A little free advice for our two-fisted Attorney General: Make some calls. Pay a few visits. Send some flowers, maybe a nice note. Kiss up.

Bill Sorrell has a big problem. It’s not any one thing; it’s not failing to get the endorsement of the state committee, it’s not failing to use a union print shop (he used one with family connections, his supporters note), it’s not failing to make courtesy calls to state committee members, it’s not not showing up for the meeting or the Hamburger Summit. It’s not not knowing about the meeting until the day before. It’s not anything specific about his record as AG.

It’s all of those things. It’s the appearance that he’s lost a step, he’s lost his edge, and he’s taking his position for granted. Fair or not, this is the narrative that’s taking over the race, and may well force Sorrell into an unwanted retirement. And his reaction to the state committee indicates that he doesn’t get it. VTDigger:

“The minority chose not to determine that I’m a credible, legitimate Democratic candidate and I think that’s unfortunate,” Sorrell said.

“I’ve been elected seven times as a Democrat,” Sorrell said. “If I’m not being partisan enough for some, then I’m sorry, I don’t think that’s consistent with what my oath of office is. The administration of justice in an even handed way is important to me, and that’s what I’m going to continue to do. I’m looking forward to the last five weeks of the primary campaign. I have every expectation of being the Democratic nominee for attorney general in the November General Election.”

No, Bill. That’s not going to help matters, not at all. You still sound like you’re taking it for granted — the office, the party, the voters. This probably wouldn’t matter in a general election, but it matters a whole hell of a lot in the Democratic primary.

This isn’t about right or wrong, or the dignity of your office, or the deference you seem to think you are due. This is a simple matter of basic politics. If you want the support of your party and the voters, you have to care about gaining their support — or at least act like you care.

There’s a little more than a month until primary day. You are in the race of your life. You’d best fire up the speed dial, get out your walking shoes, and try to mend a few fences.  

I couldn’t help noticing a few “off” notes in the Freeploid’s story about the state Democratic Committee’s failure to endorse Bill Sorrell. Hints of desperation and insecurity from Gannett’s Biggest Little Paper in Vermont (New and Improved, With Lots of Bright Colors to Distract You From the Shallow News Coverage). First, this:

With 28 committee members voting, Sorrell needed 19 votes to win the two-thirds majority required for an endorsement. When the votes were tallied he received 16 votes. The Burlington Free Press first reported the results via Twitter shortly after the vote, then on www.burlingtonfreepress.com.

Isn’t that just a little bit tacky, to congratulate yourself on getting the scoop? Not once, but TWICE? “Hey, looky here! Serious news organization, breaking the news!” As they say about excessive touchdown celebrations in football, when you get to the end zone, act like you’ve been there before.

But was the Tweet in full color? We 21st Century readers can’t absorb content without lots of purty pitchers to soften the harshness of pure text.  

The Freeploid then went out of its way to avoid mentioning certain political blogs, first in quoting TJ Donovan:

“Bill Sorrell is a good Democrat,” Donovan said Saturday afternoon while attending a political bloggers’ picnic at North Beach where the committee’s earlier vote was a buzz of conversation.

If the Freeploid were being consistent about this, it would have referred to the Democratic Committee meeting as “a gathering of top Democrats.” And it would have described the venue as “a public recreational facility on a lakeshore.”

It again went generic in quoting the picnic’s co-host and grillmaster (well, co-grillmaster, with Arnie Gundersen):  

“I would say stunning is the word, to not be endorsed by your own party,” said state Sen. Phil Baruth, D-Chittenden, who was hosting the political picnic at North Beach on Saturday afternoon and is a Donovan supporter.

That generic “political bloggers’ picnic” was, of course, the annual Hanburger Summit, a tradition of several years’ standing that not only rousts Phil and us GMD folks out of our mothers’ basements every summer (despite our fear of the bright yellow ball in the sky), but also attracts a goodly swarm of top politicians. It has a name, Freeploid, and we have a name.  

