Tag Archives: Phil Scott

Phil’s Friends: A Homegrown Mom for Liberty

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As noted previously, Gov. Phil Scott and former gov Jim Douglas were scheduled to hold a meet ‘n greet this evening for Republican legislative candidates in Addison County. They’ll be lending their names and “moderate” reputations to a passel of far-right hopefuls with, um, no hope of winning in a deep blue county.

Take Renee McGuinness, pictured above. Please, take her.

McGuinness is one of two Republican candidates in the very Democratic Addison-4 district, currently repped by Mari Cordes and Caleb Elder. It last elected a Republican in 2016, and the two incumbents cruised to re-election in 2022 by a wide margin. (Elder made an unsuccessful bid for state senate this year; Herb Olson joins Cordes on this year’s Democratic ticket.)

McGuinness is known in Statehouse circles as an advocate for the Vermont Family Alliance, a very conservative organization aligned, in worldview at least, with the notorious Moms for Liberty, which seems to be plummeting earthward after a brief ascent to political influence in Ron DeSantis’ Florida. MFL has been identified as “extremist” by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Doubtless VFA is too small to have attracted SPLC’s notice.

VFA touts itself as a parental rights group, fighting against government intrusion into parents’ “natural right to make decisions” about their children’s upbringing. Which sounds kind of benign on the surface, but their idea of government intrusion is pretty darn broad.

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“The Days Grow Shorter, the Nights Grow Colder”

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Well, another press conference today about our ongoing, self-inflicted homelessness crisis. This one featured Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak (above), who gave us the title for this post, along with a crew of The Usual Suspects including Brenda Siegel of End Homelessness Vermont (left, above), Falko Schilling of the ACLU of Vermont (right, above) right, Frank Knaack of the Vermont Coalition to End Homelessness, and Julie Bond of the Good Samaritan Haven.

They made the familiar plea: Hundreds upon hundreds of vulnerable Vermonters are being exited from the General Assistance voucher program, while available shelters and support services are at or beyond capacity. You can find more comprehensive reports on the presser elsewhere; I’d like to emphasize a few key points.

First, the situation was already critical even before cuts in the voucher program began taking their toll on September 15. It has gotten worse since then, and will continue to get worse for at least the next two weeks as recipients hit their maximum stays. The pain has only just begun. And all of those affected have been classed as vulnerable. There are no able-bodied freeloaders here.

    Second, the speakers emphasized their desire to move beyond the blame game. “We must set aside our political and policy differences,” Siegel said, in order to craft a humane resolution to the crisis.

    Third, there is one and only one person who can get this ball rolling: Gov. Phil Scott.

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    Phil’s Friends: “Authority Deficit Disorder”

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    Pavement Pounding Alert!!! Gov. Phil Scott is making an appearance next week in Addison County, one of the bluest provinces in our B.L.S., on behalf of a bunch of Republican candidates for the House and Senate who, frankly, don’t have a prayer of prevailing in November. But hey, at least he’s making an effort.

    The event will kick off at 5:00 p.m. on Thursday the 26th at the Middlebury Legion. It also features former governor Jim Douglas, and maybe that explains the Addison thing. Douglas lives in Middlebury. Posted run time for the shindig is three hours, which is a hell of a long time to listen to Republicans, but if it speaks to you, by all means have fun.

    But I want to focus my attention on one of the seven legislative candidates scheduled to appear: Rob North (pictured above), unsuccessful candidate for House in 2022 who’s giving it another go this year. He faces two well-entrenched Democratic incumbents in Addison-3, Reps. Diane Lanpher and Matt Birong. In 2022 North drew 21.9% of the vote in a four-way race, while Lanpher and Birong each tallied around 31%. Kind of a blowout, no?

    North is trying to follow his 2022 playbook of posing as a common sense fiscal conservative when, in fact, he is an Evangelical Christian at the far right end of that little spectrum. And I’ve got receipts, boy do I ever.

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    Whistling Past the Encampment

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    We’re a few days into our latest mass unsheltering, and the devastation wrought by Our Political Betters’ mishandling of the situation is fully as bad as expected, if not worse. People on the front lines, trying to help vulnerable Vermonters no longer eligible for state-paid motel rooms, are working their asses off and trying to hold back the tears as they do it. Problem is, they are so committed and dedicated, that they can’t help but push themselves to the brink.

