Elections: If it’s broke, don’t fix it

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Our Esteemed Leaders seem to be in the process of backpedaling away from a reform measure on the grounds that the problem hasn’t caused widespread mayhem just yet. In this case, it’s our antiquated way of deciding a gubernatorial election when no single candidate wins a majority. The problem slithered out of the dank recesses of Vermont history when Governor Shumlin barely eked out a plurality win over Scott Milne, and Milne refused to concede. Technically, we didn’t have a governor-elect until a couple hours before his inauguration.

Reminds me of my previous post about vaccines. Well, it’s a common theme in the Legislature. I call it Grandfather’s Lightbulb Syndrome, after the classic joke:

“How many Vermonters does it take to change a light bulb?”

“Change it? That was my grandfather’s light bulb!”

To which I would add, “And nobody’s fallen down the staircase yet!”

Several possible changes to our system have been proposed; all are simple, and any one would prevent future occurrences of a losing candidate fighting on or, worst case, a losing candidate actually winning election in the Legislature. Hey, it’s happened before.

So what will lawmakers do about it?  Sad to say, my money’s on Jack Diddly Squat. Because on issue after issue, they respond to potential problems by saying, “Why lock the barn door? We haven’t lost any horses yet.”

Think I’m too cynical? Take a look at this.

The chair of the Senate Committee on Government Operations said Wednesday she’s not so sure Vermont should amend its constitution to limit the legislature’s role in selecting statewide officeholders.

“We are more seriously looking at whether we need to have a change,” Sen. Jeanette White (D-Windham) said.

Well, Senator, what exactly would convince you that we need to have a change? An actual Constitutional crisis instead of a near-miss?

That’s bad enough, but there’s also this:

After the hearing, White said she remained “confused” about her own position.

“Part of me says it’s fine just the way it is,” she said. “It seems to work. People are elected.”

White’s committee has now held three hearings on the issue. And she’s “confused”? Jeezus H. Christ.

Don’t blame me, Senator, when your horse gets stolen or someone falls down the staircase.

Action needed on vaccines, and we’re not going to get it

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As the Great Disneyland Measles Outbreak continues to reverberate, attention is rightly turning to Vermont’s permissive rules on opting out of childhood vaccinations. The state allows parents to claim religious, medical, or philosophical grounds for refusing vaccinations; the vast majority of exemptions, according to the state Health Department, are in the undefined “philosophical” category.

Vaxxer responseMost of these are not philosophical at all; they are the result of anti-vaccine propaganda fomented by the likes of Jenny McCarthy and a disgraced former doctor. Their numbers in Vermont are growing, and getting close to the point where “herd immunity” will no longer be effective, and long-banished disease can make a comeback.

This is exactly the problem that caused the Disneyland outbreak, and it’s only a matter of time before it happens here. One brave lawmaker has stepped up to the plate; Sen. Kevin Mullin has proposed a bill to eliminate the philosophical exemption. He also did so in 2012; the Senate passed the bill, but the House backed away like a frightened child when the anti-vaxxers stormed their gilded corridors.

There seems to be little appetite for a repeat of that debate, in spite of the growing risk. Governor Shumlin, who strongly endorses vaccination, wants no part of another exemption debate, according to spokesman Scott Coriell:

The Governor believes that every child in Vermont should be vaccinated against deadly diseases, not only to protect them but also to protect others. …When it comes to the question of forcing those parents who refuse to follow common sense to do so, the legislature had that debate in 2012 and a bipartisan majority in the legislature passed a bill that requires enhanced education for parents and reporting on vaccination rates.

…While the Governor believes there is no excuse to forgo vaccinations, he thinks we need to be extremely careful about passing laws that put the state in the position of making decisions for children without parental consent.

That sounds almost exactly like the statement that just got New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in hot water:

“All I can say is we vaccinated ours,” Christie said, while touring a biomedical research facility in Cambridge, England, which makes vaccines.