Among Democratic Party activists at the Hamburger Summit, some of whom attended Saturday morning’s VDP State Committee meeting, the overall perception was that Attorney General Bill Sorrell is campaigning badly. A few even suggested he’s “phoning it in,” whether from ineptitude, laziness, or a sense of entitlement. Several themes emerged in discussions of Sorrell’s endorsement loss.

[Note: the vote was reported to us as 16 for endorsement, 12 against, 2 abstentions; 19 yes votes, or two-thirds, were required for the endorsement motion to pass; the motion failed. The “No” voters of the Committee were given several opportunities to request a reconsideration, and no one volunteered.]

Among those themes:

• Sorrell failed to file his endorsement paperwork on time to receive a co-endorsement with TJ Donovan in May, despite outreach from the VDP staff to facilitate that outcome.
• None of the State Committee members received a call from the candidate asking for their votes (a Tip O’Neill moment).
• The candidate didn’t come to the meeting, citing a prior commitment to a parade in Lyndonville (Northeast Kingdom, where no doubt there was a ton of Democratic primary voters).
• Sorrell used a non-union shop for printing campaign materials which have been in distribution for more than a week.
• Sorrell’s surrogates, campaign manager Mike Pieciak and Chief Deputy AG Janet Murnane, did not do a good job selling the candidate or his approach to issues raised by State Committee members.
• Sorrell has a long history of refusing to contribute to the coffers of the Coordinated Campaign.

The overall impression is that the incumbent Sorrell has barely moved into campaign mode, although his campaign staff was on board more than three months ago. Further, several observers characterizeded Sorrell’s approach as “taking it for granted” that he would be endorsed.

[After the jump: what happened at the meeting.]

 

Pieciak opened his presentation by ineffectively apologizing for his candidate’s absence, saying, in part, “We only just found out earlier this week that this meeting was happening today …”

And that is the sort of political ineptitude that keeps happening for Sorrell’s campaign, and is unexpected from a 15-year incumbent. Although, one observer noted that Sorrell was appointed to the position (once his predecessor was moved on to the state Supreme Court) and has rarely faced opposition since.

The questions raised at the meeting included Sorrell’s recent court losses on state control of the Entergy Yankee nuclear power plant’s closure, campaign finance regulation, and protection for physicians from data-mining based marketing by pharmaceutical companies.

The ethics of Chief Deputy A.G. Janet Murnane’s status as an employee campaigning for her employer was also questioned, along with Sorrell’s inaction on other states’ DOMA (the federal Defense of Marriage Act) cases.

Murnane sprinkled some form of the word “active”  throughout her explanation of her office’s current activities, about every sixth word: “Bill Sorrell is actively pursuing …” “We are taking an active role on …” But the argument was obviously not convincing.

In the committee meeting there was a lot of discussion as to the meaning of a State Committee “endorsement.” The process originated as a way to support Bernie Sanders’ first run for the Senate; without a state party endorsement, he could not receive help from the DNC. In a couple of cases since then, it has also allowed the committee to keep Republican ringers out of the state party’s campaign funds and off the Democratic ballot line. The bylaw provision is, said VDP Treasurer and longtime activist Linda Weiss, more of a certification that this person is a bonafide Democrat. (Or, in the case of Bernie Sanders, someone Democrats should and would support due to shared values.) 

In an odd twist that led to yesterday’s vote, the committee is allowed to “endorse” multiple candidates for the same office.

Rutland County Democratic Committee Chair Kathy Hall apparently shared Sorrell’s expectation of an easy and automatic endorsement. Visibly and audibly angry at the results, she said she was leaving, because the vote did not reflect explanations of the meaning of the “endorsement” vote she heard at the May meeting where T.J. Donovan was successful. She walked out of the meeting and sat in a hallway, despite a plea from Weiss to stay.

“We’re Democrats, this is what we do: we fight with each other,” said Weiss. “We don’t walk out, we sit down and try to figure out how to make it better.”

In reaction, we expect Bill Sorrell to discount the importance of the vote and maybe even to denigrate the State Committee rather than take responsibility for his own campaign errors.

There’s a faint chance that Sorrell’s pre-primary campaigning in the Republican-friendly Northeast Kingdom instead of among his own party activists, may be a counter-intuitive strategy: courting Republican voters to cross over to vote for him in the Democratic primary.

