Two Kinds of Leadership

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Last night, the Montreal Canadiens beat the Philadelphia Flyers in an empty arena. Two hours before puck drop, the provincial government of Quebec asked the team to close the Bell Centre to spectators. It was one of a series of measures instituted, in the words of the CBC, “as COVID-19 cases soar.”

Other measures: Reduced capacity in bars, restaurants, theaters, places of worship, funerals, weddings, any indoor public gatherings. Private indoor gatherings are capped at 10. It’s pretty damn serious.

Province-wide, 2,736 cases were reported Thursday, the highest single-day total since January 3. The government expected Friday’s total to be around 3,700.

Wow, that’s a lot of cases.

Wait. How many people in Quebec?

8.4 million.

How many in Vermont?

643,000.

Hmm. Cases per capita in Quebec on Thursday? 3.25.

Cases per capita in Vermont on Thursday? 10.

Ohhhhhhh. So a case rate enough to trigger decisive action in Quebec is less than one-third Vermont’s total for the same day. I’d say we have two contrasting kinds of leadership here.

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The Five Percent Absolution

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Gov. Phil Scott grabbed the headlines Tuesday with his pronouncement that only 5% of adult Vermonters are unvaccinated. It was a surprisingly small number, suggesting that the vax-averse are nothing but a tiny minority of cranks. It served to amplify Scott’s sterner-than-usual call for all eligible persons to get their shots. He rebuffed the notion of a mask mandate by saying the 95% who’ve done the right thing shouldn’t be hemmed in because of that small number of holdouts.

But what does it mean, really? A hell of a lot less than it appears. It was the latest in the Scott administration’s flood of misleading statistics. (I sometimes think his Selective Statistics Team is bigger than his Covid Policy Team.) And our news media deserves zero credit for regurgitating the number without a thought.

WCACX-TV went even further, helpfully exaggerating the number in its headline “Scott says 5% of unvaccinated Vermonters are ‘the problem.'” It’s not unvaccinated Vermonters, it’s unvaccinated adult Vermonters. (The accompanying story got that crucial detail right.)

Let’s explore the other limitations on this shiny new statistic, shall we?

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Balint Lays Down a Marker

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When I wrote earlier this week that Lt. Gov. Molly Gray is the early favorite over Senate President Pro Tem Becca Balint in the race for Vermont’s Congressional seat, I closed with this line:

…those who underestimate Balint do so at their peril.

Well, I’m sure glad I wrote that. Balint took the opening round of the campaign yesterday by announcing a first-day fundraising total of $125,000. This, after the Gray campaign had boasted of raising $110,000 in the first week.

Gray laid down a full house. Balint topped her with a straight flush.

Now, it’s ridiculously early. Both candidates had impressive hauls, and both will raise enough money to be seriously competitive. But political folk take note of this stuff. That one-day total proved that Balint is a serious contender.

Especially given Gray’s connections to the power brokers in Vermont politics. It’s no surprise that she raised a bunch of money right off the bat. It is a surprise that Balint did so much better. If there were any doubts about her ability to play the inside game as well as Gray, well, they’re gone. My own questions about Balint’s ability to lead the Senate and conduct an intense campaign at the same time are not entirely gone, but they seem less relevant today.

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The Mask Slips

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And the Academy Award for Painfully Earnest Passive Aggression goes to…

The topline from this week’s gubernatorial Covid presser was probably the Scott Administration’s apparent determination to push harder for getting Vermonters vaccinated. The governor practically accused the unvaccinated of betraying their fellow Vermonters and promised a new messaging strategy. I doubt it was because I’d just written the exact same thing last Tuesday, but hey, if they’re taking my advice, that’s fine with me.

However, for the political observers in the crowd, the most telling development came near the end of the marathon presser. VTDigger political reporter Lola Duffort asked a pointed question about chief of staff Jason Gibbs slagging an administration critic last week. (This was after two hours of nobody else bringing it up.) In his response, Scott made it clear that Gibbs was absolutely speaking on his behalf — and that Scott shares Gibbs’ condescending attitude toward critics and skeptics.