    The city of Burlington is reduced to seeking donations of tents and camping gear because THE STATE CAN’T EVEN BRING ITSELF TO DO THAT SIMPLE INADEQUATE THING. Municipalities around the state are begging the state to lift a goddamn finger, and gotten nothing from Gov. Phil Scott in response. Helping agencies are seeking donations* to enable them to conduct the vital work they’re doing because, again, THE STATE IS SHOWING THE BACK OF ITS HAND TO THE UNSHELTERED.

    *Organizations worthy of support include End Homelessness Vermont and, in my neck of the woods, Good Samaritan Haven.

    The governor, I must remind you, is the guy who has insisted since Day One of his administration that he has three strategic priorities: Grow the economy, make Vermont more affordable, and protect the must vulnerable.

    I guess we can cross off that last one, because clearly he isn’t committed to it anymore. Hundreds of our most vulnerable have been kicked to the curb under his watch, and hundreds more will follow in the coming weeks.

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    Phil’s Friends: “Jesus Believed In the Flood Model”

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    Poor ol’ Phil Scott. After getting repeatedly overridden by the Legislature’s Democratic/Progressive supermajorities, he’s desperate to get more Republicans into the House and Senate.

    Not desperate enough to try to build a political movement or exercise influence over the Vermont Republican Party, mind you. But desperate enough to endorse some, shall we say, decidedly fringey characters posing as “common sense” fiscal conservatives.

    Take Michael Boutin of Barre, last seen in this space when, as a member of City Council, he cast the sole “No” vote on the sale of Main Street’s Wheelock Building to the owners of East Montpelier’s very successful and LGBTQ+-friendly Fox Market. Boutin had earlier led an unsuccessful petition drive aimed at blocking the sale. Which is truly strange, because Barre’s Main Street can use all the vibrant businesses it can get.

    Back in 2021, Boutin maneuvered to block the proposed display of a Black Lives Matter flag in the city’s downtown by offering a charter amendment limiting acceptable flags to four: the Stars and Stripes, the state flag, the city’s flag, and the POW/MIA banner. Boutin shows definite signs of far-right intolerance, I think it’s fair to say.

    Boutin is not an altogether bad guy; his Facebook page is full of civic boosterism and pet photos and the occasional foray into Trekdom. But there’s one big strange exception: a video excerpt from a Christian talk show featuring, as the clip’s title puts it, “Christian Professor Disproves the Theory of Evolution.”

    Hoo boy. Rabbit hole alert.

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    Tunbridge Ain’t What It Used to Be, Apparently

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    So the Tunbridge Fair — err, the Tunbridge World’s Fair — happened last week. And as is its tradition, WDEV Radio broadcast live from the Fair’s gazebo and conducted debates for the top statewide offices. It’s been an early and quasi-obligatory stop on the campaign trail for many a year.

    Well, WDEV was there, but many top politicians were no-shows. Gov. Phil Scott, for instance. Also U.S. Rep. Becca Balint and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders. The only actual debate featured the two candidates for lieutenant governor, incumbent Progressive/Democrat David Zuckerman and Republican John Rodgers. (It was reportedly a spirited affair; you can listen here. The LG debate is in the second hour of the show.)

    Otherwise, empty chairs abounded. Instead of debates, we got long interviews with the candidates who bothered to attend.

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    Here’s Another Political Thing Phil Scott Should Do, But Won’t

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    The fine fellow above, pictured with a fish he caught last year on Shadow Lake, is former state senator John Rodgers, Republican candidate for lieutenant governor. I know about the fish because it’s featured in one of a series of low-budget official campaign videos in which Rodgers is interviewed by one Rick Lafayette, a.k.a. the lead singer of Kikker, a Vermont metal cover band. Yeah, this guy:

    Hey, I didn’t even wait to start digressing this time, I did it right off the top.

    Anyway, Rodgers is running against Progressive/Democratic incumbent David Zuckerman. As most of you know, in Vermont we elect the governor and LG separately. And throughout Phil Scott’s seven-plus years in the corner office, a Republican has never been lieutenant governor. This doesn’t matter at all because the LG has no actual, uh, power or authority — except for one big thing, which ought to keep Scott and his allies awake at night.

    The LG is in the line of succession. If something were to happen to the govrnor, then good ol’ Progressive Farmer Dave would succeed him. You’d think, then, that Scott would be going all-out to make sure Zuckerman is out of the way. You know, secure the Phil Scott political legacy.

