It sounds for all the world like Symington is serious about running for Governor, which probably means that Galbraith is no longer serious (even though he too sounded for all the world like he was serious… so much seriousness). In fact, there seemed to be genuine enthusiasm in her voice at the prospect.

Symington has got to worry Douglas on one level – not because she’ll necessarily beat him outright (she wont with Pollina already campaigning hard), but because the number three scenario I referred to here would be in play:

A 3-Way Race With A Legislative Showdown. The plan here is to keep Douglas below 50%, forcing the final vote into the Legislature, where lawmakers give the nod to the number two vote getter. To make this work, the logic would have to be promoted ASAP and steadily, in order for it to gain exposure in the press and legitimacy among the public. The reasoning would be similar to the logic behind IRV, which the public has already been somewhat primed with. The winner should have a majority. If a majority rejects the Governor, the third place candidate agrees to essentially recuse themselves from the running and throw their support behind the second place winner – and by extension, their electoral support follows. The legislature then has a consistent rationale for picking the number two.  

You better believe her caucus would vote for her if this thing goes to the legislature, as they are super-loyal. But how would she do as a candidate? There’s certainly an appeal to further breaking up the statewide boys club. Both the GOP and the Progs are even more top-heavy with testosterone than the Dems.

Stepping back from the specifics, it may sound ironic, but she shares a fundamental shortcoming as a candidate with, of all people, Anthony Pollina… and the first one of them who can move beyond it may be able to reap the rewards.

It’s easy to see it in Symington, but Pollina has the same problem – it just manifests completely differently. Consider the recent kerfuffle over his attempt to address the State Committee. Pollina, was of course, turned down (or at least put off for a few months). His response?

“I like to sit down at the table and talk about things,” Pollina said. “That’s how I work. So, I just don’t understand why they don’t want to meet with me and hear about the campaign.”

Eh. Just kinda grumpy/whiny, and pretty much what you’d expect, right?

And therein lies the problem.

Both Pollina and Symington are very, very set in their ways – even if those ways are counterproductive. With Pollina its more than just an ideological rigidity – that’s manageable, and can even be an asset if spun carefully. It’s more stylistic. Imagine if Pollina had instead said something like this:

Look, I’m not surprised by the decision. There is a lot of mistrust here going way back, and there’s no doubt that people on both sides – myself included – have done plenty to create this divide that exists between the Democrats and myself.

But I am truly committed to this race, and truly committed to reaching out and working with Democrats towards common goals, as a team. And I have no doubt that most Democrats feel similarly. So while I’d like to have this conversation with the State Committee as soon as possible, I respect that I am really asking for a sea change in the way we’ve all done politics, and I know the Democrats will need to meet me halfway in their own way and at their own time. I remain confident that, come June, the decision may change, and in the meantime, I’ll be working even harder to build that trust and reach out to Democrats, as well as Independents and Republicans who share our vision of Vermont’s future.

Now, wouldn’t that have made you double take and go “wow”?

But it wasn’t to be, and is not likely to be.

Now Symington’s insistence on doing things her way and her way only is legendary. Even some in her caucus will admit privately that they wish she would stretch out a bit and work outside her comfort zone to greater effect.

Why does it matter?

Because electoral politics is about who can control the landscape. If you’re light on your feet, can adapt, grow and move outside your comfort zone, you are adaptable, and in a good position to control the variables.

If you are a constant – unchanging and given to inertia, you don’t control much of anything.

But it becomes very easy for your opponent to control you.

Douglas has spent the last few years pressing Symington’s buttons as though he has a remote control. She is particularly vulnerable to casting political attacks as personal, as she makes way too much use of the pronoun “I”.

Pollina, too, is so predictable as to become a political archetype, if not an outright stereotype at times. This also has the effect of handing a maneuvering pol like Douglas a remote control over your actions.

Whichever one – Pollina or Symington – that finds the perspective, the discipline and the humility to play against form when the situation demands it, and do it deftly, will find themselves not only in the driver’s seat, but may well find the remote control for pressing Jim Douglas’s buttons.

It didn’t seem appropriate to acknowledge the passing of Vi Coffin yesterday, as we were immersed in the antics of April Fools Day by the time I heard the news. For those who didn’t know her, Vi was a longtime Democratic stalwart. From the Free Press:

Violet Coffin, a former chairwoman of the state Democratic Party and former head of the Vermont Council on the Arts, has died. She was 87.

She led the state party from 1985 to 1993, following a career as a political activist that included a campaigns in Long Island as co-chairwoman of Robert Kennedy’s senatorial campaign in 1966.

I didn’t know Vi well, but her reputation preceded her. She was an extraordinarily committed, passionate and talented person who was an undeniable force for real good in the Democratic Party, the state and the nation. Vi did what we all should aspire to do; she made a difference.

