The Phil Scott campaign has posted a 10-minute hagiography video featuring a variety of Vermonters praising the governor’s “Experience. Integrity. Character.” (That’s the title of the video, which has amassed a non-robust 929 views in its three days on the YouTube machine.) There’s also plenty of Phil himself, standing manfully and speaking his brand of home truths — which mostly has to do with taxes being too high and regulations too strict and the plague of extreme partisanship he attributes equally to “both sides.”

And whoops, there at the 5:25 mark is “Democratic” Rep. Matt Birong, giving his public backing to the third Republican I know of this year. Birong, most recently seen as Lt. Gov. John Rodgers’ campaign chair, is given the task of running down Democratic candidate Amanda Janoo as an inexperienced candidate who might not be up to the job. You know, the same talking points we see in the Republican Governors Association’s oft-repeated attack ad.

No other speaker in the 10-minute video mentions Janoo.

This post wasn’t meant to focus on Birong, but on the above gent: Louie Manno, Republican candidate for state Senate in the deep blue Chittenden Central district.

Sad to say, Mr. Manno is not the best advertisement for Phil Scott as the reasonable force for bipartisanship. Because he has some inconvenient passages in his social media history. So inconvenient that it makes me wonder about the Scott campaign’s vetting process.

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