Rainville then (emphasis added):

Rainville reiterated her clean campaign pledge earlier this week when she proposed creating an office of public integrity to oversee Congress.
“I will not attack my opponents and I will not condone third parties coming in to attack my opponents, and if that should happen I will publicly and immediately ask them to stop,” Rainville said Tuesday.

Rainville now (regarding the third party ad from the national Republicans using Jim Jeffords’ image, even after he has asked them to stop):

A Rainville spokesman said her campaign will not, and under election finance rules is forbidden to, ask the NRCC to pull the ad.

“It’s a nice ad. We are pleased the NRCC is staying positive,” Brendan McKenna said. “I don’t think it comes across as anyone endorsing anyone.”

Two comparable scenarios, two completely different, self-serving takes on the law.

Another sign that, as many of us have been saying all along, her “clean campaign pledge” is as phony as her plagiarized policy positions. Martha is about whatever helps Martha.

(Tomorrow is the second week of my Vermont Journal column. Since the first wasn’t available online, I thought I might reprint it here. It’s very fluffy and tame by GMD standards, but don’t worry – I get more aggressive this week. The VJ is delivered to about 20,000 homes across all of Lamoille County, about a third of Washington County and a li’l smidgin of Chittenden County)

Vermont’s lack of party registration makes for an odd sort of independence in major elections such as the one coming up in November. It’s not like the comparable label in other states, where “Independent” is always an affirmative statement. As far as politics are concerned, it’s often a more matter-of-fact independence that we see in Vermont – not so much a personal decision so much as the personal default.

This unusual dynamic has created an equally unusual class of swing voter. Though most Vermonters would probably self-identify as generally Republican, Democrat or Progressive, this matter-of-fact independence has given us a large swath of statewide swing voters that decide who they intend to vote for, not based on the ads or the pundits, bur rather, much the way they might decide what to wear on a night out on the town.

Most people (yeah, even men) look at their going-out wardrobe as a collective statement that announces their personality. Someone might choose to dress on the “crunchy-granola” side, but in new and expensive clothing to identify as somewhat alternative, but well-off and sophisticated at the same time. Perhaps a business suit, but with a catchy tie that says “I may be professional, but I’m not boring.”

When Vermont swing voters vote their personal slate on Election Day, many are thinking much the same way. In Washington County (where I live), that accounts for the number of self-identifying liberals who vote for long time Republican Senator Bill Doyle every two years. Where they’ll vote in nearly every other race for those candidates who reflect their interests and ideology, they use a vote for Doyle to make a personal statement of independence. To demonstrate to themselves and others that they are free thinkers, unbound by partisan orthodoxy. Doyle becomes their wacky tie in an otherwise consistent ensemble.

Similarly, conservatives often use a Bernie Sanders vote as a way to make the statement that, while they may be no fans of liberals, they’re savvy enough to realize that large corporations need to have a skeptical eye kept on them.

While perhaps a bit endearing, this dynamic often makes it difficult for qualified challengers to get their message through to people (the obvious exception being Sanders’ challenger Rich Tarrant, who through sheer personal wealth has forced his attack ads into everyone’s face over and over again, but such an in-your-face attack strategy has only served to turn voters off). Incumbents become like favorite outfits that swing voters only bring out for that special event once every other year, leaving many of us on both sides of the political divide scratching our heads, wondering what exactly that 10-15% is thinking

It’s for this reason that we should be grateful for the US Representative race between Peter Welch and Martha Rainville, which is forcing the swing-set to sit up and take a little more notice. Hopefully this extra attention will encourage more of this slice of the electorate to step back a bit and truly examine which candidates actually match their own ideology up and down the ballot, rather than just falling back on old habits once again.

All of us will be better served if they do.

The big news du jour, of course, is that since the Rainville campaign hasn’t had a chance to screw up yet this week, the NRCC decided to screw up on her behalf, finding a way to coax an endorsement of Welch out of Jim Jeffords who had otherwise intended to stay neutral. From the Vermont Guardian piece:

U.S. Sen. Jim Jeffords is calling on national Republicans to pull an ad that he says leaves viewers with the impression that he is supporting Martha Rainville in her bid to fill Vermont’s lone congressional seat.