Yeah, the mask slipped, revealing the mean-spirited flip side of Governor Nice Guy.

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The Digger Deal is Good for All involved

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Yesterday’s announcement that VTDigger and the VTDigger Guild had reached agreement on a contract was, I have to admit, a surprise. The terms were an even bigger and pleasanter surprise.

That’s because Digger management had stonewalled the talks for at least a year since the Guild organized. There was no reason to think that management would ever change its tune, but now it has. And I’ve renewed my monthly donation to Digger, which I suspended in May when the Guild went public with its account of the stonewalling.

Another sign of a healthy union/management relationship came in the comments on the settlement from both sides. Digger founder Anne Galloway said the talks “resulted in mutual respect, better communication and excitement about the future,” and spoke of “the Guild’s commitment to the VTDigger mission.” Lola Duffort, ace reporter and co-chair of the Guild local said negotiations were “a long and at times difficult conversation, but we had it as equals, and the organization is much stronger for it.”

Which is almost word-for-word what I wrote when I suspended my monthly donation: that the Guild wanted to support Digger and its mission, not tear it down.

VTDigger is at a critical juncture in its development. It is trying to build a sustainable, professional enterprise capable of thriving in a time of dramatic change for its industry. …The Guild wants to be a partner, not an antagonist. It isn’t making outlandish demands. Guild members want Digger to prosper, and to fully become a model for sustainable journalism.

The Guild contract is a big step in that direction.

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Balint Jumps In

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As expected, Senate President Pro Tem Becca Balint has joined the race for Congress. To get to the payoff right away, I still list Lt. Gov. Molly Gray as the early favorite. But Balint will be a tough, engaging campaigner. And she’ll have to be.

Let’s start with the job she already has. No sign that she’ll step away from the Pro Temship, which would be a disaster for the Legislature; there are no obvious candidates to take her place in a very tricky job. And this is going to be one hellacious session. No time for a rookie leader.

But if she remains as Pro Tem, Balint will have a really difficult job that will take up a lot of time and energy. This session won’t be easy. Can she campaign during the session? Can she wait until June and still manage to be competitive? Can she raise money? Not only in Vermont, but nationally?

Besides all that, when you’re the House or Senate leader, you can’t define your own political profile. Your job is to get a majority together on crucial votes without alienating anyone you might need down the road. Your task is crafting acceptable compromises, not spearheading the charge.

So it ain’t gonna be easy. But Balint is a gutsy, energetic, determined individual — to me, the single most impressive person in the Legislature — and I won’t be surprised if she wins the Democratic primary.

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It’d Be Almost Impossible For Gov. Scott To Do Less

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On Friday, the state of Vermont set a new record for daily Covid cases with 740. It was a full 100 more than the previous record, and just another in an upward climb since the Delta variant arrived. What did Gov. Phil Scott do about it?

He issued a press release asking people to please please please get vaccinated. Just like he’s done every time he opens his mouth.

Oh but this time, his comms team came up with A SLOGAN!

“Boost Up Vermont.”

Catchy, neh?

This is, quite literally, just about the least he could have done.

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Low People in High Places: The Latest in Stupid

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Apologies from the Veepies Selection Committee, which has been overwhelmed with all the stupid and/or obtuse in our public sphere. I’m sure we missed a few, but here’s a selection featuring a whole lot of misplaced self-regard from those in positions of public trust.

FIrst, the Hey, Look, A Squirrel! Award For Attempted Misdirection goes to Jason Maulucci, spokesthingy for Gov. Phil Scott. When last we met, we were giving chief of staff Jason Gibbs a right roasting for maligning a public health expert who disagrees with the administration. Gibbs all but accused Dartmouth’s Anne Sosin of professional misconduct, saying she was “desperate to prove a false narrative” and that her analysis “conceals the full truth.” Those are serious things to say about an academic’s work product.

