UVM’s athletic priorities

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The University of Vermont chose Friday afternoon, traditional bad-news dumping ground, to announce the firing of its women’s basketball coach, Lori Gear McBride.

It couldn’t have been a surprise; Gear McBride had compiled a miserable 46-134 record in six seasons. In her “best” campaigns, the team lost twice as many games as it won. Throughout her tenure, UVM was a consistent cellar-dweller in the America East converence.

So the real question isn’t “Why was she fired?” it was “Why did it take so long?”

And here’s another puzzler. After her first four seasons, coaching the team to a 32-89 record, she was given a four-year contract extension at an annual salary of $131,000. That seems, shall we say, out of proportion with Gear McBride’s performance.

No way a men’s coach with such a record would see his contract extended. No way a men’s coach would be allowed to lose that many games, period.

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Budget Kabuki

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The Vermont House passed a budget this week. Pretty quick and pretty painless, considering the state’s fiscal situation. Lawmakers found money in a lot of places that won’t directly impact working Vermonters’ take-home pay.

Much of the new revenue comes from raising fees on registration of mutual funds. That’s a minuscule line item in funds’ expenses, so the actual effect on The People will be negligible at most. Ditto with an increase in registration fees for large banks. In general, the House found ways to prop up necessary state programs with some fairly reasonable tax and fee hikes. Mostly fees.

Republicans, of course didn’t see it that way. There were the usual, utterly predictable cries of outrage that are repeated every time a tax or fee is increased — even when a fee hike simply reflects the impact of inflation. (Fees are fixed; if you don’t raise ’em occasionally, you’re narrowing your revenue stream.) It doesn’t help Republicans’ credibility when every single revenue enhancement, no matter how small, is a punishing blow to struggling Vermonters and a mortal threat to the economy.

This time, there were loud laments over being shut out of the process. Which, first of all, c’mon. When the Republicans ruled this roost for over a century, how much credence did they give to Democratic ideas? When state lawmakers in Kansas or Oklahoma or Michigan or any other state with a Republican majority sets policy, do you think they allow Democrats to have a fair say?

Of course not. Shoe’s on the other foot, guys. Suck it up.

House Minority Leader (and Chief Budget Scold) Don Turner presented an additional argument this time.

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Bernie Bucks found in archconservative pockets

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Found a disturbing little factoid while trolling the Internet this evening.

I came across a Politico piece about Bernie Sanders’ campaign spending reports. Surprise, surprise: he spends a lot of money for those big hairy rallies, as well as the usual stuff of big-time campaigns — staff, consultants, polling, and…

… food.

Prepare yourself. Here comes the shocker.

One area where Sanders wasn’t very spendthrift was catering. His February campaign bill was only about $49,000 on catering, including about $620 on Chick-fil-A, $1,140 on Subway and $1088 on Panera Bread.

Wait wait wait. Did they just say… Chick-fil-A?

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Senate Tweaks Doomed Program

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Well, huzzah. The State Senate has approved a change in the public financing law. Currently, a candidate who wants public financing has to wait until February 15 to say or do anything campaign-related. Given the current fashion in extra-early campaign launches, that’s a significant handicap.

Tne new bill would start the clock “as soon as a privately financed candidate raised or spent up to $2,000 on a gubernatorial or lieutenant gubernatorial campaign — up to one year before Election Day,” reports Seven Days’ Paul Heintz.

This solves the too-late problem without ensuring ever-earlier campaign launches. Good idea.

However, it’s quickly becoming apparent that the deadline is far from the biggest problem with the public financing system. The biggest problem is the skyrocketing cost of statewide campaigns and the paltry sums on offer through the public funding system.

Currently, a gubernatorial hopeful who earns enough small donations gets to (a) keep that money and (b) get enough public dollars to bring their campaign total to $450,000. For lieutenant governor, the figure is $200,000.

And those are absolute limits. Not a penny more, from any source. Not even a mention in a party’s email blast.

These days, that’s simply not enough to support a competitive campaign.

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Phil’s dilemma

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Was looking up a word the 21st Century way — Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary. I found what I was looking for; but along the way I was offered a Word of the Day, which happened to be “undulant.”

As in, “having a wavy form, outline or surface.”

And I thought, “What a great word for Phil Scott.”

Our Lieutenant Governor is attempting a delicate balancing act which is looking to become more difficult.

