Tag Archives: Mark Snelling

It can’t get any worse, can it? …Yes, it can.

Leave a reply

Just a note from the Ship Of Doom, a.k.a. the Vermont Republican Party. Honestly, being a Vermont Political Observer these days is like watching a budget remake of Das Boot — bad shit keeps happening and you know they’re not gonna make it back home, you just never know when the deathblow will actually come.

So anyway, the latest dispatch comes to us from the Twitter feed of Brady Toensing, the Vice Chair of the VTGOP. He Tweeted the news that he’d cast an absentee ballot in the gubernatorial primary.

For Dan Feliciano, the Libertarian.

Welp, that makes two of the Republican Party’s four top officers who’ve abandoned Scott Milne, the Party’s chosen candidate. The other, of course, was Mark “Little Snell” Snelling. Their endorsements came in spite of Party Chair “Super Dave” Sunderland’s strongly-worded letter warning fellow Republicans not to go Libertarian.  

This is not just bad news for the Milne campaign, but for the all-new Vermont Republican Party. Last fall, Lieutenant Governor Phil Scott promoted a slate of party officers in an effort to broaden the party’s appeal. Snelling and Toensing were holdovers from the Jack Lindley VTGOP.

And now they’ve turned their backs on Milne and Sunderland… and, implicitly, on Scott’s efforts to broaden the party. 

Best of luck to Victory Campaign Director Jeff Bartley. He’s got a hell of a job in front of him.  

 

Yes, it got worse for Vermont Republicans. Except Phil.

Leave a reply

Notes and musings from the August 18 campaign finance report filings…

— Governor Shumlin is in cruise control. His campaign raised another $67,000 this time, and spent only $11,000. He has almost $1.13 million in the bank.

— Scott Milne continues to falter. He raised $22,370 this time, compared to $20,000 last time. That pace won’t get him anywhere near his stated goal of $200,000. And his total was again buoyed considerably by the Boies family: $2K from a Christopher Boies, $2K from daddy Boies’ law firm, and $2K from an LLC whose address is the same as the daddy Boies law firm. For those keeping track, the collective Boieses have donated $16,000 of Milne’s total of $42K. He also raised $2K from Altour International, a high-end travel agency based in New York. His biggest in-state donor was the Wayside Restaurant, which donated $2K. That’s a lot of ham and eggs.

Milne spent $28,000 in the past month, of which more than $18K went to campaign manager Brent Burns’ consulting firm.

— The alleged Republican upstart, Libertarian Dan Feliciano, reported raising $13,000. Sounds decent, but $10K of that came from Dan himself. He had only a handful of other donors — notably getting $200 from Republican Treasurer Mark “Little Snell” Snelling. There’s no sign of a Feliciano bandwagon to be found in his finance report.

— The Vermont Republican Party is still in the doldrums, raising $2,420 in the past month.

— The only Republican doing really well is Lieutenant Governor Phil Scott who, challenged by Progressive Dean Corren’s public financing, put his fundraising operation into high gear and pulled in $52,000 in the past month. He didn’t spend a whole lot, and has $120,000 in cash on hand. He got plenty of cash from construction firms (his line of work) and from some of his turncoat friends in the Senate Democratic majority — a total of $2500 from Dick and Dorothy Mazza, and $200 from “Bobby Star,” who I believe is actually State Sen. Bobby Starr.

Scott’s doing well for himself, but to judge from the latest reports, he ain’t lifting a finger for his beloved VTGOP.

— Vermonters First, which spent a million Broughton Bucks in 2012, is still in hibernation. Raised zero, spent $25 for a bank account.

— Lenore Broughton did open her checkbook for a few Republican candidates and gave $2K to the Common Sense Leadership PAC. Said PAC didn’t raise any other money but managed to spend $3500 on consultants. Namely $2K to Shayne Spence, a staffer at the Ethan Allen Institute, and $1500 to Elizabeth Metraux who is apparently the PR person for Vermont PBS.

— Republicrat Senate hopeful Roger Allbee pulled in a decent $4760 this time around for a grand total of $6K. His total take included a nice $1,000 donation from soon-to-be-ex-Senator Peter Galbraith. The Slummin’ Solon, who has publicly endorsed Allbee, was nonetheless chosen to moderate one of the four Windham County Democratic Senatorial candidate forums, a curious move to be sure. (During that debate, he reportedly got into an argument with fellow Senator Jeanette White. Not very statesmanlike or diplomatic, Petey.)

— Celebrity tidbit: The aforementioned Senator White can brag of a $100 donation from Mr. Tom Bodett. Leavin’ the light on for ya!

Another step down the rabbit hole for the VTGOP

2 Replies

Terri Hallenbeck has livened up Your Monday Freeploid with an incendiary piece about Dan Feliciano, Liberatarian candidate for Governor. Well, the incendiary part isn’t about Feliciano; it’s about signs of Republican support for him. Hallenbeck quotes a few Republicans expressing interest in Feliciano because of his steadfast opposition to single-payer health care.

Including, most notably, one of the Vermont Republican Party’s top officials:

“I see people responding favorably to that,” said Mark Snelling, the Republican Party treasurer and son of former Gov. Richard Snelling and Lt. Gov. Barbara Snelling.

Snelling has yet to commit to a candidate. “I’m going to be interested in watching Dan Feliciano,” he said.