If he wins the primary, the State Committee’s no-confidence vote will likely come back to haunt its members.

Among Democratic Party activists at the Hamburger Summit, some of whom attended this morning’s VDP State Committee meeting, the overall perception was that Attorney General Bill Sorrell is campaigning badly. A few even suggested he’s “phoning it in,” whether from ineptitude, laziness, or a sense of entitlement. Several themes emerged in discussions of Sorrell’s endorsement loss.

Among them:

• Sorrell failed to file his endorsement paperwork on time to receive a co-endorsement with TJ Donovan in May, despite outreach from the VDP staff to facilitate that outcome.
• None of the State Committee members received a call from the candidate asking for their votes (a Tip O’Neill moment).
• The candidate didn’t come to the meeting, citing a prior commitment to a parade in Lyndonville (Northeast Kingdom, where no doubt there was a ton of Democratic primary voters).
• Sorrell used a non-union shop for printing campaign materials which have been in distribution for more than a week.
• Sorrell’s surrogates, campaign manager Mike Pieciak and Chief Deputy AG Janet Murnane, did not do a good job selling the candidate or his approach to issues raised by State Committee members.
• Sorrell has a long history of refusing to contribute to the coffers of the Coordinated Campaign.

The overall impression is that the incumbent Sorrell has barely moved into campaign mode, although his campaign staff was on board more than three months ago. Further, several observers identified Sorrell’s approach as “taking it for granted” that he would be endorsed.

[After the jump: what happened at the meeting.]

 

Pieciak opened his presentation by ineffectively apologizing for his candidate’s absence, saying, in part, “We only just found out earlier this week that this meeting was happening today …”

And that is the sort of political ineptitude that keeps happening for Sorrell’s campaign, and is unexpected from a 15-year incumbent. Although, one observer noted that Sorrell was appointed to the position (once his predecessor was moved on to the state Supreme Court) and has rarely faced opposition since.

The questions raised at the meeting included Sorrell’s recent court losses on state control of the Entergy Yankee nuclear power plant’s closure, campaign finance regulation, and protection for physicians from datamining-based marketing by pharmaceutical companies.

The ethics of Chief Deputy A.G. Janet Murnane’s status as an employee campaigning for her employer was also questioned, along with Sorrell’s inaction on other states’ DOMA (the federal Defense of Marriage Act) cases.

Murnane sprinkled some form of the word “active”  throughout her explanation of her office’s current activities, about every sixth word: “Bill Sorrell is actively pursuing …” “We are taking an active role on …” But the argument was obviously not convincing.

In the committee meeting there was a lot of discussion as to the meaning of a State Committee “endorsement.” The process originated as a way to support Bernie Sanders’ first run for the Senate; without a state party endorsement, he could not receive help from the DNC. In a couple of cases since then, it has also allowed the committee to keep Republican ringers out of the state party’s campaign funds and off the Democratic ballot line. The bylaw provision is, said VDP Treasurer and longtime activist Linda Weiss, more of a certification that this person is a bonafide Democrat. (Or, in the case of Bernie Sanders, someone Democrats should and would support due to shared values.)  

In an odd twist that led to today’s vote, the committee is allowed to “endorse” multiple candidates for the same office.

Rutland County Democratic Committee Chair Kathy Hall apparently shared Sorrell’s expectation of an easy and automatic endorsement. Visibly and audibly angry at the results, she said she was leaving, because the vote did not reflect explanations of the meaning of the “endorsement” vote she heard at the May meeting where T.J. Donovan was successful. She walked out of the meeting and sat in a hallway, despite a plea from Weiss to stay.

“We’re Democrats, this is what we do: we fight with each other,” said Weiss. “We don’t walk out, we sit down and try to figure out how to make it better.”

In reaction, we expect Bill Sorrell to discount the importance of the vote and maybe even to denigrate the State Committee rather than take responsibility for his own campaign errors.

There’s a faint chance that Sorrell’s pre-primary campaigning in the Republican-friendly Northeast Kingdom instead of among his own party activists, may be a counter-intuitive strategy: courting Republican voters to cross over to vote for him in the Democratic primary.

