website and hit “refresh.”

It’s a lot easier. And yet, little to no attention is paid.

Continue reading →

Party Reorg: The Rich Get a Little Bit Richer (Updated)

Leave a reply

Note: This post has been updated with comment from the Progressive Party, see below.

This fall, Vermont’s political parties have undertaken their biennial obligation to reorganize themselves. It’s quite the task. The parties have to encourage members across the state to take part in town caucuses and establish town committees.

The process Is now over and the results are in. The Vermont Democratic Party had the biggest success, organizing town committees in more than 170 communities (they’re still totting up a few stragglers). The same process two years ago resulted in 150 Democratic town committees. That’s a nice bump, considering (a) they had less room to grow than the Republicans or Progressives, and (b) given the flood and all, it wasn’t the best year for encouraging turnout at political meetings.

The Vermont Republican Party lost a bit of ground, falling from 132 town committees in the 2021 reorg to 120 this time around. The Progs saw a modest increase from 44 towns in 2021 to 48 this year.

So what does it mean?

Continue reading →

Once Again, Phil Scott Ducks Accountability for Being a Republican

3 Replies

The Vermont Republican Party held its biannual, or possibly biennual, convention on Saturday. (Above screenshot from the VTGOP’s own website, although they might get around to fixing it after they read this post.) They actually had kind of an impressive speaker lineup, including Reagan-era anti-tax activist Grover Norquist (who must have been wondering how the hell his career descended to the point where he was sharing breakfast with a few dozen graybeards in frickin’ Burlington), Scott Brown, who’s gotten an incredible amount of mileage out of one lucky victory thirteen years ago, and Georgia state Rep. Mesha Mainor, who switched her affiliation from Democratic to Republican after differing with her former party’s caucus on some high-profile issues.

All of which makes me think that there are some conservative deep pockets underwriting the travel schedules of far-right figures, because ain’t no way the VTGOP could have pulled this level of “star” power in the past. But anyway…

Speakers also included professional troll Scott Presler, a gay conservative dudebro who was touted as a get-out-the-vote activist. Not mentioned in your convention program: His stint as a lead organizer for an anti-Muslim hate group, his description of the January 6 “Stop the Steal” election denial gathering as “a civil rights protest,” and his promotion of false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

Oh, and his version of GOTV includes the all-out promotion of “ballot harvesting,” a common conservative complaint about Democrats collecting and delivering ballots en masse. If you’re unfortunately enough to remember the film “2,000 Mules,” which focused on unsubstantiated claims that liberal activists were harvesting huge numbers of questionable ballots, well, Presler wants to take that idea up to 11: “”I don’t want 2,000 mules. I want 2 million mules,” he told a GOP voter training session in Pennsylvania.

I can’t tell you whether he brought the same message to the Waterfront Hilton, but it seems likely.

Continue reading →

The VTGOP is Finally a Trendsetter — But Not in a Good Way

4 Replies

Is there such a thing as Chronic Wasting Disease among political parties? Because if there is, an epidemic is brewing among state Republican parties. Suddenly, in several key states, GOP coffers are alarmingly empty in a way that calls to mind the Vermont GOP’s underperformance over the last several years.

Last week, the conservative National Review published a piece called “The Quiet Collapse of Four Key State Republican Parties” that chronicled the woes of the GOP in Arizona, Colorado, Michigan and Minnesota — states “that would be tantalizing targets in a good year.” In addition, the Georgia GOP “is spending a small fortune on the legal fees of those ‘alternate’ Republican electors from the 2020 presidential election.”

The problem, according to the National Review’s Jim Geraghty, is “the replacement of competent, boring, regular state-party officials with quite exciting, blustering nutjobs” more concerned with culture war and ideological purity than the tedious work of party-building.

Sample nutjob: in my home state of Michigan, formerly the home of bland conservatives like Fred Upton and Gerald Ford, the state GOP is now helmed by election conspiratorialist Kristina Karamo, who not only believes that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, but so was the 2022 election in which she lost her bid to become secretary of state by a mere 14 percentage points.

The result of such leadership: Parties in battleground states that are racked by infighting and barely have two nickels to rub together.

Continue reading →