Tag Archives: Darcie Johnston

Hack’s retreat

Leave a reply

The conservatives really thought they’d gotten hold of a hot one.

They’d suddenly “discovered” a Shumlin Administration plan to “take over” Medicare, and began furiously stoking fear among Vermont seniors. Or at least trying their best to do so. As if they really gave a damn about Medicare, considering that their party is actively trying to kill it for future enrollees. And that their favored candidate, Dan Feliciano, is a Libertarian and presumably doesn’t believe in relying on the gubmint for anything.

It took a few days for the Administration to put together a coherent response, perhaps because they were incredulous that anyone would take this seriously. But their response did come, and it was simple and categorical: There is no such thing.

First word actually came from VTDigger’s Anne Galloway, who reported that the pertinent clause in Vermont’s health care reform law had been amended last spring, and that the law no longer mentioned anything like a takeover.

Which, as I predicted, didn’t stop the anti-reform crowd from pushing the idea. Here’s a Twitter exchange between Agitator-in-Chief Darcie “Hack” Johnston and Yours Truly, beginning with a Johnston link to a fear-stoking radio ad produced by the Ethan Allen Institute:

Funny, I didn’t get a response to that last one.

Meanwhile, El Jefe General John McClaughry leaped into the fray with a partial retreat, posted as a Comment under Galloway’s story. In it, he tried to muddy the legal waters before concluding that apparently there would be no Medicare takeover — but instead of admitting the whole hoopla had been pointless, he posited that the Administration was “trying to squirm out” of their alleged intent to take over Medicare. He further congratulated Dan Feliciano, the one who first tried to peddle this bill of goods, for supposedly uncovering the Shumlin plot and forcing the Governor to abandon it.

Like I’ve said before, sometimes I think ol’ Jefe doesn’t really mean the stuff he writes; he’s just trollin’ us.

Later in the day came another VTDigger story, amplifying Galloway’s initial post. This time, Administration officials had joined the chorus.

Robin Lunge, director of Health Care Reform, said unequivocally Monday that it won’t happen.

“Federal law does not permit us to get the cash,” she said.

Reporter Morgan True then explained that the troublesome portion of Act 48, the 2011 health care reform bill, called for the state to pay for all health services “to the extent possible under federal law.” And as Lunge stated, federal law doesn’t permit such a move.

Further, True reported:

That portion of Act 48 is what’s known as session law, or the legislation as passed before it is written into statute.

It provides guidance for writing the statutes, and while it is still law, the portions that don’t make it into statute are often temporary and meant to provide guidance.

“In 2011, we asked the administration to entertain lots of things, but it was in the context of ‘tell us whether you can do this,’” said Rep. Mike Fisher (D-Lincoln), who was on the House Health Care Committee when it drafted Act 48.

And after all that, remember that this year’s Legislature repealed that section of Act 48.

Johnston, of course, was prepared with a fallback position: “if the state is allowed” to set payment rates for medical services “and determine the type of payments, it will be bad for seniors on Medicare.”

Please note the first word: “if”. The whole argument is based on her own assumption.

From there, it’s just a quick hop and a step to the conservatives’ favorite bugaboo: rationing!!!

Scary

It’s a quick, and nearly complete, comedown for Johnston and her ilk. From frightening stories of a Shumlin plot to take control of Medicare and screw around with seniors’ benefits, to a maybe-possibly-perhaps shift in reimbursements. So sad when a good conspiracy theory gets thoroughly blown up by the facts.

The ironic thing about all of this is the notion that hardcore conservatives are suddenly the Protectors of Medicare. Don’t I recall Mr. McClaughry, just a few weeks ago, pining for the good old days before we had all this Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid crap that was draining our independence and sucking the lifeblood out of the private-sector social safety net that somehow, magically, took care of everyone’s needs?

If you’re interested in protecting federal health insurance, I’d advise you that Governor Shumlin is a much better ally than the likes of Darcie Johnston.

