Tag Archives: Gregory Thayer

A Real Murderers’ Row of Conservative “Thinkers” is About to Descend on the Statehouse (Updated)

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Hey, anybody know how to get in touch with the gender-nonconforming CHAOS! Dance Troupe? Because they’ve got another prime opportunity coming up this week.

The occasion: A bunch of far-right activists has reserved the Cedar Creek Room on Wednesday at noon for a Parents’ Rights Rally. “Parents’ Rights” (they actually misspell the phrase, but we’ll get to that) is ultraconservative code for cracking down on the allegedly liberal proclivities of public schools and libraries. It’s really about book banning and getting rid of DEI and critical race theory and, most of all, anything having to do with acceptance of gender nonconformity. After all, we’ve got to make those people as miserable as we possibly can, right?

The list of speakers for the event includes prominent ultraconservative culture warriors like John Klar and Gregory Thayer. We’ll get to the rundown, and wow is it a doozy, but I have to begin with one of three lawmakers who will share a lectern with this bunch of bozos.

I’m referring to Sen. Terry Williams, second-term Republican from Rutland County. He has been relatively circumspect in his public profile, and has shown few outward signs of being a far-right nut. But he’s been on my watch list*. And here he is, making common cause with some outrageously far-right figures. Which makes me wonder yet again how in Hell this guy wound up on the Senate Education Committee. I mean, they had to do something with all those Republicans, but if Williams is in the Thayer/Klar ballpark, he should have been shunted to something less crucial like Agriculture or Institutions or the useless Senate Ethics Panel.

*Note: A reader has provided a link to an outrageously telling commentary by Sen. Williams posted on, you guessed it, Vermont Daily Chronicle. See below.

His participation also makes me wonder about his “Yes” vote on Senate Resolution 15, “supporting Vermont’s transgender and non-binary community and declaring Vermont’s commitment to fighting discrimination and treating all citizens with respect and dignity.” This resolution passed the Senate 30-0, and Williams was officially recorded as voting in favor. Maybe someone will bring up his vote in front of the rally crowd. Should be worth a chuckle.

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So the VTGOP’s Big Plan Is… Try to Take Jane Kitchel’s Senate Seat? Is That It?

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Previously we looked at the dire financial straits of Esther Charlestin’s candidacy for governor, where she barely cleared $12,000 in a race that calls for, by Howard Dean’s reckoning, at least 164 times that much money. Now it’s time to look at the Republican side of the ledger, where pretty much everybody can rightly cry poverty.

With one notable exception.

That would be state Rep. Scott Beck, running for the Northeast Kingdom Senate seat currently occupied by retiring Democrat Jane Kitchel. Beck has raised a rather stunning $35,565. (His likely Democratic opponent, Amanda Cochrane, has raised a respectable $7,165 and enjoys Kitchel’s active support.) Beck appears to be the only Republican candidate who has raised more than enough money to run a respectable race. Besides, of course, Gov. Phil Scott, The Exception To Every Republican Rule,

More to the point, Beck and the governor are about the only two Republicans who aren’t complete embarrassments when it comes to fundraising. Which shows you just how desperate the party’s situation is.

The VTGOP ought to be in a position for a nice little comeback in the Legislature, threatening to end the Dem/Prog supermajorities that imperil every single one of Scott’s many, many, many vetoes. And they’re not.

Instead, the wistful eyes of the donor class have largely turned to putative Democrat Stewart Ledbetter’s bid to wrest away a Senate seat from liberal Democrat Martine Gulick or Progressive firebrand Tanya Vyhovsky. Ledbetter has amassed the largest campaign kitty of any Statehouse candidate thanks primarily to Burlington-area business leaders. You know, the very people who would historically be bankrolling Republicans.

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DIspatches from an Alternate Earth

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Been having long, weird dreams lately. Last night, I had written a big, expansive rock opera that involved a multitude of performers and was getting its premiere performance. The night before, President Lincoln and Congress were enacting a series of reform bills aimed at improving the war effort. Now I seem to be dreaming of a world where Vermont Republicans are reacting to the Donald Trump verdict with surprising adherence to principle…

Montpelier, Vt. — Following the unanimous conviction of Donald Trump on 34 felony charges, leaders of the Vermont Republican Party are distancing themselves from their party’s putative nominee.