The New Jersey governor added that “parents need to have some measure of choice in things as well, so that’s the balance that the government has to decide.”

You tell me the difference between Shumlin and Christie. There isn’t any.

And hey, here’s a little tidbit that might make some of our leaders think twice about their timidity: they’re making a daily commute right into the heart of a potential measles vector. According to the latest Health Department figures, kindergartners at Montpelier’s Union Elementary School have a Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccination rate of only 88.7%. The standard for “herd immunity” is 90%.

The Governor and his fellow anti-vaxx coddlers might want to consider wearing facemasks to Montpelier, especially those with some kind of suppressed immunity.

Now, the anti-vaxxers are framing this the same way Shumlin is: as a matter of parental choice.

Problem: this is a matter of choice the same way smoking in enclosed spaces or wearing your seat belt is a matter of choice. On some issues, the public interest trumps individual rights. When parents opt out of vaccination, they are depending on the rest of us to supply their kids with herd immunity. They also pose a direct health threat to children who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons, and to anyone with a suppressed immune system.

Vermont is trending in the wrong direction on vaccinations. We are needlessly endangering some of our more vulnerable residents and the general public health. But I guess it will take an actual outbreak before our lawmakers put on their grown-up pants and do the right thing.

Well, at least the Free Press dumped its political reporters BEFORE the list came out

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A big oopsie from the Montana province of the great Gannett Empire.

On Jan. 28, the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza released a (deeply flawed and incomplete) list of the “best political reporters” in each of the 50 states. One of the four Big Sky nominees was John Adams of Gannett’s Great Falls Tribune.

Unfortunately for the Trib, only two days after the list came out, Adams declined to go through the mandatory re-interviewing process for all Gannett journalists. He balked because his position — capital bureau chief — was being eliminated, and he didn’t want any of the jobs on offer.

After serious thought and consideration I opted not to apply for any of the positions. I have been very happy in my role as the capital bureau chief for the Great Falls Tribune and would have liked to have continued in that role, but I did not feel any of the available openings in the Tribune’s new “newsroom of the future” were a good fit for me.

Bad timing, Tribbies. By contrast, our local Gannett House O’ News ‘N’ Stuff, the Burlington Free Press, had the sense to jettison its two best political reporters (Terri Hallenbeck and Nancy Remsen) a couple months before Cillizza posted his list. The Freeploid still suffered the lesser embarrassment of having Cillizza name Mike Donoghue and April Burbank as two of Vermont’s top four state political reporters, when Donoghue’s beat is only partly political and Burbank had been on the beat for less than two months.

Well, it ought to be an embarrassment, but the Freeploid is actually proud of its reporters’ “achievement.” But then, it long ago established its reputation as Vermont’s Most Shameless Newspaper Media Organization. Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if Cillizza’s source wasn’t someone inside the Free Press and/or Gannett; he depended heavily on reader nominations for states he wasn’t familiar with, and he clearly hasn’t a clue about Vermont. It’s hard to imagine an objective reader nominating Burbank (Donoghue maybe, just on seniority) for the honor. Nothing wrong with Burbank, she hasn’t been covering state politics long enough.

 

Slicing the baloney with Art Woolf

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Expert-for-Sale-or-Lease Art Woolf has outdone himself in this week’s Burlington Free Press column. And that’s saying something, because just about every emission is a small shining jewel of cherrypicked statistics and unexamined dogma.

This week’s, though, hoo boy.

Herr Doktor Professor Woolf. Not exactly as illustrated.

Herr Doktor Professor Woolf. Not exactly as illustrated.

Maybe he’s been reading this blog, because today’s column is a 300-word attack on the idea of taxing the rich. His argument relies on the unlikely, and irrelevant, assertion that rich folks’ incomes are too volatile to be a dependable source of tax revenue.

