A couple of weeks ago, Bruce Lisman (humble scion of Burlington’s North End turned Wall Street panjandrum) paid a visit to southeastern Vermont and had breakfast with the Brattleboro Chamber of Commerce. He was there to bring his message of “common-sense” (*cough*business-friendly*cough*) solutions to Vermont’s problems as he sees them, and tout his “nonpartisan” (*cough*obviously conservative*cough*) advocacy group, Campaign for Vermont.  

Thankfully, CFV has seen fit to post a video of Lisman’s talk. (Part 1, Part 2.) Unthankfully, it’s one of the blandest pieces of public discourse I’ve ever seen. A big tasty dish of oatmeal, straight up; not a drop of maple syrup. The thinly-veiled partisanship of CFV’s advertising and policy statements had been carefully scrubbed. There was no criticism, veiled or otherwise, of Governor Shumlin and the Democratic legislature. Instead, Lisman claimed that CFV was a centrist organization — and furthermore, that successful policymaking could only come from the center, with the participation of both sides.

It seems clear that Lisman is trying to soften CFV’s image (and his own), cutting the overt partisanship and cushioning the rough edges of his small-government, low-tax, business-first agenda with soft, pillowy rhetoric. I suspect that CFV has been less effective than he’d hoped, because it alienated so many liberals (and even centrists) in its earlier stages. Heck, maybe this humble website has forced Lisman to make some changes. He seems to be trying a reboot of CFV in hopes of attracting broader support. Without changing its fundamental character, of course. it’s bipartisanship George W. Bush style: I’ll work with you as long as you agree with me.  

His talk lasted only about 15 minutes. That isn’t much time for a wide-ranging policy presentation, but it’s an eternity when the speaker is delivering a big load of pablum. There was a Q&A period after the talk, but CFV did not see fit to post that video. Did someone ask an embarrassing question? Was the audio quality just too poor to abide? (The audio of the speech isn’t great.) Did Lisman, as he did two years ago in a talk in South Burlington, reveal more about his views in the Q&A than he intended to?

(In that 2010 Q&A, he called for cuts in corporate and capital-gains taxes and higher income taxes for the working poor. He really nailed it there: the poor just have too darn much money, and the rich don’t have enough.)

He began by stating that CFV is “an advocacy group for public policy” — sponsoring no candidates, not interested in endorsing anyone. “Our orientation,” he said, “is at the center of the political spectrum. If we are extreme in any way, it’s in maintaining a moderate path and staying on the high road.”

Let’s pause for a moment and contrast that with CFV’s previously stated positions. It has slammed Governor Shumlin’s health care reform plan in language strikingly similar to the VTGOP’s. It has complained of the state’s “unfair treatment” of Vermont Yankee. It has been critical of Shumlin’s efforts to encourage alternative energy sources, and called for a “least cost” approach to power generation. It has accused the state of overtaxing and overspending, and abdicating leadership on education reform. It assessed the 2012 Legislative session as a complete failure. It has posited that state government’s focus should be, first and foremost, on fostering economic growth. Which means, among other things, cutting regulation, overhauling Act 250 and cutting taxes — which will, naturally, result in higher tax revenues because of all the growth that will surely follow.

Yep, they’re still trying to sell the Laffer Curve.

CFV’s agenda is full of conservative buzzwords and dog whistles. They were almost entirely absent from Lisman’s talk in Brattleboro, replaced by homey anecdotes and hazy generalities.

He recounted the 18 months he spent touring the state (after his 2009 retirement from Wall Street), meeting with hundreds of people from all walks of life and listening to their views on the state’s future. Funny thing about that listening tour; his agenda (or, as the CFV website puts it, “The Lisman Perspective”) remains pretty much unchanged from his 2010 speech in South Burlington. I guess those hundreds of jus’ plain folks all happened to agree with Bruce Lisman. Remarkable.

He talked of “changing the state’s strategic goals” to make Vermont more responsive to rapidly-changing economic times and “grab the opportunity that comes from all those changes.” Later, he noted that CFV had been promoting itself through “lots of op-eds, print ads, and radio ads” — an astoundingly 20th Century strategy for a group that wants the state to be adaptable in a time of rapid change.

(CFV is on Facebook and Twitter. Whoopee. As of this morning, its Twitter feed had 73 followers and fewer than a hundred Tweets.)

After about ten minutes of background and folksy recollections, Lisman rattled off his group’s priorities in just a few moments. It was not much more than bullet points with very little explanation and absolutely no specifics. Building a vibrant economy, creating a more responsive, transparent  government, improving public education (without raising taxes, of course), reform the health care system “with a lot less drama but with better results*,” craft a more inclusive energy policy, blah, blah, blah.

*Don’t know what he’s talking about there. All the “drama” in Vermont’s health care reform process is coming from its opponents on the right. I see no “drama” in the work of Anya Rader Wallack and company.

He did promise that “we’ll be rolling out more information… in coming months.” (Through those good old radio and print ads and opinion columns,natch. Maybe Morse code and Aldis lamps, too.) Gee, the group’s been around since last November; what are you waiting for?

If you’d like to sample Bruce Lisman’s new brand of oatmeal in person, he’ll be doing another breakfast gig Thursday morning at 7:30 at the Dutch Mill restaurant in Shelburne. Funny, he’s a nonpartisan representing a nonpartisan group, but his talk is sponsored by the Shelburne and Charlotte Republican Town Committees.