Dan Feliciano invests in himself; nobody else does

Leave a reply

Nice little discovery by the Freeploid’s Terri Hallenbeck: apparently, Dan Feliciano’s had a little trouble with the mechanics of the Secretary of State’s new online campaign finance system, and mistakenly underreported his own donations to his campaign.

Dan Feliciano, the Libertarian candidate for governor, has contributed $30,000 to his own campaign — or nearly three-quarters of his campaign’s money — though that information was unclear on campaign finance reports filed with the state.

Selling trinkets in the park: a vital cog in the Feliciano money machine.

Selling trinkets in the park: a vital cog in the Feliciano money machine.

That’s $30,000 out of his fundraising total of less than $41,000. He’s also received $1,153 from two people named Aja, which is his wife’s maiden name.

Add it up: Feliciano has raised less than $10,000 from people outside his immediate family. For the entire campaign.

So the question remains: what happened to the Feliciano groundswell? To, ahem, #Felicianomentum? To judge by his finances, his would-be challenge to the political establishment has been a damp fizzle.

Even the notable Republicans who publicly backed his candidacy, like Brady Toensing and Wendy Wilton and Patricia Crocker and Jim Peyton and Becky Amos and Tom Burditt and Chet Greenwood, don’t appear on Feliciano’s donor list. Mark Snelling gave one gift, a munificent $200. GOP House candidate Paul Dame chipped in $101. Darcie Johnston hasn’t given any money, but she has been acting as Feliciano’s unpaid campaign manager.

Which, judging by her past record, may have a cash value of less than zero.

The point is, the right wing of the Republican Party may have raised their voices for Feliciano, but when it comes to money, they’ve left him to fend for himself.

A great deal was made of Feliciano’s showing in the Republican primary: he took 15% of the vote as a write-in candidate. As a percentage, that’s impressive. But it’s 15% of a very small total: about 2,100 votes. At the time, many thought Feliciano would build on that showing and provide a real challenge to Scott Milne, if not Governor Shumlin.

Now, looking at his financials, I wonder if that 2,100 doesn’t represent a high-water mark. Oh, he’ll probably get more votes in the general election — but he’s not getting anywhere near 15%. I’m beginning to wonder if he’ll even crack the magic 5% number that would give the Libertarians major-party status in the next cycle.

Because considering the latest news about the extent of his self-dependence, his campaign looks weaker than ever.

Sometimes, no matter what the cost, you just gotta make a stand

Leave a reply

In the course of human events, there comes a time for a single heroic action that can spell the difference between ruination and glory. At moments like these, great figures arise, making statements that ring true across the centuries, imspiring new heroes with the sheer power of their words.

“I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.” — Nathan Hale

“Don’t give up the ship!”  — James Lawrence

“Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!”  — David Farragut

“I shall return!” — Douglas MacArthur

“We will bury you!” — Nikita Khruschchev

Oops, I don’t know how that last one got in there. Sorry. But you get my drift.

And today, in the midst of desperate times, another hero strode forth:

Screen Shot 2014-09-30 at 4.55.42 PM

“I stand by my retweet.” George S. Patton couldn’t have said it any better.

Really, I’m glad I wasn’t drinking coffee when I read that, because I would have had hot java up my nose and down my shirt.

A bit of context, for those just joining us. Earlier today, I wrote about a fatally flawed essay by James Conca of Forbes Magazine, which blamed rising energy prices in New England on “Vermont’s choice” to close the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant.

Which is nonsense; the plant’s owner pulled the plug for financial reasons. But that didn’t stop Vermont conservatives, who should know better, from latching on to the erroneous column. One of the guilty was Darcie “Hack” Johnston, hapless campaign consultant, who eagerly retweeted a link to the Concatenation. And when I noted the duplicity of glomming onto a fundamentally flawed essay, Johnston issued her broadside.