Oh, that’s just great. How about a little party loyalty there, Mark? I bet your far more distinguished parents are spinning in their graves.* Remember, this is the guy whose tenure as treasurer has corresponded to the bleakest period in history for the party’s finances. He was also, it must be said, part of “Angry Jack” Lindley’s team, and won re-election as treasurer last fall in spite of Phil Scott’s efforts to reshape the VTGOP hierarchy.

*Mark Snelling has corrected my egregious blunder; Barbara Snelling is, in fact, “alive and well.” I apologize, and thank him for the correction. 

Going even farther into quisling territory is state committee member Patricia Crocker, who outright says she’ll be voting Feliciano. Now, the state committee has a lot of members, so Snelling’s Lib-curious comment is more noteworthy than Crocker’s complete betrayal.

Hallenbeck also reveals that there was a petition movement in June to get Feliciano on the Republican primary ballot, which could have made the primary verrrrrry interesting. A sizable minority of the state committee was willing to back perpetual loser John MacGovern for party chair rather than voting for Phil Scott’s choice, “Super Dave” Sunderland. It would have been fascinating to see how much of the hard-core Republican primary electorate would have opted for Feliciano instead of the putatively moderate Scott Milne.

Especially since Milne’s initial forays into campaigning have been awfully dismal. More on that later.

Feliciano is encouraging supporters to cast write-in votes for him in the August primary. And Snelling openly muses that a Feliciano challenge to Milne would actually be a good thing:

Winning a write-in campaign for governor is a very long shot, Snelling noted. “I would be doubtful it would be possible,” he said. But Feliciano’s presence in the race could play a part in changing the debate, particularly on health care, Snelling said. “I would think the campaign trail is going to move Scott Milne to come out stronger.”

Hallenbeck chose not to quote, or seek comment from, notoriously unsuccessful Republican operative Darcie “Hack” Johnston, who has already voiced support for Feliciano. Johnston’s opinion shouldn’t have much pull in GOP circles, but I bet she’s still influential among the True Believers who’ve been dragging the party into electoral irrelevance.

With friends like those, Phil Scott and Super Dave don’t need enemies.

The VTGOP: It’s worse than it looks

Leave a reply

While poring over the campaign finance filings from this week, I couldn’t help noticing that — in sheer fundraising terms — the Republican Party has slipped into the #3 position. Yep, they’re being out-fundraised, quite handily, by our humble friends in the Progressive Party.

The numbers: VTGOP raised $7,500 for the most recent period (mid-March to mid-July) and $61,000 for the entire election cycle. The Progs, by contrast, raised $16,000 for the period and $89,000 for the cycle. (All numbers rounded off, thanks.)

See, it’s not even close. The Progs are a solid number 2.

This isn’t because the Progressives have enhanced their drawing power; their numbers are roughly on track with the same time frame in the 2012 cycle. It’s just that the Vermont Republicans are simply terrible at fundraising. Really, really, bad.

But wait — it’s worse than that.

In its mid-March filing, the VTGOP reported raising more than $45,000. This, presumably, reflects the take from the big Chris Christie fundraiser in December. That’s a really nice number, but it’s a whole lot lower than what party leaders were projecting before Christie’s visit. And it didn’t set the party on a new, healthier course; it merely provided a temporary jolt, like treating a pneumonia patient with Red Bull. Judging by its latest report, the VTGOP can’t draw flies without a big event. $7,500 is a wretched total for a “major” party entering a statewide election campaign. (It may help explain why short-term party staffer Brent Burns has departed to set up his own campaign shop; I suspect that either he wasn’t getting paid regularly, or it was made clear to him that the party couldn’t continue to pay him. Instead, we have Jeff Bartley as the party’s “Victory Director.” And I’m pretty sure that’s a part-time gig.

But wait — it’s even worse.

That $7,500 for the most recent period included $2,000 from Lt. Gov. Phil Scott’s campaign fund, $1,000 from Phil Scott’s construction company, and another $1,000 from State Rep. Heidi Scheuermann’s campaign fund. Plus $1,000 from Jani-Tech, a janitorial services company. Jani-Tech’s owner, Dawn Terrill, is the VTGOP’s new finance chair. Plus $800 from Greenleaf Metals, owned by party treasurer Mark Snelling.

So the bulk of that pathetic fundraising total came from a handful of insiders. Without Scott, Scheuermann, Terrill, and Snelling, the party would have received a measly $1,700 over a three-month period. A three-month period in which the party ought to have been marshaling resources for intensive campaigning.

What’s worse than pathetic? Abysmal?

One final note of despair. The GOP’s campaign bumpf is generously festooned with references to the state’s political elite, by which they mean the Democrats. But if the Republicans are trying to appeal to the common folk, the working man, Joe Sixpack, they are failing completely. In the past year, the Vermont Republican Party has taken in only 15 individual contributions of less than $100. What little money they’re raising is being given by the usual handful of insiders and well-connected business types.

Of course, a big part of the Republicans’ problem is that they’re getting a lot less from those business types than they used to. Many businesspeople and wealthy donors of centrist orientation, or of a practical bent, have abandoned the Republicans and are either sitting on their money, sending it out of state, or giving it to the Democrats.

But the takeaway here is, the Republicans have no appeal for the general public. At least, not enough appeal for individuals to open up their wallets.

See, it’s even worse than it looks.