Which may be true for individual taxpayers, whose incomes shuttle between well-off, rich, and filthy stinkin’ rich depending on the stock market, the purchase or sale of costly assets, and the convenient laundering of wealth to screw the taxman. (Woolf doesn’t mention the many, many tax advantages of being wealthy, and how they might cause volatility in rich folks’ tax payments.)

Woolf spends most of his column puttering around the definition of “rich,” and showing (with carefully chosen numbers) that these folks pay an impressive share of our total income tax revenue.

Well, of course they do. They earn an even more impressive share of our total income.

Not to mention that while our income tax system is fairly progressive, our total tax system is not. Sales taxes hit hardest on the poor and working classes; property taxes hit the middle class. And the income tax isn’t as progressive as it should be.  The rich may pay 40% of Vermont’s income tax revenue, but they sure as hell don’t pay 40% of our total (state and local) intake.

Now, if you look at statistics that Woolf conveniently ignores — total taxation as a percentage of income — you see that the rich pay lower effective tax rates than everybody else in Vermont. Here’s a chart from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy that I’ve posted before, but it’s relevant here:

ITEP 2014 tax chart

 

Take all of our state and local taxation together, the richest Vermonters pay a smaller share than anybody else. Woolf conveniently ignores these figures. And he evades the obvious question they pose:

Did they pay their fair share? That’s a question a philosopher, not an economist, can answer.

Wrong, Perfesser. It doesn’t take a philosopher, or even an economist, to look at that chart and conclude that they don’t pay their fair share.

Woolf’s actual premise, that the state can’t depend on revenue from top earners, is irrelevant. Nobody is arguing for confiscatory taxation. Nobody is arguing that soaking the rich should be the foundation of our tax system. The real argument is fairness: are the rich paying enough? The answer, clearly, is no.

The revenue volatility is one of many serious problems caused by income inequality. The solution to the volatility is a fairer economy — one that doesn’t concentrate the wealth at the top end. A fairer economy would also be a stronger and more stable economy, since supply and demand would be in balance.

Why have our economy and our public finances struggled since the Great Recession? Because there are too many people who can’t afford to buy stuff, and consumer activity is by far our strongest economic driver. That’s why programs like food stamps and the Earned Income Tax Credit provide more economic stimulus than any corporate tax break or across-the-board tax cut: when working people get a little extra cash, they immediately fritter it away on things like food, housing, and heat.

But I digress. Woolf’s argument is misleading and intellectually dishonest. His conclusion is irrelevant to the actual public policy question in play. He also leaves us without a hint of an alternative solution to wealth inequality, unfair taxation, and an economy slumping due to a lack of consumer demand.

Tax deductions: the big kahuna

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This is the third in a series of posts about the January 27 meeting of the House Ways and Means Committee, which explored the tax expenditures and deductions available under the state’s tax code. Part 1 concerned tax expenditures; part 2 focused on the tax deduction for medical expenses as an indicator of the widespread distress caused by our pre-Obamacare health system. 

It’s no secret that state lawmakers are looking for ways to raise some extra revenue without causing too much pain. One area under close examination is the tax code, and all the ways we allow people and businesses to limit their tax liability.

Some tweaks are possible in the tax expenditure side of things. But tax deductions actually offer a better opportunity to make our tax system fairer while giving the money tree a modest shake.

It’s an underreported fact that the wealthy actually get the best deal in our supposedly progressive tax system. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the wealthy pay the lowest per-capita share of state and local taxes combined, and they pay the lowest actual income-tax rate of any group besides the poor. Top earners are subject to an income tax rate of 8.95%, but the amount they actually pay is only 5.1%.

The single biggest reason for that disparity? Our generous rules on taxable income and tax deductions. A couple of examples from the category of Bet You Didn’t Know… (all information from the Joint Fiscal Office; tax figures are from the 2011 tax year)

— “Interest You Paid” is tax deductible. For most of us, that means mortgage interest. But it also applies to vacation homes — and boats. That chiefly benefits the wealthy. Renters, who tend to be at the bottom of the income scale, don’t benefit from the mortgage deduction.