“I stand by my retweet.”

That’s gotta be one of the most ridiculous attempts at inspirational rhetoric I’ve ever seen.

Go ahead, @DarcieLJ. Stand by your tiny evanescent masterpiece.

When a crucial omission becomes a Big Lie

Leave a reply

On Monday, the Forbes website posted a piece by columnist James Conca entitled “Closing Vermont Nuclear Bad Business For Everyone.” Judging by Conca’s oeuvre, he is a complete apologist for nuclear energy… but that’s not my point here.

My point is the fundamental dishonesty of his column, based upon one crucial omission. And I quote:

Two electricity distribution companies in Massachusetts and New Hampshire announced electricity rate increases for this winter. This collateral damage results from Vermont’s choice last year to close the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. That choice has hurt rate-payers in their neighboring states.

Catch it? “Vermont’s choice.”

As anyone with the most glancing exposure to the facts could tell him, it was not Vermont’s choice to close Vermont Yankee. It was plant owner Entergy’s choice, For financial reasons having to do with changing market forces, not with Vermont’s overzealous radical socialist hippie-dippie hatred of Big Nuke.

Sure, Vermont had a more skeptical regulatory eye than other host states. Completely justified, IMO, because of Entergy’s terrible track record as plant operator. But Entergy made the decision to close VY on its own. It was a surprise to everyone in Vermont, because it came in the midst of Entergy’s full-court-press legal battle to keep VY open. Indeed, by all indications, Entergy was very likely to win the case and a 20-year license extension.

Mr. Conca is either criminally uninformed for an energy columnist at a major publication, or he’s ignoring the facts to suit his argument. In short, he’s either stupid or a liar.

All that is bad enough. But now, at least three members of Vermont’s terminally frustrated conservative minority have picked it up.Screen Shot 2014-09-30 at 10.58.34 AMScreen Shot 2014-09-30 at 11.20.05 AM

Ah, the immortal Tayt Brooks, former Douglas Administration functionary, former secretive head of the very secretive Lenore Broughton’s failed SuperPAC, Vermonters First, now the Vermont rep for American Majority, part of the Koch Brothers’ far-flung empire of innocuously-branded nonprofit organizations.

And then there’s Brian Keefe, bagman for Central Vermont Public Service. Retweeted by serially failed campaign consultant Darcie “Hack” Johnston, currently serving as unpaid consultant to the Dan Feliciano campaign.

As an outsider, James Conca may have the slightest figleaf of deniability for basing his argument on a canard. But Brooks, Keefe, and Johnston cannot possibly claim ignorance.

No, they’re spreading this column around because it suits their political interests, regardless of how it misrepresents the real situation.

I’m sure this is just the beginning of Vermont conservatives’ efforts to trumpet Conca’s essay as more proof of the evil Democrats’ anti-business agenda. Even though they know full well that the entire column is built on a foundation of quicksand.

Rob Roper? El Jefe General John McClaughry? “Super Dave” Sunderland? Scott Milne? Dan Feliciano? I’m lookin’ at you.

Stupid Twitter tricks

Leave a reply

The Man Who Couldn’t Beat Scott Milne, libertarian Dan Feliciano, self-proclaimed “social media sensation,” has been festooning many of his recent Tweets with the hashtag “#Felicianomentum.” Like so: 

Screen Shot 2014-09-08 at 10.49.55 PM

Sigh. This is what happens when a bean-counter tries to get jiggy.

What’s wrong with “Felicianomentum,” you ask? Well, three things.

First, the best Twitter hashtags are catchy, easily remembered. This is the opposite of catchy. It’s a tongue-twister.   

Second, you can’t spell “Felicianomentum” without “nomentum.” 

And third, get a good dictionary and look up the word “omentum.” 