Maulucci, when asked for comment by VTDigger, defended Gibbs by ignoring the personal criticism of Sosin. Gibbs had merely “presented data from a neutral data tool” according to Jason Junior, who concluded with “There is nothing uncivil about pointing out facts.”

Exactly, Jason Junior. There is nothing uncivil about pointing out facts. But there is something extremely uncivil and downright unseemly about attacking Sosin’s integrity. Maulucci’s lame-ass defense doesn’t change that.

Still to come: a spate of ass-covering by the cops, and correcting a very racist public monument.

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Jason Gibbs, Sooooper Genius

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Not Exactly As Illustrated.

Collars must be getting tight around the Pavilion Building’s fifth floor, where Gov. Phil Scott and his inner circle have their offices. I say this because yesterday, Scott’s chief of staff Jason Gibbs delivered a series of tweets in which he claimed to know more about Covid-19 than the actual experts. Most of his attention was focused on one particular expert, Anne Sosin of Dartmouth College. He took exception to her advocacy of a mask mandate, questioned her ethics and research, and challenged her to a Science-Off on Twitter — everyone’s chosen platform for scientific discourse.

At times it approached the level of bullying. It was an unusual and unseemly performance by Phil Scott’s top guy.

Oh wait — he’s come back for Round 2 today! I’m surprised; I thought he’d get a talking-to from his boss and return to his hidey hole. Hmm. Maybe the governor wants his chief of staff out there showing his ass to the world.

Can we conclude that this is of a piece with the administration’s blinkered approach to “the science and the data” that Scott claims to rely on? When asked about dissenting experts at a recent Covid briefing, Scott professed to trust the experts in the building. His underlings, that is.

What’s gotten under their skin? It’s not the failure of their Delta variant policy or the terrible Covid case counts or hospitalizations or ICU admissions or the overstressed health care system or the slow plague of long Covid we’re setting ourselves up for. Maybe it was the Vermont chapter of the American College of Physicians publicly calling for a mask mandate and other “evidence-based measures.” Maybe it was former health commissioner Dr. Harry Chen joining the chorus. There are so many experts on that side, and so many studies showing that mask mandates are effective, that Team Scott must be feeling a bit embattled.

But, for whatever reason, Gibbs’ primary target was Sosin.

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The Battle for Molly Gray’s Wikipage (Updated with source credit below)

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On November 29, Lt. Gov. Molly Gray’s Wikipedia page was edited 34 separate times. Most of the traffic involved minor adds or corrections, but some of it was aimed at turning the page into campaign propaganda — and counter-efforts to restore content removed or altered by the propagandists.

The lead actor in this one-day drama was “Alaenahunt.” The AH account on Wikipedia was created at 3:41 p.m. on November 29. AH made eight edits to Gray’s Wikipage between 4:12 and 7:35 p.m., and has done nothing since then. “Alaenahunt” is presumably a pseudonym; editors can post biographical information but they don’t have to, and AH didn’t. But it’s obvious that AH is either a very staunch Gray supporter or a member of her campaign team. AH’s deletions involved potentially controversial material; additions read as though they were lifted straight from Gray campaign material.

This sort of thing has happened before. In 2016, when former state Senator Peter Galbraith made a doomed run for governor, an editor named “Devotedamerican” repeatedly added positive material and deleted negative stuff from Galbraith’s Wikipage. That editor was repeatedly upbraided by other Wikifolk for obvious shilling.

On three days in May 2012, when then-attorney general Bill Sorrell faced a challenge from then-Chittenden County state’s attorney (and current AG) TJ Donovan, there was a torrent of activity on Sorrell’s Wikipage. Until then it had been a stub with very little information. Suddenly, an anonymous user started adding whole chunks of favorable material and deleting the unfavorable. It basically turned the page into a campaign ad for Sorrell.

Wikipedia has rules about such things; you’re not supposed to engage in advocacy, opinion, scandal mongering, self-promotion or advertising/PR. But it happens.

Now, let’s follow the Molly Gray Wikitrail.

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