— Property taxes are deductible. Including property taxes paid in other states. Again, that benefits those sufficiently well-off to own multiple properties.

— Charitable contributions can be deducted up to 50% of a taxpayer’s adjusted gross income. Only the wealthy can support anywhere near that level of giving. And, given the proliferation of ersatz foundations, it’s easy for a person of means to effectively launder money through a nonprofit. (For example, check out the nonprofit empire spawned by the Koch brothers.)

The power of this virtually unlimited allowance? Among Vermont taxpayers with incomes over $1 million, the average charitable deduction — the average — was $131,360. That’s a lotta stops at the Sally Army bell-ringer.

But here’s the biggest eye-popper of them all. If you add up all the average deductions for Vermont’s million-dollar class, you get $528,000.

That’s right: the average million-dollar taxpayer claimed deductions worth more than half their income.

And that’s how 8.95% turns into 5.1%.

The numbers for those earning less than $1 million are not quite so appalling, but the upper and upper middle classes clearly benefit from our current tax code. The primary reason: our permissive rules on tax deductions and taxable income.

Setting limits

The 2011 standard deduction in Vermont was $5,800 for a single taxpayer, $8,500 for a head of household, and $11,600 for a married couple filing jointly. Peanuts by comparison. I bring this up because Betcha Didn’t Know that 10 of the 50 states don’t allow itemized deductions. Everyone gets the standard — no more, no less.

That option could be on the table. It would bring the effective tax rate for top earners much closer to statutory levels. The resulting revenue could be used to cut taxes on the middle class, who get hit hardest by Vermont’s tax system; or they could be used to close the budget gap without sacrificing state services.

I’m not expecting anything that radical from our frequently timorous Legislature. But as recently as two years ago, the House passed a bill that would have capped itemized deductions at 2.5 times the standard. That bill died in the Senate, mainly because of Governor Shumlin’s opposition.

Yes, our Democratic Governor blocked the path to a fairer tax code. Wait, let me double-check… Yep, he’s a Democrat. Says so, anyway.

If that bill had passed, members of the Million-Dollar Club would have seen their deductions capped at $29,000 — a far cry from $528,000.

The situation may be different this year, as the state faces a large budget gap and Shumlin has deliberately soft-pedaled his anti-tax stance. During his budget address, he stated his opposition to “raising income, sales, and rooms & meals tax rates” — very deliberately emphasizing the word “rates,” which had not been part of his boilerplate in the past.

If that wasn’t signal enough, Shumlin’s budget proposed an end to the tax deduction for state income taxes paid in the previous year. And with that, as Ways and Means chair Janet Ancel told me, “He put the whole discussion about itemized deductions on the table.”

Ancel would not commit to revisiting the deduction-capping bill, but it’s clearly on her mind. “It [would have] made the tax system more fair,” she says. She may get a second bite at the apple this year, and thanks to our budget situation it might actually pass muster with the Governor. One can only hope.

… and a child shall lead them.

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About a month ago, a journalism class at Bennington’s Mount Anthony Union High School posted a video on YouTube in which they systematically dismantled the integrity of Fox News “journalist” Jesse Watters. The video’s gotten 370,000 hits, and is well worth watching.

This has received quite a bit of notice outside Vermont, but not much within our borders. Probably something to do with Vermont media’s northern orientation; Bennington is a virtual black hole because it’s far away and not easy to get to.

A while ago, Watters ran a piece on “The O’Reilly Factor” in which he visited Vermont to confirm its reputation as a liberal hotbed. His visit was as pro forma as it could have been; he went to Bennington, the closest town to his NYC base, and did a handful of “man on the street” interviews with questions designed to prove his prefabricated point that Vermont is a haven of the far left. Questions like, “Why do you think the President has allowed terrorists to take over a third of Iraq?” (Pronounced eye-RACK.) His interview subjects were stereotypically flaky young people. (I doubt he considered asking anyone in a business suit to take part.)