This hashtag sounds like it came from the fervid imagination that gave Randy Brock the idea to call Governor Shumlin’s health care reform effort “Titanicare.” (Which rebounded against him when his campaign came a cropper and became known as the Titanicampaign.) The owner of that imagination is, I suspect, one Darcie Johnston, former Republican operative and now Dan Feliciano’s number one fan, God help him. 

Anyway, yeah, Felicianomentum. Good luck with that. 

Darcie Johnston and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Leave a reply

Pity the poor Hackster. The spectacularly unsuccessful campaign consultant went down in flames yesterday — not once, but twice.

See, it was primary day in both Vermont and Arizona, and Johnston had a horse in both races. Sickly, hobbled, glue-factory material horses, but horses nonetheless. And both of ’em came up short. Badly.

In the Eastern Time Zone, her man Dan Feliciano barely rounded the first turn before Scott Milne crossed the finish line in the race for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. Feliciano will still have the Libertarian spot to keep him warm at night, and at least he didn’t spend a dime for the Hack’s volunteer “services” (those Libertarians are smart with their money, neh?), but for Johnston, I fear that her Feliciano-philia may have burned whatever bridges might still have remained with the VTGOP.

Of course, the conservatives she pals around with are shameless enough to continue their ill-considered battle for The Soul Of The VTGOP or whatever. But the Feliciano disaster won’t help their cause or their credibility. They just proved that, while they may have significant support among party old-timers, they have very little pull with the Republican electorate.

Now we move out west, where Johnston client Frank Riggs finished a distant fifth in the race for Arizona’s Republican nomination. The Hack had spent the winter and spring as Riggs’ campaign manager, drawing a surprisingly modest $14,500 in salary for four months’ work. She charged her buddy Randy Brock a hell of a lot more than that, for the honor of helming his campaign straight into the nearest iceberg.

Riggs finished with a measly 4% of the Republican vote, in spite of endorsements from disgraced former State Senate President Russell Pearce and pants-shitting draft-dodger Ted Nugent. The Hack comes through again.

Republicans are infamous for recycling campaign consultants who couldn’t manage their way out of a paper bag, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Johnston continues to find employment. But I fully expect that her future clients will be just as disappointed as those in her destructive wake.

 

Well, that was quick.

Leave a reply

 

In just about the same amount of time it took Governor Shumlin to fend off a “challenge” from Obama birther H. Brooke Paige, Scott Milne took home the Republican gubernatorial nomination. In an authentic landslide: at last report, he had 85% of the primary vote. And, as of that report, Milne had done better against his three opponents than Shumlin had against Paige. Stunning.

I guess the alleged Dan Feliciano boomlet was more like a wet fart.

And I guess this is just one more defeat in a long series for Darcie “Hack” Johnston, who came back from managing Frank Riggs’ no-hope gubernatorial campaign in Arizona in time to serve as unpaid spearhead in Feliciano’s bid for Republican write-in votes.

It would also, I hope, inspire some second thoughts on the part of other Republicans who backed Feliciano. Especially two of the party’s four state officers, Brady Toensing and Mark “Little Snell” Snelling. Could they, perhaps, finally realize that they represent a tiny sliver of the Vermont electorate? Might they come to terms with Phil Scott’s party-broadening project as the best hope for returning the VTGOP to a semblance of relevance?

No, I’m not getting my hopes up either.

It’ll take a few days before we learn exactly how badly Feliciano did, since his votes are all write-ins. Tonight’s tally includes an overall write-in total, but the actual counting of individual votes will take a few days. I’m kinda hoping he finishes dead last. It’d serve his arrogant Republican supporters right.

 

The Milne campaign does something smart. Stop laughing, I mean it.

Leave a reply

Do Not Adjust Your Set. It’s True, It’s Damn True.

Scott Milne’s people, a.k.a. Brent Burns, put out a press release listing the names of prominent Republicans who have endorsed his candidacy.

And it’s an impressive list. 42 names of current and former officeholders. It puts to shame the tiny number of dead-enders and no-hopers who’ve opted for Libertarian Dan Feliciano.