Gov. Phil Scott, who has long refused to support Trump, went a step further today. “The verdict ought to disqualify Donald Trump as our party’s nominee,” he said in a statement released by his office. “If the Republican Convention persists in nominating him, I will have to consider leaving the party and running for re-election as an independent. I cannot see myself sharing a ticket with that man.”

Other party figures didn’t go quite so far, but were unsparing in their reactions to the verdict.

Paul Dame, VTGOP chair, noted that “On our website, we proudly say the VTGOP ’embraces the principles of the United States and Vermont Constitutions. Our platform is built on the foundations of those documents.’ To be true to our core beliefs, we must abide by the legitimate processes of the legal system. Unfortunately, our convention delegates are pledged to Trump, but I would urge them to limit their support to the bare minimum and make no public statements on behalf of the Trump campaign. This is a dark day for the Grand Old Party.”

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The Most Compelling Race Is For the Least Compelling Prize

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With all due respect to John Nance Garner, seen above conducting one of the essential duties of the Vice Presidency, the #2 spot in an executive branch is the appendix of the American political system. Garner called accepting the VP nomination “the worst damn fool mistake I ever made.” Harry Truman said the vice president “is about as useful as a cow’s fifth teat.” Our first VP, John Adams, called it “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.”

And yet, here in Vermont, we’re seeing a relative land rush for our equivalent of the vice presidency. There will be, mirabile dictu, contested primaries for lieutenant governor on the Democratic and Republican ballots in August. Despite the hollowness of the actual office, the two primaries and the general election to follow offer a rare hint of intrigue in what promises to be a suspense-free campaign season as far as the statewide ballot is concerned.

I’ve covered the Democratic contest previously. But now we have two announced candidates on the Republican side, an embarrassment of riches for a party that has given multiple nominations to H. Brooke Paige in recent years. Rutland accountant, January 6 field trip organizer, and multiple-time loser Gregory Thayer has been in the race for months, not that anyone has noticed. He has now been joined by former Democratic state senator John Rodgers, last seen biffing his re-election bid to the Senate by failing to get his nominating petitions in on time.

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

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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.)

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Stealth Conservatives: This Guy Might Actually Be Dangerous

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Submitted for your consideration: Jarrod Sammis, Republican candidate for House in the Rutland-3 district and assiduous scrubber of his past social media activity.

There’s good reason for that. Said activity includes a nice helping of far-right ideology and stuff about guns. Lots and lots and lots of guns. Also, hints of militia leanings.

Until reapportionment, Rutland-3 was a two-person district including Castleton, Fair Haven, Hubbardton and West Haven. It was solidly Republican; its representatives are Bob Helm and Bill Canfield, who rarely drew Democratic opposition of any sort. “Rutland-3” is one-seat Castleton now; the other three towns are in other districts. Helm is retiring; Canfield is running in another district.

Since he won the primary in August, Sammis has been a busy bee. He’s appeared at many campaign events with many fellow Republicans including, um:

In future, I’d advise Governor Nice GuyTM to check credentials before letting himself be photographed with a candidate who (being charitable here) he’s never heard of before. It might come back to bite him in the plausibly moderate ass.

Sammis is opposed by Democrat Mary Droege, a credible candidate. But Rutland-3 looks to be Republican territory, which means Mr. Sammis may well be showing up in Montpelier in January. Here’s what he’d bring to the table.

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“Undecided” Polling Strong in Lite-Gov Race

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I suppose it’s only befitting that the race for Vermont’s Warm Bucket of Piss has produced a lot of voters who don’t have a preference or even know who’s running.

The UNH Survey Center Poll Sponsored by WCAX-TV dropped its final piece on Friday, covering the races for governor and lieutenant governor. Nothing new in the gubernatorial; Scott has a commanding lead and he gets substantially better job approval ratings from Democrats than Republicans. (The Democratic voters professed to care more about climate change than anything else, which shows either how little they’re paying attention to the policy debate or how much they’re lying about caring.) Democrat Brenda Siegel remains a heavy underdog, but I think she’s used to being underestimated.