Mr. Integrity.

Mr. Integrity.

The MAUHS students compared Watters’ report with the ethical standards of the Society of Professional Journalists, and found him guilty of “too many violations to count” resulting in a “wholesale distortion of truth.” As one student concludes, “By watching Fox News, we have learned buckets about journalism: what to do, and more importantly, what never to do.”

The conclusion isn’t a surprise, but what’s notable is the diligence and thoroughness of these students. Their work is worth noting and celebrating. Fox News didn’t see it that way, naturally; Bill O’Reilly referred to the students as “pinheads.” Stay classy, Loofah Man.

Oh, and just in case you want to stereotype these kids as loony liberals, the same class has taken the New York Times to task for its overheated reporting on drug abuse in Vermont, particularly the Times’ assertion that “the hallways of Mount Anthony Union High School… were littered with bags of heroin.”

Tweaking the noses of the powerful: one of the core functions of real journalism.

Tomorrow’s Burlington Free Press might be a bit thinner than usual

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Today’s a Big Day for Gannett’s Newsroom of the Future initiative. See, Gannett has signed a big-ass contract with the Poynter Institute to provide virtual re-education camps for its rapidly dwindling cadre of newsies.

Shiny happy journalists.

Shiny happy journalists.

The Gannett-Poynter Training Partnership has its official kickoff today at 1:00 with an Employee Town Hall Webcast featuring Gannett President/CEO Gracia Martore “highlighting recent company news and a discussion about what’s ahead.” Expect a load of happy talk about how recent transitions (read: layoffs) have repositioned the corporation for a bright future.

Attendance, I suspect, is mandatory. I hope there’s no big news this afternoon.

After the launch party, staffers will undergo “four to seven modules that address a specific training need,” all with a goal of enhancing Gannett’s digital footprint and engaging the audience (they used to call us “readers”).

Poynter’s “training opportunities” include a bunch of courses in audience analytics, “building your brand,” “developing your social media voice,” promoting content online, and effective Tweeting. (I strongly suggest Michael Townsend sign up for that one.) Other notable “content modules” (they used to call them courses) include…

“Business Models and Strategies” — “innovative ideas that can bring new streams of revenue to your operations.” Which means partnering with sales staff and working with advertisers.

“Best practices for working with citizen journalists” and “How to Tell Great Investigative Stories with Dwindling Resources.” Meaning, we can’t afford reporters anymore.

“Cleaning Your Copy: Grammar, Style and More.”  Meaning, we can’t afford editors anymore.

“The Camera With You: How, and When, to Shoot with a Smartphone.” Meaning, we can’t afford photographers anymore.

Modules for the newly minted position of Content Coach include Managing Creative People (those damn crazy reporters), Dealing With Difficult Conversations (I’d think Gannett managers would already be experienced at this), and Language of Coaching (please stop yelling at the reporters).

Some of this is cringeworthy, and reflects a desperate industry making a last-gasp effort to maintain some sort of relevance. Or at least keep the profit streams flowing as long as possible. But to be fair to Gannett, a lot of this will help journalists and editors adjust to new realities being forced upon them. And when, sooner or later, they find themselves jettisoned by their corporate masters, they’ll be better equipped to bushwhack their way through our brave new media landscape where Content is King, but Content Providers are peons. And where salesmanship is at least as important as quality.

Leahy re-ups; a mixed blessing

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So the news comes by way of VPR’s Bob Kinzel that Patrick Leahy will seek re-election in 2016. It’s not too much of a surprise, although if (hahaha, when) he wins an eighth term in office, he will be closing in on 77 years old. But he’s in good health, and I’m sure he sees the opportunity for the Democrats to regain the majority in the Senate; Republicans will be defending seats won in the Tea Party sweep of 2010, and will be hard-pressed to repeat that success in a Presidential year. If the Dems win back the Senate, Leahy gets back his beloved Judiciary Committee chairmanship.