If he wins the primary, the State Committee’s no-confidence vote will likely come back to haunt its members.

At today’s meeting of the Vermont Democratic Party State Committee, Bill Sorrell’s petition for the committee’s endorsement failed to attain the required two-thirds of members present and voting.

More to follow later, but the gist is as follows:

The Committee had its bi-monthly meeting in Montpelier this morning, and its first order of business was endorsements. The vote against Sorrell’s endorsement followed the successful vote to endorse Congressman Peter Welch.

The State Committee’s endorsement process has been in place since 2006; this is the first time a sitting Democrat has not received the party’s endorsement.

The State Committee previously voted to endorse challenger T. J. Donnovan at its May 2012 meeting.

Bill Sorrell did not attend the meeting but he did send his campaign manager and an attorney from the Attorney General’s office to speak on his behalf.

Analysis and commentary to follow later.  The Staff of GMD is currently at North Beach eating burgers and drinking beer/soda/etc.

Well, after state officials rang the alarm bells about FEMA possibly reneging on $120 million in Irene recovery funds, one of those officials later sought to unring most of the bells.

We also got more clarity on why FEMA funding might be lower than expected for replacing the state complex in Waterbury — and yes, it mainly has to do with the Shumlin Administration’s quick decision to abandon the Vermont State Hospital.

First, the updated money count, courtesy of the Vermont Press Bureau and published in the Saturday Times Argus, but not (as of this writing) posted on the Times Argus website:  The worst-case scenario is not a $120 million shortfall, but $45 million. And state officials don’t expect the final figure to be even that low.

Which doesn’t explain how Administration staffers got their signals so badly wrong yesterday, but let’s move on.

The replacements that FEMA is now questioning are the Vermont State Hospital ($28 million), a state heating plant ($16-18 mil) and about $2-3 mil for demolition of abandoned buildings. Times Argus:

The apparent change comes as FEMA reinterprets whether the Vermont State Hospital was “damaged” or “destroyed,” state officials said.

…The cost for relocating a heating plant at the Waterbury Office Complex also is likely ineligible because the state made certain repairs to the structure, state staffers said.

Administration officials and lawmakers are angry over FEMA’s apparent change in position. And who knows what assurances were given when and by whom, and what the federal rules (which are apparently so Byzantine that the Byzantine Empire looks like a blank canvas by comparison) actually state. But there’s at least the possibility that the Shumlin Administration shot itself in the foot here.  

First, immediately after Irene, Shumlin vowed to shutter VSH even though many believed that the bulk of the building could be restored. Was this a sound policy decision, or was it a case of Shumlin seizing on the Irene opportunity to rid the state of a troubled facility and start over again — with federal funds picking up the tab? That won’t look too smart if, indeed, federal funds don’t pick up the tab, and Shumlin’s grand plans to revamp mental health care have to be scaled back.

As for the heating plant, I have no knowledge of the situation aside from the Times Argus story. But why would the state conduct repairs on a structure it planned to abandon? There could have been good reasons; maybe there were dangerous conditions that had to be addressed immediately. But if the repairs cause the state to lose a nice chunk of FEMA money, then that’ll be a significant administrative error.

And the Governor doesn’t need any of those in an election year.  

Friday afternoon brought a big dump o’bad news, as state officials told lawmakers that the federal dollars promised for rebuilding/replacing the Waterbury office complex may not materialize.

The state had budgeted $63 million of the projected $183 million cost of new state offices and replacement mental-health facilities. It had received assurances from the feds that somewhere close to 90% of the remaining $120 million would be covered by FEMA.

Well, as Ron Nessen would have said, those assurances are now inoperative. VPR:

…state officials said they learned recently that the full funding may not come through, and if it does, the federal checks may be delayed for months.

“We’ve been working on this for months. Our patience is wearing thin,” said Deputy Administration Secretary Michael Clasen. “We’re frustrated.”

He says the state’s has heard different interpretation of FEMA rules from different FEMA officials. He says the funding situation is now uncertain.