It begins with former Governor Jim Douglas, the shining star of contemporary Republicanism. Unlike other people I could name (ahem, Phil Scott), Douglas has come out of his hidey hole and actually campaigned for Milne. His endorsement alone is worth approximately 1,000 Darcie “Hack” Johnstons.

After that, you get most of the VTGOP’s Senate delegation – Bill Doyle, Joe Benning, Norm McAllister, Peg Flory, and Kevin Mullin. From the House, add Kurt Wright, Heidi Scheuermann, Patti Komline, Chuck Pearce, Tom Koch, and Duncan Kilmartin and many more, plus former Rep and current Senate candidate Pat McDonald. A couple of interesting names: former Representative and current Senate candidate Dustin Degree and current Rep. Tony Terenzini, neither of whom are particularly moderate folks.

This primary-eve blast should put to rest any talk of a Feliciano groundswell. A couple of state party officials may have turned their backs on Milne, but the bulk of its officeholders – those with proven appeal to actual voters – are solidly behind him.

 

That and a buck will buy you a gubernatorial campaign

Leave a reply

Scott Milne’s unconventional campaign for governor continues to be a rousing success.

Well, it does if being unconventional is your goal. Otherwise, not so much. In fact, the time has come for one of my Bold Predictions: the Milne candidacy is a Dead Man Walking. He’ll (probably) survive the primary, but not only will he lose to Governor Shumlin, he’ll lose in a landslide of epic proportions.

I’d feel sorry for a guy who volunteered to take one for the team that couldn’t find a candidate of its own, and a guy who lost his mother and business partner in mid-campaign. But he’s done himself no favors. He’s been surprisingly inarticulate with the media and singularly unappealing in person. He’s shedding potential supporters at an alarming rate, and he’s had virtually no success at in-state fundraising.

Milne’s decision to pull out of a debate sponsored by the Essex Republicans had one predictable effect: it pissed off the Essex Republicans who, per VTDigger, voted 97% for Libertarian Dan Feliciano in a straw poll.

Not that I’m buying into the low-level media narrative of a Feliciano groundswell; he’s not going to win the Republican primary, simply because it’s so hard for a write-in to beat someone whose name is on the ballot. And when VTDigger bruited the notion that “Feliciano has started to gain traction among [VTGOP] stalwarts,” the only names it could name were Darcie “Hack” Johnston and El Jefe General John McClaughry. That’s a start, I guess, but not a very impressive one. Johnston’s a proven loser with no electoral appeal, and McClaughry’s a crank. A personable fellow, but a crank.

But I can see why the narrative exists; Milne’s making such a dog’s breakfast of his campaign that, if not for Feliciano, there’d be precious little to report. But it’s not that Feliciano is surging; it’s that Milne continues to diminish like the tide at Fundy, leaving a thin film of sludge on the beach behind him.

But tonight’s the beginning of Milne’s second life: a “tele-town hall,” in which some number of Vermonters will presumably give up 90 minutes of their time to hear a brief address by Milne and maybe, possibly ask a question – if they pass muster with the event’s moderator, Milne’s two children. Cozy!

The event was preceded by a mass robo-call to 30,000 households inviting their participation. Event and robo-call presumably arranged by the good folks at Colorado-based Telephone TownHall Meeting, “Maximizing Results With Personalized Services” according to its website. Those services include tele-town halls and the preceding robo-calls, as they cheerfully describe:

As with our teletownhalls, we manage the details so you don’t have to. From script-writing to execution – TTHM produces a quality voice broadcast every time.  We edit your robocall audio for quality & clarity, and will even make the recording for you if you prefer.

No muss, no fuss. Which befits the off-the-rack style of the Milne effort. As the saying goes, there’s fast, cheap, and good. You can have any two you want, but you can’t get all three. Well, the Milne campaign has opted for fast and cheap. In addition to the prefab Town Hall, there’s the candidate’s first TV ad – consisting entirely of footage from his campaign launch event at Barre’s Aldrich Public Library.