Nothing could be further from the truth, Jeffords said. He’s supporting Democrat Peter Welch.

Jeffords, who has said he would not become personally involved in electing candidates this year, said the new ad prompted him to respond, and to say that he believes Vermonters, and the nation, would be better served by electing Democrat Peter Welch.

In his letter, Jeffords states, “I must advise that while I think Martha Rainville is a talented leader, I feel very strongly that the country will be better served with Democrats gaining control of he House of Representatives in the 110th Congress. Therefore, for this election, I believe Peter Welch is a better choice for Vermont.”

In light of Jeffords’ complaint, he called on the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), Rep. Tom Reynolds, R-NY,to “cease running the advertisement immediately.”…

…The recent ad, funded by the NRCC, begins with the images and names of Jeffords, former Sen. George Aiken and Sen. Bob Stafford …

…However, Jeffords said the use of his name and image “strongly implies that I am supporting General Rainville. This is not true.”

An NRCC spokesman said the group would not change the ad, despite Jeffords’ concerns.

The follies of the Rainville operation are truly staggering.

This from the Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star (emphasis added):

Voter registration offices around Virginia were inundated with complaints from residents who received letters last week saying they may not be signed up to vote.

The letters were from the Richmond-based Family Foundation, a strong proponent of the proposed state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

“Each voter will be asked if he or she would like to define marriage as a union only between one man and one woman in the Commonwealth,” the letter states. “By amending our constitution this way, Virginians can be sure that our state law banning same-sex marriage is not overturned by an activist judge, leaving/forcing our Commonwealth to uphold/recognize Vermont values.“

It’s amusing (in a pathetic, twisted and depressing sort of way), but if we’re inclined to get complacent and buy into this sort of rhetoric about Vermont as a uniformly “live-and-let-live,” socially libertarian state, we need only look at WDEV’s True North program to realize we have plenty of homegrown, wingnut bigots in our own backyard that would make their counterparts in Mississippi proud.

After getting cut off by Mark Johnson on his earlier program, usual-suspect-whackjob Brian Pearl called in to use the Mark Foley congressional page scandal to engage in his standard-fare verbal gaybashing by suggesting that Vermont Statehouse pages might be in danger due to their contact with openly gay Rep. Bill Lippert (D-Hinesburg). While Pearl is a laughingstock in most in political circles (except, of course, Rich Tarrant’s) – and hearing him repeatedly confuse Douglas administration Press Secretary Jason Gibbs (presumably) with Burlington Representative Jason Lorber is certainly a hoot, the fact is that the hosts joined right in, waxing gleefully about their hatred of Lippert, nominally based on his support of Outright Vermont and the Gender Identity Bill (obviously many officeholders support these things, but if they’re not gay, these kind of knuckle-draggers aren’t as excited to try and link them to pedophiles).

Just to underscore the point that Pearl isn’t alone in this hatemongering, the phone lines seemed to light up in the last few minutes of the broadcast with like-minded nutbars. Now I know many feel that we should just ignore the far-right fringe rather than grant them attention with direct confrontation, but I disagree. As an organizer during Oregon’s Measure 9 and 13 battles in the nineties, I’ve seen first hand that you can’t get complacent about these folks and these issues.

If you can hold your bile down, you can check the three, poorly recorded mp3s I was sent from Thursday’s broadcast, the first being Pearl’s initial call, and the next two being his choir of cheerleader bigots. The last one even has the host discussing the “big bucks” Lippert gets from the “homosexual agenda,” and then starts directing listeners to where they can find copies of this agenda online. Weird.

File 1 –
File 2 –
File 3 –

Two links to check out this weekend. First, former State Representative and current Democratic candidate for State Senate in Washington County Donny Osman takes his campaign to You Tube. Check it out:

Second, Shay Totten at the Vermont Guardian fleshes out his web-only report on the Rainville Plagiarism story into a full-blown, front page print piece in the current issue. If you’re either a political blogger or a regular reader/participant, it’s a must read. As far as GMD connections go, along with myself, Neil Jensen (Vermonter) is quoted heavily, and both he and Jack McCullough have their blogs referenced.