Our sincere condolences go out to Ned and the rest of her family. She will be missed by all of us.

Former Vermont Guardian head Shay Totten will be taking over the political columnist spot left open by the retirement of Peter Freyne at Seven Days. In an email, Totten said:

The column will have a new name, and a slightly different attitude and approach, but I plan on it being chock full of the insider tidbits, sharp insight, and investigative reporting – the blend that Peter faithfully offered each and every week for more than 20 years. I’m looking forward to keeping pols honest, on their toes, and teasing out some of the stories that others miss, or just don’t know about. That’s been a hallmark of my own career in journalism.

Totten officially takes over May 7th, but will make his first appearence in a guest column in the April 9th edition. The column will no longer be called “Inside Track,” but a new name has not been settled on.

You’re all fired. Especially Julie.

Man, that is one seriously ugly picture.

Readers of this site will recognize a clear set of policy priorities for an odum administration: support Vermont citizens and business growth by moving to a universal (preferably a single-payer) health care plan as soon as possible, decrease the tax burden on vulnerable Vermonters by looking at overall financial burdens (not just property tax) and move the entire system towards one predicated on the ability to pay, initiate a sensible policy on crime and law enforcement (including curtailing, as CL calls it, the “war on people who use marijuana”), look forward to a post-Vermont Yankee world by emphasizing conservation and renewable alternatives, re-prioritize state infrastructure needs with an eye towards safer roads and a forward-looking approach to public transportation, affirmatively asserting what power the Governor’s office may have in bringing National Guard troops back from Iraq, etc.

We all know the problems, its time to talk solutions.

So how will I win (and how can you help)?

I have a big deficit to close with Jim Douglas. Currently my poll numbers put me at only 22% (those are actually Peter Galbraith’s numbers, but since nobody knows who he is either, its the general consensus that they were simply responding to the “Democrat” label).

That’s not good, but it does put me 7 points ahead of Anthony Pollina.

What this means is that, numerically, its going to be nearly impossible for Pollina to catch up with me when we force a primary by making sure both of us appear on both Prog & Dem ballots (by write-in if necessary). The numbers just aren’t there, and for the good of the state, he should consider suspending his effort. Pollina’s platform as a tested, experienced candidate and political policy insider is simply not what people are interested in anymore. People want change, and Pollina represents the past. As a younger, fresher face who can deliver a more inspiring speech, I will be best suited to proceed past the primary phase by offering voters real hope for change. That’s hope. For change. Change. And hope.

Although the poll numbers do look grim, those polls are based on surveys of consistent voters. There are many, many Vermonters who simply never vote, because they are so disenchanted with their choices. They will, therefore, all go to the polls to vote for me, as I represent the people. And they are people. Those who I do not repesent are something else entirely. So the polls are, in the end, meaningless.

Now some of you may wonder why it’s taken me so long to jump into this thing, but the truth is it’s still early. Way early. Nobody really cares about these campaigns until after the session – or later. The only people watching now are the chattering classes and the political insider crowd (the press, the activists, teachers, white collar workers, women over 50, seniors, union members, white men under 30, minorities, first time voters, etc). Regular folks, such as recent immigrants from Eastern Europe between the ages of 18 and 35 who are voting as citizens for the first time, are really turned off by too much political talk too soon. And I respect that.

Vermonters are concerned about issues and only issues. And the biggest issue of all is what letter you put after your name on the ballot. It is one of the great issues of our time. I have chosen a D, which is part of the family of happy, smiling emoticons – not the emoticon that sticks out its tongue. I believe Vermonters don’t like politicians who stick out their tongues at them.

What you can do to help is speak to your neighbors about my candidacy. Don’t try and persuade them, as persuasion is simply too passe, and with the serious issues facing Vermonters, we really can’t allow for the formality of considering other points of view. Simply tell them to vote for me. If they are dubious, tell them again more loudly. Peppering them with derisive put-downs can be helpful.

I will be assuring people that I can be Governor. There will be concerns, such as will come out when people look into my personal finances. I’ll be the first to admit that they are a shambles, as I am in quite a bit of debt. Some time over the next few weeks, I expect some benevolent supporter will anonymously bail me out, though, so my debts won’t serve as a distraction from the real issues, such as campaign finance reform.