…Buildings Commissioner Michael Obuchowski has been working with FEMA for months. He says the state may face a $120 million funding gap if the FEMA funds it had hoped for don’t come through.

“Depending on what the gap ends up we may have to go back to the drawing board in relation to the state hospital and the Waterbury complex,” Obuchowski said.

So wait, did FEMA rehire Michael Brown or what?  

FEMA official Steven Ward explained the situation with all the clarity of a bureaucrat trained by Talmudic scholars:

“And there are some very challenging policy issues that include determination of the floodplain, what the state requires as far as codes and standards,” Ward said. “There are a lot of different aspects to developing the final number and we are in the process of going building by building through the Waterbury complex.”

A tantalizing hint was offered in the Vermont Press Bureau’s account (paywalled in the Times Argus):

The possible ineligibility is due to whether FEMA is interpreting the state hospital as “destroyed” and whether state repairs to a heating plant canceled federal aid, state officials said.

Hmm. Remember last fall, when Governor Shumlin categorically vowed that the State Hospital would never reopen? Even as many suggested that the Hospital could be rehabbed above the ground floor? Well, maybe Shumlin’s  steely resolve was misplaced, eh?

As for the Governor, he sought to tamp down the bitter disappointment his own staff had delivered to the Legislature. He told the Freeploid that “There is no new story here; FEMA has never given us a final number.” And…

Shumlin said he remained confident “we will get the money we deserve.” …

The state has to go through a negotiating process with FEMA, Shumlin said. “This is not going to be a smooth ride. No one thought it would be.”

Which doesn’t explain why his own staffers were so gloomy earlier that same day. Methinks the Gov has begun a diplomatic campaign to convince Washington to fork over the moola.

There was also bad FEMA news for the town of Bennington. FEMA has rejected the town’s request for reimbursement of about $4 million in post-Irene emergency work. The Banner:

Town Manager Stuart A. Hurd and Planning Director Daniel Monks said town officials learned of the FEMA rejection on Thursday. They said work completed on the Roaring Branch, known as emergency protective work, has been deemed to be ineligible for reimbursement. The rejection came as a shock because FEMA regulations given to the town, and FEMA officials themselves, had led the town to believe the work would be at least partially reimbursed, they said.

Monks added that the problem seemed to be an interagency tussle over reimbursement between FEMA and an Agriculture Department agency. Which is cold comfort for Bennington. If they can’t get the decision overturned, town taxpayers will be asked to foot the bill.

You know, this kind of bullshit is why so many people hate the government — even people who depend on government programs. I realize the United States is a huge, complex institution; but if it could only be a bit more people-friendly, transparent and simple, it might be easier to get people to vote Democratic and support taxation adequate to fund government services.  

Opponents of universal health care are fond of quoting horror stories about the quasi-holocaust known as the Canadian health care system. They natter on and on about lengthy waits for elective surgery, lack of modern technology, and probably Soylent Green as well. My favorite recent example came from Maine Republican Party Chairman Charlie Webster, trying to defend Governor Paul LePage’s IRS/Gestapo comparison:

“I’ve got friends of mine who came here [from Canada] because they couldn’t get their knee replaced in eight months,” he said. “That would be the only way you could tie [the IRS and the Gestapo] together.”

Ah, the sweet breath of Republican reason.

But here’s a very different take on Canadian health care, from a recovering conservative who had to move to Canada four years ago, and “was somewhat disgusted” at the prospect of government health care, which she saw as “a violation of my freedom.”

And now, after multiple pregnancies?  

I had better prenatal care than I had ever had in the States. I came in regularly for appointments to check on my health and my babies’ health throughout my pregnancy, and I never had to worry about how much a test cost or how much the blood draw fee was. With my pregnancies in the States, I had limited my checkups to only a handful to keep costs down. When I went in to get the shot I needed because of my negative blood type, it was covered.