My favorite quote comes from She’s Right’s Charity Tensel:

“There are a growing number of conservative blogs, but there does not seem to be that ‘netroots’ formation like you see on the Democratic-progressive side with collaborative sites like Green Mountain Daily. I don’t see anything similar on the horizon for the Vermont right. I would love to take on something like that if I had the time,” said Tensel.

High praise indeed. This is the reason so many of us on the left-leaning poli-blogosphere like Charity so much. She can actually discuss things without having to fall back on nastiness (even though this site probably bugs the crap out of her). Imagine some of the usual right-wing suspects who comment on the other blogs allowing something positive about this site to pass their lips (ha)?

We need Charity to ground us all in the reality that just because someone disagrees with us, doesn’t necessarily make them disagreeable as people (even though it might be simpler to make sweeping negative generalizations about right wingers rather than actually engage with people).

This is not to say that people who say truly abhorrent things shouldn’t be called out on them – which is a set up for my next diary…

[WHACK-A-MOLE UPDATE 10-6]: I’m glad Julie has made this her mission. The below example from yesterday was quickly fixed, but sure enough she found another one. Clearly there was no comprehensive review done, they’re just counting on using Reason and Brimstone to find any and all lifted passages, I suppose. They should pay her a fee for the service. Here’s the latest from R&B:

From http://www.martharai…

We need maximum transparency for government. There should be no secrets unless it involves critical aspects of National Security. Every earmark, every grant, every contract should be online so the public can get access to it

If it sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the exact same passage, unchanged, that I found on Sunday night that was stolen from the PBS show NOW.

How to get in front of it this time, I wonder? They can’t fire the same staffer again… -odum]

It’s hard to believe, but the “new improved” Rainville website still has some of the plagiarized material. This is the latest from Julie Waters’ blog:

Okay, so Martha’s site is now back up again, and she’s fixed all the stolen language problems, right?

Not so much as you might think:

http://www.martharai…
I also support making health insurance portable. Too often when people switch jobs their health insurance isn’t portable, forcing them to change doctors and coverage or lose it entirely.

http://www.rickodonn…
People switch jobs but their health insurance isn’t portable, forcing them to change doctors and coverage or lose it entirely.

As with before, I kept a copy of the site

Isolated incident, eh? -chuckle- Too funny…

If you don’t know about the scandal surrounding disgraced former Representative Mark Foley (R-FL) and his habit of trying to solicit underage kids for sex on the internet, you’ve been living under a rock. The internal GOP cannibalistic frenzy being played out in the public eye is like nothing I’ve ever seen before, and more and more people agree that it’s only a matter of time before House Speaker Dennis Hastert is forced to step down from leadership, probably to be replaced by Rep. Roy Blunt, who seems to be the only leading House Republican not implicated in one way, shape or form in the coverup these days…

But what should the House Democrats be doing? The conventional wisdom – even among the netroots – seems to be (a la DemFromCT at dKos, emphasis added):

My humble opinion is that the R’s in DC are still underestimating its effect on Main Street, and that national Democrats are doing the right thing by letting the GOP continue to do each other in. I don’t underestimate the GOP’s ability to get nasty, but right now, the scandal’s entirely one of their own making, and one beyond their ability to manage.

In my (admittedly outnumbered) opinion, This trick never works.

Each circumstance looks more promising than the last, but what we always underestimate is the media machine that closes behind every attempt the GOP makes to rise above problems or scandal. After Hastert inevitably steps down, the media will give them a free pass and a fresh start less than a month before the polls open.

The Dems should hold a presser first thing Monday (which gives the GOP a few more days to attack each other), rejecting GOP-floated ideas to simply scrap the page program entirely as cutting and running from kids interested in government or as some suggestion that our national leaders consider a group of kids unmanageable (or too much of a temptation? I mean, haven’t they though through the implications, there…?). They should then announce plans for some sort of “Protect children from predators” act which would provide immediate expulsion from Congress for any lawmaker caught coming on to underage kids (or any lawmaker covering for them), and would provide some comparable laws in the country at large where they might be needed (and maybe the federal laws are adequate in the nation-at-large – I’d be surprised, but if so, let this be a lawmaker-only law that applies to lawmakers at all levels – if it’s broke, we should be the ones to fix it). They should say, if they get to run the zoo in November, it’ll be at the top of the list the very first day.