But I also will need to assure voters that I understand how to be Governor. While I don’t have direct governmental experience, I have long been an observer of State Government, and believe I have a good understanding based on those observations about what qualities make a successful Governor. Voters are leery of government intrusion in their lives, so I will always do as little as possible. Voters do, however, expect a leader with vision and imagination, so I will promise to put forward at least one outrageous idea, doomed to failure and pulled out of thin air, at the beginning of every legislative session. I will be as uncooperative as possible with the legislature because Vermonters understand that the legislature is always the problem. But it’s also true voters don’t want a leader who is too ideologically rigid, so I pledge to you that, when the legislature does push through a new program that I disapprove of, I will be sure to take credit for it after the fact across the country – in the process, doing my part to promote Vermont to outsiders.

And yes, there will be ribbons.

I have a dream. So stop what you’re doing, close your eyes, and dream it with me. Unless you’re driving.

Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post’s political blog “The Fix” is polling his community and putting up a list of the best political blogs in each state. He just put up the winners for Vermont, and GMD, along with Baruth’s Vermont Daily Briefing, make up the list.

Now, based on the other state lists, they don’t seem to be in alphabetical order… does GMD’s placement atop the list mean we’re number one? Could this be a preview of the rapidly approaching Daysie Awards? Sort of a “Golden Globes” to 7Days’ “Oscars?”

Watch out, Philip – we’re nipping at yer heels…

This letter has been making the rounds. I think it speaks for itself:

Dear Vermont Hillary Clinton Supporter:

I was shocked to hear Senator Leahy say that Hillary Clinton should step out of the race.  He amended his original statement to Vermont Public Radio later, only to say, “Senator Clinton has every right, but not a very good reason, to remain a candidate for as long as she wants to.  As far as the delegate count and the interests of a Democratic victory in November go, there is not a very good reason for drawing this out.”

I have responded by saying it is very premature and patronizing to ask her to drop out. Ten states have yet to vote. The race remains very close. Leahy’s statement deprives these voters of having their voices heard. We are five months away from the Democratic National Convention. That is a long time to heal wounds. Compared to previous campaigns we are very early in the process.  I am confident that no matter who wins, the candidates are so close on the issues that they will be able to unite their supporters. They both made such a statement today.

The voters are not dumb. They know the difference between McCain and either Clinton or Obama. They know what is at stake for the future of our country, from the ongoing war in Iraq to the failing economy. In an ideal world we would have chosen the Democratic candidate at the same time the Republicans chose theirs. But we live in a democracy and the democratic process is sometimes messy. However, it works better than any other system. I believe the primary process should play itself out until every state has voted. I strongly oppose Senator Leahy’s suggestion.

If you agree, let Senator Leahy know what you think.  Call or email him at his offices: His email address is senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov. His Washington phone number is 202-224-4242. His Burlington number is 802-863-2525.

Madeleine M. Kunin

Lots of eye-opening stuff here in this escalation of what may grow into a genuine feud with this unprecedented intra-party smackdown. First and foremost is the simple fact of former Ambassador, Vermont Democratic Party icon and first woman Governor of the state Kunin issuing a considered attack on Leahy couched in such patronizing, even insulting terms.

What is missing is the allusion contained in her initial dismissal of Leahy’s statement that Clinton should bow out for the good of the Party: that it is somehow inherently sexist to make this suggestion. The implications were there when she characterized Leahy’s statement as saying to Clinton “Honey, you know you’ve got to drop out for the good of the Party”, and it has been the overriding primary narrative from her, suggesting as she did in the Washington Post that the vote for Clinton is a metric of the level of sexism in any given state (which, I guess means women are still wearing corsets and being footbound in Vermont, given her margin of defeat).

In any event, Democratic officeholders and former officeholders simply don’t attack Senator Leahy in this way – or in any way. And with nothing to be gained in the state, the comment and follow-up letter amounts to little more than picking a fight (and putting his official Senate office contact information for fired-up Clintonites – an office where discussing electoral politics is a massive no-no – seems to be a way to simply be as pesky as possible).

I don’t think we’ve heard the end of this.

A few days ago I was surfing the blogs and found myself struck by so many of the comments from Clinton supporters. They were so angry – and as consumed with righteous indignation as were the Obama supporters.

I honestly had a hard time understanding. The anger of Obama-ites I understand. Even before the Clinton slash-and-burn “kitchen sink” strategy – now dubbed the “Tonya Harding” option – the ongoing race baiting was a hard thing to stomach. But all the comparable charges from the Clintonites seemed almost delusional in comparison.

Most of the criticism now is focused at the comments of now-legendary former Obama pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright, casting Obama as a racist “hater” for being associated with him. Looking at Wright’s comments, I firmly expected to debunk the criticisms by bringing the real quotes out into the sunlight, bypassing the game of telephone-spin being propagated by the Clinton crowd through their ironic repetitive hyping of the phrase “words do matter” after continually insisting that Obama’s inspiring words didn’t.