…I started to feel differently about Universal government mandated and regulated Health care. I realized how many times my family had avoided hospital care because of our lack of coverage. …

Here in Canada, everyone was covered. If they worked full-time, if they worked part-time, or if they were homeless and lived on the street, they were all entitled to the same level of care if they had a medical need. People actually went in for routine check-ups and caught many of their illnesses early, before they were too advanced to treat. People were free to quit a job they hated, or even start their own business without fear of losing their medical coverage. In fact, the only real complaint I heard about the universal health care from the Canadians themselves, was that sometimes there could be a wait time before a particular medical service could be provided. But even that didn’t seem to be that bad to me, in the States most people had to wait for medical care, or even be denied based on their coverage. The only people guaranteed immediate and full service in the USA, were those with the best (and most expensive) health coverage or wads of cash they could blow. In Canada, the wait times were usually short, and applied to everyone regardless of wealth.

Somehow, I don’t think this person will be a guest on Common Sense Radio or speak at an Ethan Allen Institute event anytime soon.  

Update: This afternoon all members of the State Committee received a meeting reminder from the State Chair with a copy of letter from labor representative Jeff Fannon in which he says that “Different unions have differing reasons for their positions on the Attorney General race, but on this they are united: a candidate who reflects such basic insensitivity to a major Democratic constituency does not deserve the supermajority support of the Democratic Party's State Committee.”

There appears to be more trouble for Bill Sorrell with organized labor.

  If you're a regular reader you know that T.J. Donovan has been scooping up labor endorsements right and left. The Vermont Labor Council (AFL-CIO), the State Employees' Association, the Vermont Troopers' Association. Pretty much every labor organization in the state that's taken a position so far is supporting Donovan.

You could say that those are all situations where the union just likes Donovan and hasn't been given any particular reason to side with Sorrell. This week, though, Green Mountain Daily has learned that Sorrell has actively alienated labor leaders, and at a very bad time.

If you've spent any time around politics, or at least Democratic politics, you know that when you're printing flyers, brochures, or other literature it needs to have what?

The union bug. 

Here's a picture of a union bug: 

The union bug guarantees that your job was done at a print shop that provides its workers good wages, benefits, and working conditions. Since the working people of the country are one of the most important constituencis of the Democratic Party, it is vital for Democratic candidates to have their jobs done at a union shop and have the union bug printed on them.

There is only one union print shop in Vermont, First Step Print Shop in Underhill, and they've done printing for unions and Democratic candidates all over the state for many years.

 Here's the problem. We haven't seen it yet, but GMD has learned that when the Sorrell campaign sent out an appeal from Howard Dean last week it did not have the union bug.

Big mistake and union members are pissed. 

The Vermont Democratic Committee is meeting in Montpelier on Saturday and on the agenda is a proposal to endorse Bill Sorrell. The committee has already endorsed Donovan, but up until now the endorsement for Sorrell has looked like a shoo-in. As the story of the missing union bug circulates among the union members and other activists on the State Committee, though, that endorsement may be in doubt.

 It's very hard to understand how any statewide campaign could make this kind of mistake. It couldn't be an intentional snub, but in light of the successful work Donovan has done to attract union support it sure can't help.

 Of course Republican Congressman Darrel Issa of California is a busy man, but in past years and again this week he found time to propose legislation that would name 3.4 million square miles of ocean and 90,000 miles of U.S. coastline after Ronald Reagan.  

In 1983 President Reagan expanded the US ocean boundary by presidential proclamation and established what is called the Exclusive Economic Zone. The EEZ according to the USGS is an exclusive economic zone, the outer limit of which is a line drawn in such a manner that each point on it is 200 nautical miles from the baseline from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured.  

Issa reintroduced his bill Wednesday to rename the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), which generally extends from three miles to 200 miles offshore, as the Ronald Wilson Reagan Exclusive Economic Zone.  

Issa, who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has introduced the bill multiple times in past sessions of Congress.  

Under the proposal, references to the EEZ in U.S. laws, regulations, maps and other documents would carry Reagan’s name.

Issa’s proposed Ronald Wilson Reagan Exclusive Economic Zone (3.4 million square miles of ocean!) escalates the scale of naming honors for the former president. There is already a Reagan international airport and the Reagan federal building which is one of Washington DC’s largest buildings. And one day the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Reagan  may set sail over the Reagan Ocean.( please note: an earlier version of this said the USS Reagan was a submarine this was an error )