On the one hand, preserving his image as a Son of the Green Mountains. On the other, needing to sip from the strong-flowing rivers of outside money in order to mount a competitive campaign against a deep-pocketed primary opponent and what’s sure to be a stoutly-funded Democrat.

On the one hand, his own pristine record of inoffensiveness and image of moderation, which are his most politically appealing attributes. On the other hand, his obligation to be a point man for his party, outlining the differences between Republicans and Democrats.

Further thoughts on both points… after the jump.

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Fake syrup peddler takes over eco-disastrous beverage maker

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That didn’t take long. Keurig Green Mountain, the artist formerly known as Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, was sold to a private equity firm in late December; now, the company’s CEO has been kicked out of the way.

Keurig Green Mountain, Inc. in Waterbury has hired a new chief executive officer, promoting current CEO Brian Kelley to vice chairman of the board.

That’s a hell of a promotion. Kind of like being promoted from Governor to Lieutenant Governor.

And Kelley’s replacement?

Bob Gamgort, currently CEO of Pinnacle Foods Inc. in Parsippany, New Jersey, will take over leadership of Keurig on May 2. Pinnacle owns a number of well-known brands, including Duncan Hines, Vlasic, Mrs. Butterworth’s and Log Cabin, Armour and Birds Eye.

Ruh-roh, Raggy. Mrs. Butterworth’s and Log Cabin?

Them’s fightin’ words around these parts.

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High stakes for a low-heeled job

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It may be Vermont’s “bucket of warm piss,” in the unexpurgated words of John Nance Garner, but the campaign for Lieutenant Governor is going to absolutely shatter all previous records. In fact, the record will almost certainly fall before the party primaries in August.

Two years ago, Phil Scott and Dean Corren combined to spend about $433,000 on their respective campaigns. That set a new high water mark for the post. So far this year, about $400,000 has been contributed to Lite-Guv hopefuls. And for goodness’ sake, it’s only March!

Democrat Brandon Riker managed to raise $188,000 before dropping out, which tells you something right there. A newbie candidate raises almost as much by March 15 as Phil Scott did for all of 2014 — and feels compelled to withdraw in spite of his bankroll.

The remaining Democratic candidates, Kesha Ram and David Zuckerman, are closing in on the $200,000 mark combined, with no end in sight.

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One to beam up

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Well, that was brief and uneventful.

Marlboro Democrat Brandon Riker, the first announced candidate for lieutenant governor in the 2016 election, bowed out of the race Wednesday after acknowledging his campaign had failed to fire up Vermonters.

Call it The Curse of The VPO. Riker was the only Democratic candidate for Lite-Guv I’d actually met. So keep your distance, David Zuckerman and Kesha Ram.

Riker acknowledged that he “made a lot of mistakes as a first-time candidate,” mentioning prominently his decision to “jump-start” his campaign with a massive infusion of his own (and his family’s) money. He says “it created a picture that I was trying to buy the seat.”

Well, yeah, you come from a family of wealthy hedge-fund operators and on Day One you throw more than 65,000 RikerBucks into the kitty, and you can see how people might get the wrong impression.

I’d start the “mistakes” even earlier — specifically, the decision by a little-known first-time candidate to launch his political career with a bid for statewide office. That was the fatal mistake.

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The importance of diversity: three object lessons

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Diversity is a lot more than a liberal feel-good cause, a way to shoehorn visible minorities into public and private institutions just for the sake of it. Or just to disenfranchise white heterosexual men.

When universities argue against affirmative action bans, it’s not because they’re lefties; it’s because they realize a diverse student body (and faculty) makes their institutions stronger.

When I look at a political contest and see two roughly equivalent candidates, I give preference to the woman, the minority, the member of the LGBTQ community, because their perspectives make our politics better.

We have three object lessons from this week’s news, two right here in Vermont, each illustrating the importance of diversity.

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For Bernie, the clock continues to run

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The Bernie Sanders campaign had a great night, winning one-sided victories in the Idaho and Utah caucuses.

The Hillary Clinton campaign had a great night, winning the Arizona primary by a substantial margin.

The overall result: a strong positive for Clinton.

In spite of Bernie’s yoooge leads in the caucuses, Clinton comes out of Tuesday night with a slight net gain in delegates*. And that’s the only thing that matters. As good an outcome as it was for Bernie, he needs to do a lot better — and he can’t afford any Arizona-style setbacks.

*True when I wrote this. No longer the case; Bernie picked up a few delegates overall. My point remains the same: Bernie’s running out of time.

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