Unfortunately, though, along with some truly meaningful charges against the dominant culture, there are ugly overtones as well, and I’m not talking about the reprinting of an article by a Palestinian attacking Israel. It’s the words of Wright himself. Obama handled the initial controversy quite well by personalizing it and humanizing Wright, but in the process he has cleaved himself more closely to Wright in the eyes of the media and political observers. This means that, while the “god damn America” clips may be largely (not completely) neutralized, further, genuinely offensive comments are now in Obama’s lap, and he needs to deal with them in a way that is consistent with his campaign’s rhetoric.

This is from the sermon which has been the most recent fodder for the press:

Hours after I post a diary about how Pollina’s campaign may think it knows this game, but if they want to play in the big leagues, they’re going to have to start dotting all their communications ‘i’s and crossing all their public-perception ‘t’s, lest the press and the public rip them to shreds, we get this news from Sneyd:

(Sneyd) Now, (Vermont Milk Company) whose founders hoped they could show a new way for farmers to control their own destiny, is regrouping.

A new investor who doesn’t want to be publicly identified has pumped $200,000 into the company.

Okay. Let’s get this straight. A politician backs off from electoral politics for a couple years and starts a business. He decides to run for Governor, largely on the success of that business. News comes out during the campaign that the business is in trouble, and the press reports on it in the context of the politician’s campaign. Within days an anonymous 6-figure contributor swoops in to bail out the business.

Holy crap!!

Who gave the money? What will they expect from Pollina if he is Governor? And what knuckleheads thought that this wasn’t going to stink to high heaven??

Arrrrrrrrrrrrgh!!!!!!

Jon Margolis at 7 Days has moved quickly to differentiate the publication in the post-Freyne era. Where Freyne devoted a lot of ink to promoting Anthony Pollina’s gubernatorial candidacy and minimizing any potential competition, Margolis takes a more detached view – although one guaranteed to elicit howls of protest from the Progressive faithful whose dissatisfaction will undoubtedly be on display in next week’s letter column. Regardless, it clearly stands out as the definitive traditional media analysis of the Pollina/Prog/Dem dynamic to date. Readers of this site will find familiar rhetoric in Margolis’s piece; basically that Pollina can’t win, and the Dems are looking pretty damn bad:

But in this bizarre campaign, there’s another winner: Anthony Pollina, the Progressive Party candidate. He wins not because he is going to be governor – he is never going to be governor – but because he has flummoxed, outfoxed and humiliated the Vermont Democratic Party…

…Some Democrats are convinced not only that Pollina can’t win, but that he knows it, that he just likes running. It’s a plausible supposition.

This is the point where I disagree with Margolis, however. I think its clear that Pollina and company very much believe he can win, as I believe many still cling to a parochial notion that the great unwashed will recognize their rightousness and rise up to carry them to victory in defiance of the polls and pundits.

That’s not to say Pollina isn’t running a good campaign so far, but there are cracks. And in sizing up those cracks – in particular some apparent sloppiness in Pollina’s public comments, one gets the sense that there may be some unexpected turmoil ahead if they get their wish and get to be the left-wing option to Jim Douglas, in lieu of a Democrat.

To use the parlance of the Presidential primary, Pollina has never been vetted. Now, when Clinton makes such a charge against Obama nationally, it should be self-evidently ridiculous; being a major contender in a big election comes with press scrutiny and is a process of “vetting” in  and of itself – and the same is true at the state level.

Pollina is, at this point, an old pro at running a statewide election, so he and his team may well be comfortable in the conceit that they know the territory. But the truth is, they’ll be in unknown territory entirely if he is the one and only challenger to Jim Douglas. For the first time, the press will consider him a “major contender,” and where they couldn’t care less about his background before, they’ll be all over it in a one-on-one with Douglas. The recent piece at the far-far-right-wing Caledonian Record looking at purported troubles at the Pollina-founded Vermont Milk Company may simply be the first shot across the bow.

Pollina has always had a tendency to speak in very cavalier terms about what he has said and done, and the recent apparent contradiction between his statement to Philip Baruth that “at every step in that early process, we actually kept the Democratic party informed. We literally called them up to say, ‘We’re opening a bank account today,’ or ‘We’re gonna do this today.'” and VDP Chair Ian Carleton’s response that “Neither Pollina nor anyone on his behalf ever called the VDP to let us know that he was ‘opening a bank account today,’ as Mr. Pollina claims in the interview, nor was any such call made about ‘trying to raise the money,’ as Pollina also states.” suggests that cavalier approach may still be operative. If he is serious about being the candidate of the left, he’d be well advised to speak far more carefully in the future, as the down side to having the press actually listen to you for a change, is that they are the press… and when they do listen, they usually listen rather carefully.