    Is he? Not that anyone can tell.

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    Well, Here’s Another Thing — Or a Bunch of Things — Phil Scott Isn’t Doing

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    If he didn’t have a decade-plus track record of ignoring the political implications of his work, I’d think Auditor Doug Hoffer pulled a nice little election-year fast one on Gov. Phil Scott. Yesterday, just in time for the beginning of campaign season, Hoffer issued a devastating report (downloadable here) on the state’s failure to implement its 2018 State Hazard Mitigation Plan.

    Which can now be added to my extensive list of Stuff Phil Scott Hasn’t Done. Too bad the Democrats aren’t putting up an effective challenge to the governor’s bid for a fifth term. The Hoffer audit would make an effective cudgel.

    The Mitigation Plan included 96 discrete actions to reduce the impacts of natural disasters. Hoffer found that only about one-third had been implemented. Even high-priority items were “frequently” unfinished. And this was a five-year plan that expired in 2023, so it’s not like the administration didn’t have all the time it should have needed. Meanwhile, we’ve been beset by disaster after disaster including major flooding in each of the last two summers. Hoffer told VTDigger that full implementation of the Plan “would have made a difference in the last two years.”

    The audit was released a few hours after Scott’s weekly press conference, so reporters didn’t get the chance to quiz him about it. But it did lend a touch of retrospective irony to the presser, which began with Scott bragging about once again relaunching his tired old “Capital for a Day’ concept. Nice way to stage high-profile, media-friendly events in all 14 counties while On Official Business, eh?

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    Statewides: The Haves and the Have Nots

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    The September 1 campaign finance reports crystallized something we already knew: This is shaping up to be an unsurprising political season because there’s such a deep divide between those on top and those trying to get a leg up. The former include Gov. Phil Scott and a whole bunch of Democrats; the latter include every other Republican minus a few who’ve been blessed by the patronage of Burlington’s business elite.

    The exception to the Democratic rule: Esther Charlestin, who entered September financially underwater in her long-odds (and getting longer every day) gubernatorial campaign. Somehow, the financial gap between Scott and Charlestin managed to grow in August.

    This isn’t a typo: Charlestin has raised only $21,137 and spent $22,309. On primary night, Charlestin told VTDigger she would “go hard” in the general campaign, which meant knocking on doors, seeking endorsements, and “raising a lot more money.”

    But she didn’t do that. For the entire month of August, Charlestin raised $4,505, which isn’t anywhere close to “a lot more money.” I can’t say how much of this is her doing and how much is Democratic donors turning their backs; Charlestin didn’t score any donations above $250, and that came from longtime Progressive stalwart Martha Abbott. Hey, Dems: Do you like your candidate or don’t you?

    Meanwhile, Scott continues to raise far more money than he needs, and spend money like he’s got an actual battle on his hands instead of an almost certain walkover.

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    The Incredible Lightness of Phil Scott

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    A couple days after our uneventful primary, I roused myself from my Covid-induced stupor long enough to make a guest appearance on The Montpelier Happy Hour*, a weekly podcast co-hosted by journalist/broadcaster Olga Peters and Rep. Emilie Kornheiser, who was fresh off her pasting of a centrist primary challenger. Kornheiser said something that stuck with me. (Which is not unusual.)

    * Video here, podcast here.

    While campaigning, she asked constituents about their views of Gov. Phil Scott. She was looking for insight into the central mystery of today’s Vermont politics: Why do so many people happily vote for the Republican governor and otherwise elect Democrats up and down the ticket?

    The most common response she got: Scott’s calm, reassuring leadership during the Covid epidemic. They still appreciate his even-handed approach, especially in comparison to the nutbag in the White House who talked of injecting bleach and sticking lightbulbs up your fundament. People presumably believe Scott would do the same thing in the next crisis, and that’s comforting.

    But here’s the problem. When the times call for a steady hand on the tiller, Scott is that steady hand. When the times call for decisive leadership, Scott is that steady hand.

    Vermont faces an array of challenges and crises. He’s been Vermont’s chief executive for seven and a half years now. I dare you to name a single major issue that’s improved substantially since Scott became governor. Instead, we have a perpetual standoff with the Legislature, which is trying to pry the tiller away from his steady hand. He offers much more resistance than direction.

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