On balance, Leahy’s continued presence in the Senate is a good thing. He’s reliably one of the more liberal members of the Senate, for one. Also, his seniority means influence, and he does bring home the bacon on a regular basis. (The most recent example: generous federal funding for the Lake Champlain cleanup.)

But, as universally beloved as St. Patrick is in Vermont liberal circles, I see some downside to his announcement.

First, he’s been in the Senate for 41 years, and he sometimes shows a dismaying loyalty to the clubby mores of our most hidebound deliberative body. When he chaired the Judiciary Committee, he made it harder for President Obama to get judicial nominees confirmed because of his adherence to the Senate’s “blue slip” tradition, which allows a single Senator to sideline a nomination.

Second, his continued presence will exacerbate the logjam in the upper reaches of liberal politics, and keep the glass ceiling pressed firmly on the aspirations of liberal women. We’ve never sent a woman to Congress, which is downright shameful. And it doesn’t look to be changing anytime soon; there are a lot of experienced, connected, talented men at the front of the line, waiting for their shot at higher office.

Finally, there’s the generation gap: add up the ages of our three members of Congress, and you get 215 years. That’s an average age of just under 72. Not that there’s anything wrong with being old; I myself aspire to a long and active elderhood. Still, I’m vaguely bothered by the lack of diversity in our admittedly small group: all men, all white, all senior citizens.

On balance, I’m happy with our Congressional delegation. Individually, they’re all fine. Collectively, though, they’re too old and homogeneous. Leahy’s announcement means it’ll take that much longer to get some new blood into Congress.

Vermont’s new mental health system will have more inpatient beds than the old one

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I wouldn’t blame Jay Batra if he felt personally vindicated today. Maybe even a little bit smug. VTDigger’s Morgan True: 

The state wants to replace a temporary psychiatric facility in Middlesex with a permanent structure twice the size, officials told lawmakers last week.

… Last June Vermont opened the doors of the Vermont Psychiatric Care Hospital in Berlin, but the system still lacks the capacity to keep people with acute psychiatric needs out of emergency departments.

How about that. “…the system still lacks the capacity…”

Vermont’s new, decentralized, community-oriented system currently has 45 beds: 25 at VPCH, 14 at the struggling Brattleboro Retreat, and six at Rutland Regional Medical Center. If/when the Middlesex facility is built, the system will have 59 beds.

Before Tropical Storm Irene, the Vermont State Hospital had 54 beds. After Irene, the Shumlin administration insisted, repeatedly, that if we had a more robust community-based system, we wouldn’t need that many inpatient beds. In the process, it ignored the counsel of psychiatric professionals, who said that 50 was the bare minimum.

What’s happened since then? The administration has slowly, quietly, built the system back up. And it has found that, yes indeed, those professionals knew what they were talking about.

Let’s take a trip in the Wayback Machine to Tuesday, December 13, 2011…

Gov. Peter Shumlin announced on Tuesday that his administration plans to replace the Vermont State Hospital in Waterbury with a decentralized, “community-based” plan with 40 inpatient beds in four locations around the state. …

The unveiling of Shumlin’s proposal came on the same day a top mental health psychiatrist called for almost the exact opposite of what the governor proposed. Dr. Jay Batra, medical director of the state hospital since 2009 and a professor at UVM, told lawmakers at a hearing on Tuesday that the state should have one central mental health facility serving 48 to 50 patients in order to provide the best clinical treatment and best staffing model.

That, from a lengthy VTDigger account of Shumlin’s announcement, which was made in the conspicuous absence of Dr. Batra. At the time, Shumlin was planning on a central hospital with as few as 16 beds. It was a well-intentioned effort to avoid the serious problems that had plagued VSH in the past. But it was a misdirected effort, pursued against the advice of those actually in the field.

At the time, I wrote some highly critical stuff about the administration’s plan, and I got some active pushback from administration officials who basically accused the psychiatric community of professional puffery — overstating the need for their own expertise.