To those who are saying that the Dem candidates should be handling it in the field, rather than the leadership in Washington, I’d just remind folks that pivotal to the GOP successes in the last decade has been the “attack from all fronts” approach. Dem candidates and politicos are always trying to fine tune their surgical electoral strikes in a reflection of what they consider to be their greater political finesse and sophistication.

It hasn’t worked.

First: Here come the ads. I don’t have much money, and I’m spending too much on this. I asked the other front pagers if they’d object some time ago and they said no, so here we go. Thanks to Steve and Eve at Carpetbagger for helping me get going, and Chris Bowers at MyDD for accepting GMD into the Liberal Bloggers Advertising Network. The changes will trickle in over the next few days.

Second: You may notice that my icebreaker ad is for the central Vermont newsweekly the Vermont Journal which is delivered to homes in Lamoille County, the Waterbury area, the Mad River Valley and Bolton. That’s because I just started a weekly column there this week, and it seemed to be the least I could do in return. It’s pretty great, as the VJ hits a lot of folks who are not the liberal faithful, but instead are in the “swing” category or conservative. I’ve tried to start gently so as not to scare them off…

This week’s column wasn’t posted online, so I can’t link to it, but I’m hoping that will change next week.

Freyne in print today drops a bombshell story that’s been simmering in and around Guard circles (and on the edge of the media) for more than a year now:

The letter arrived in my mailbox last Thursday without a signature or return address. It was addressed to Peter Welch and yours truly…

“I am sending you both letters because I cannot believe how Martha Rainville lies to the people of this state. She talks about integrity and running a clean campaign, when, in fact, she didn’t run the Guard with integrity.

“There is currently an investigation being conducted by the Guard about one of their officers that Martha protected constantly — Martha even broke military rules to protect this officer.” 

“Now, six months after Martha is gone, this officer’s actions are being questioned and for good reason. This officer broke several military rules. The officer was providing homemade pornography to Guard members, Martha heard about it, took the evidence and destroyed it without taking any actions against the officer.”

“Now the Guard is conducting the investigation.

Indeed, our sources indicate an investigation is very much underway, and pornography — locally produced porn movies involving Guard members — is involved. Of particular concern, we’re told, is that the sexual activity crossed the lines of rank. That is a big “no-no” in the military.

Again, this story has been out there for some time, and it has been associated with a very high profile Guard member with direct ties to Rainville, but up until now it’s all been based on anonymous letters, which simply do not merit putting someone’s reputation in jeopardy. If Freyne has indeed confirmed that an actual investigation is underway, the name will likely come out soon enough (sorry folks, I ain’t gonna share).

And just to be clear, while the porn thing may be eye-catching, it’s the UCMJ lawbreaking that’s at issue and any subsequent Rainville coverup. It clearly bothered some Guard members enough to start sending letters. I’m sure all of us will be checking with our Guard sources for more details on this all day (I know I will!).

From the Times Argus:

Statements attributed to Republican House candidate Martha Rainville were lifted word for word from other politicians, including one of the nation’s most prominent Democrats — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton…

…”The individual responsible is no longer a worker for the campaign,” Rainville said…

This is a bellwether moment, folks because (emphasis mine):

The allegations of plagiarism first surfaced Sunday night when a politically active part-time professor and musician from Westminster noticed similarities between Rainville’s words and those of the other politicians. Julie Waters said she does occasional political work — she produces Rep. Bernard Sanders’ Internet broadcasts — but her research was not underwritten by or performed on behalf of any candidate…

…Her research was posted on her Web log, and was then picked up by most of the state’s political bloggers within hours.

The question as to whether or not the political blogosphere in Vermont is having an impact is now definitively answered. This was a 100% blog-driven story, and Julie used the medium exactly the way that brough it to prominence nationally as a force to be reckoned with. Two weeks ago, she read a post at GMD that got her wondering whether or not there was any outright plagiarism on Rainville’s website. Two weeks later and a post on her own blog proved her suspicions were correct. Freyne picked it up and the rest is now history.

It’s important to realize that these things snowball. Expect activists across the state now to start researching and fact checking candidates over the next 5 weeks like nothing we’ve seen before.

The game’s afoot!