The ready-madeness of the effort is understandable, considering the meager resources at campaign manager Brent Burns’ disposal. (Resources made even more meager once Burns pays himself his own consulting fees.) But not exactly the way to build a mass movement in a matter of months.

Money doesn’t buy everything, it’s true; and Milne supporters keep pointing to the stunning loss by Eric Cantor as proof. But Cantor was both rich and clueless, which Governor Shumlin is not; and Cantor’s opponent tapped into an existing reservoir of appeal, which Milne doesn’t have. And by appearances, he wouldn’t know how to tap if he had the chance.

So, done. Over. Finito.

Again, I feel bad for saying so; Scott Milne is a good businessman who’s grown his family business in tough times. But he’s turned out to be an appalling politician. I would have expected somewhat better, even for a near-novice, because he’s done well in a service profession. He must have some ability to communicate. But he hasn’t shown it since he entered politics.

And time, never his ally to begin with, has run out.

I guess I missed the memo: We’re taking Dan Feliciano seriously now?

Leave a reply

This doesn’t add up. Take one Libertarian candidate for Governor; have him launch a write-in campaign for the Republican nomination, complete with the public support of exactly one Republican of any renown — Darcie Johnston, a Republican who’s on the outs with her party — shake it all up; and you have a serious, credible campaign? 

Whaaa? 

Libertarian Dan Feliciano held a news conference today, standing behind a folding table in a public park, to criticize Governor Shumlin’s budget policies. Now, a Libertarian presser usually doesn’t draw flies; but this time, WPTZ’s Stewart Ledbetter and the Freeploid’s Terri Hallenbeck showed up. I’m not sure why; Feliciano ain’t winning the primary. And on the Libertarian slate, Feliciano ain’t pulling more than a small minority of votes in November.

Boy, with all this media attention, Darcie Johnston must be happy as a pig in its customary environs. 

And Ledbetter’s story brands Feliciano only as a Republican. It doesn’t mention that he’s the Libertarian candidate. Rather, it puts him front and center in the Republican parade: 

Republicans went on the offensive Thursday, a day after Gov. Peter Shumlin and a panel of state legislators agreed on $31 million in adjustments to the new state budget. 

At a Burlington news conference, Dan Feliciano, a write-in candidate for the Republican nomination for governor, characterized Shumlin’s history of budget management a “carnival of incompetence.” 

Ledbetter goes on to quote Feliciano, give space for comment from the Governor, and finally shoehorn House Minority Leader Don Turner into the final paragraph. 

So, “Republicans” is defined as a lot of Feliciano and a skosh of Turner. Only the latter is an actual Republican. 

In her story, Hallenbeck at least points out that Feliciano is, first and foremost, a Libertarian candidate. Still, she gives his presser plenty of space, tossing in a comment from Don Turner for a bit of variety. 

I guess the Freeploid and Channel 5 wanted to run stories about a Republican response to this week’s budget tweaks. But shining the spotlight on Feliciano? Good grief. I wonder how Scott Milne feels about this; he’s had to cut back on campaign activity because HIS MOTHER DIED THIS WEEK. They haven’t even held the funeral yet, and reporters are chasing after Dan Feliciano because, I guess, Scott Milne isn’t returning phone calls?

If this keeps up, maybe Feliciano will be able to get himself an actual lectern. 

Addendum. Lest anyone think I’m unfairly disparaging Mr. Feliciano, my point is this: Usually, a candidate has to show some level of real support before earning the media’s attention. You wouldn’t see TV cameras at an Emily Peyton presser, for example. It’s just strange that WPTZ and the Freeploid chose to give Feliciano this much attention. And anointed him a central figure in Republican politics. That’s the phenomenon I found worthy of comment.