Now, it’s safe to say that the administration was wrong.

Assuming the Legislature approves the $11.4 million Middlesex facility, the mental health system will have more beds than before Irene, and those beds will cost more than a similar number at a single, central State Hospital. How much more, I don’t know. But the system has had persistent problems hiring and maintaining the staff it needs for the specialized care its patients require. Those problems are exacerbated when the beds are spread among four separate facilities.

Also unknown is how much money was [mis]spent on the long and winding road to get exactly where the experts thought we should go in the first place. Plus, we are left with a system that’s almost certainly more expensive to operate and harder to administer because of its geographic spread.

One of Governor Shumlin’s great strengths is his decisiveness. He can assess a situation quickly, make a decision, and carry it through. Well, it’s a strength when he’s right. When he’s wrong, and he stubbornly insists on staying the course, that same decisiveness is one of his great weaknesses.

Top Vermont Republican still consorting with hatemongers

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Susie Hudson is still going to Israel on a trip paid for by the American Family Association, the far-right Christianist organization. She sees nothing wrong here.

Predictable, but disappointing.

Hudson, a resident of Montpelier and newly-elected secretary of the Republican National Committee, is one of many RNC members going on a nine-day trip to Israel paid for by the AFA and guided by AFA leaders. The trip made news when the Israeli news outlet Haaretz reported the many bigoted comments by longtime AFA spokesman Bryan Fischer. In response, AFA fired Fischer as its spokesman — but retained him as a talk-radio host.

Yep, they’re still paying the guy for equating Islam with Ebola, asserting that the First Amendment only applies to Christianity, and that gay Nazis were responsible for the Holocaust because homosexuals are inherently savage.

He may not be their spokesman, but as a talk radio host, he remains their public face. And they’re happy to pay him for that. Plus, his comments were barely outside the usual poisonous stream of AFA demagoguery.

After I revealed Hudson’s travel plans in this space, Seven Days‘ Paul Heintz reached Hudson, and she gave him a heapin’ helpin’ of weaksauce.

“I mean, I know there’s been some stuff that’s been out in the press yesterday, but it’s my understanding that there was an individual who made some inappropriate comments, and I certainly don’t agree with them, and it’s my understanding they are no longer with the organization.”

Okay, stop right there. Fischer is still with the organization, still holds a prominent position. His public statements have arisen from his radio show, not from his duties as AFA spokesman. If they wanted to punish him, they’d take away his media platform.

… Asked whether she was familiar with AFA’s beliefs, Hudson said, “I mean, obviously I’m somewhat familiar with them, yes.”

But, she said, “I did not know that whatever group you said has called them a hate group.”

Wow. Just wow. That’s an almost Palinesque cavalcade of ignorance. Now, I’m sure Ms. Hudson is just acting stupid to avoid taking a stand on the AFA, but I’d expect someone in her position to do a better job than that.

“Somewhat familiar” with the American Family Association, a leading power-broker on the Christian Right? “Whatever group you said”? Yeah, just the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of America’s leading crusaders against hate groups for more than 40 years. “Stuff that’s been out in the press”? In the words of Katie Couric, what newspapers do you read?

To top it all off, “Hudson… repeatedly declined to say what she understood AFA’s beliefs to be.”

Come on. That’s not credible at all. The Republican Party’s top officials have to know the lay of their land. That includes groups like the American Family Association, who have a lot of influence in Republican politics.

There, of course, is the rub. Hudson can’t afford to publicly distance herself from the AFA because it is so influential. And because AFA members and sympathizers form a substantial part of the Republican base, even in liberal old Vermont. She’d rather come across as an uninformed dunderhead than utter a word against the AFA and the extremism it stands for.

Which brings us to the Vermont Republican Party itself. VTGOP leaders like to downplay social issues, but they don’t want to actively contradict the views of the Christian Right. No matter how extreme, hateful, and downright unAmerican those views might be.