The LG headlines were all about the leaders, Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman and Sen. Joe Benning, but the real news was the number of undecideds. Both races remain in doubt with the primary just around the corner. The front-runners have the edge, but not as much of an edge as expected.

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Back to the Condiments Aisle (and Other Notes on That Poll)

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Back on April 22, I wrote that I almost felt sorry for Christina Nolan, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate. Since then, she’s lived through the dreadful mayonnaise video, a failure to identify a single campaign staffer, a disastrous campaign finance report, and the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, a terrible development for a candidate with a squishy-soft position on reproductive rights.

Well, now I really do feel sorry for her.

The UNH Survey Center poll of Vermont’s two Congressional races was laughably bad for Lt. Gov. Molly Gray. It was downright embarrassing for Nolan. The poll has her six points behind Generic Angry White Guy Gerald Malloy and 18 points behind “Undecided.”

More on this in a moment, but I wanted to add three thoughts to my earlier post on the Gray/Becca Balint poll.

First, this is not about Super PAC spending. Sure, three progressive PACs have spent a combined $600,000 on independent activities in support of Balint. But the bulk of that money was spent this month, and a 42 percentage point spread just doesn’t happen that quickly. Even people who run these campaigns would acknowledge that they’re working the margins, trying to move the needle by a few percentage points. The Super PAC support certainly makes Gray’s task harder but if she blames her predicament on them, she’ll be wrong.

Second, if a 42-point deficit wasn’t enough bad news for Gray, there’s also a favorability gap. Balint was seen favorably by 72% of respondents, and unfavorably by a mere 6%. Twelve percent had no opinion. The same categories for Gray: 42% favorable, 19% unfavorable, 8% no opinion. The gist: there’s only a small pool of gettable voters for Gray. Only 13% are undecided. If this poll is anywhere in the ballpark, Gray has a huge deficit and little room to make progress.

Third, Natalie Silver is a freakin’ genius. She’s run a seemingly flawless campaign for Balint. Maybe we should have seen this coming; TJ Donovan never looked better than when Silver was his chief of staff. (She was also involved in Gray’s surprising run to the Bucket of Warm Piss in 2020.) I suspect that if Balint goes to Congress, Silver will be in her inner circle because why the hell wouldn’t you want Silver at your side? But if Silver doesn’t go to Washington, she’ll be the hottest commodity in Vermont politics. And rightfully so.

Ahem. Back to Christina Nolan.

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The Money Race: Lieutenant Governor

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If you want to encapsulate the Vermont Republican Party’s statewide ballot woes, the latest campaign finance reports spell it out right clear.

The four Democratic candidates took in a combined $110,000 in the period ending July 1.

The two Republicans? $8,000.

It’s even worse when you look at campaign-to-date totals. Democrats: $308,000.

Republicans: $16,000. (Sen. Joe Benning $14K, Grgory Thayer $2K.)

Now, the usual caveat applies: Money is only one way to measure the strength of a campaign. There are other factors — name recognition, a strong network of grassroots support, an ideology that appeals to a significant piece of the electorate. But c’mon. You’ve got to have some money to be competitive. The Republican hopefuls just don’t.

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How Not To Be a Stealth Candidate

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Gregory Thayer and John Klar are both running for office this year. Thayer, for lieutenant governor; Klar, for state senator. And as is the current strategery for far-right candidates, they are trying to present themselves as mainstream conservatives.

This can work for a relative unknown like Liz Cady, who lied her way to a seat on the Essex-Westford school board (and resigned earlier this year). But Thayer and Klar? They’ve been in the public eye far too long. What’s more, their hearts and minds really aren’t in it. The cray-cray leaks out all over the place.

Let’s do Thayer first. I thought I’d check in on the trainwreck race for the Republican LG nomination, which features serious human being Sen. Joe Benning versus Thayer, who attended the January 6 insurrection (heck, he helped organize a bus tour to the thing) and put together a nice little anti-critical race theory road show. Both VPR — err, Vermont Public — and VTDigger have hosted LG debates recently. Digger’s suffers from horrible audio quality, so I watched the Vermont Public Ra — cough, sorry — event.

Benning, of course, ran rings around Thayer logically. But Thayer’s demeanor was curiously subdued because he was trying to be someone he’s not.

It didn’t work very well.

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