On Monday, former governor Howard Dean ended his brief dalliance with running against Gov. Phil Scott by explaining that his only path to victory was “a scorched earth, negative attack campaign” out of character with Vermont politics, and that he refused to be the one to inject our system with that kind of vitriol.

Okay, well, at the time it seemed like a hollow, self-serving rationale — more acceptable to a politician’s ego than “The polls showed me way behind” or “I found out I couldn’t raise enough money” or maybe even “Turns out half of Vermont doesn’t even remember me.” But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered:

What would a scorched earth campaign against Phil Scott look like?

Secondary question:

Would it work?

I can think of two potential scenarios; one really doesn’t meet the definition and the other would be doomed to fail. So I’m still wondering if Dean had some brilliantly Machiavellian concept that could bring down Governor Teflon or if he was just bullshitting his way off the stage. I suspect the latter.

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