One of the big selling points of the Republican Party is its aversion to wasting taxpayer dollars. Elect us, they say, and we’ll be good stewards of your money. We’ll make government leaner and more efficient, delivering the services you need at a lower cost.

Sounds nice enough.

But then you look at how Republicans spent their money in the 2012 campaign, and you realize they can’t possibly know the first thing about efficiency and sensible spending.

Exhibit A: Lenore “You’re Awful” Broughton, the ill-tempered legatee, who poured one million dollars (One… MEEEELLLYUN…dollars) down a rathole called Vermonter(s) First. Which persistently spent her money on stuff that wasn’t working: enough mailers to single-handedly rescue the Postal Service, hyperventilating attacks on Democrats, and a fatally flawed candidate for Treasurer. And, lest we forget, the overpriced consultancy of Tayt Brooks, International Man of Mystery.

The Tayter was fleecing Broughton to the tune of $8,000 a month. (Coincidentally, the same salary that Darcie “Hack” Johnston was (cough) earning from the Randy Brock campaign. More later.) While, according to VTDigger, the actually successful manager of the Shumlin campaign, Alex MacLean, took home about $3,300 in October. That girl needs an agent.

One of the many items in VF’s Parade of Profligacy was polling services from an out-of-state firm. Now, maybe the polling was complete crap (like the one-nighter robo-poll that Randy Brock touted as evidence he was gaining ground on Shumlin), but if the polling was at all accurate, Brooks had to have some notion that his strategy was failing. And yet he just kept on doing the same old stuff. And Broughton kept on cutting checks whenever he asked. And, according to Hack, she plans to continue with Vermonter First. Because, y’know, she has to be pleased as punch with her ROI so far.

Her grandfather, ace business executive Sewell Avery, was a right old bastard. But at least he knew what to do with a dollar. Apparently, Broughton lost the genetic lottery: she inherited the temper but not the money smarts. Avery must be rolling in his grave.

After the jump: Randy Brock, mad spendthrift; plus Doug Hoffer, King of ROI.

Exhibit B: Randy Brock. His one big credential was his money smarts: former top executive at Fidelity Investments, turned in a creditable performance as State Auditor. Elect him, and he’ll don the green eyeshade and make sure every one of your tax dollars is spent wisely.  

Now look at his campaign, and tell me that it didn’t completely undermine that hard-won image. He spent big bucks on out-of-state consultants who gave him cookie-cutter strategies that don’t work in Vermont. He paid an out-of-state firm to create a slick-looking but generic campaign website. He spent even more on formulaic TV ads from out-of-state producers: Ominous music, Shumlin in bad lighting, false charges… then happy music, everyday folks, and your hero Randy Brock.  I’m sure those ads are slapped together from a template: “Insert Candidate’s Name Here.”  

And let us not forget the Hack. I went back through all of Brock’s campaign finance reports and added up all the expenses paid to “Johnston Consulting.” On the July 15 report, which includes all fundraising and expenditures for the previous year, all payments to Johnston are listed as “Consulting and Fundraising.” That would appear to include reimbursements (a few hundred here, a few hundred there, odd amounts) plus salary (big numbers, even amounts), which is a pretty sloppy way for an ex-auditor to do his accounts, but never mind.

Between December 2011 and July 15 2012, the Brock campaign paid Johnston Consulting a total of $55,032.26. Of that total, there were five checks for $8,000 each, which was obviously salary. Small checks (less than $500 each) accounted for about $7400; those appear to have been expense reimbursements. The remainder, $8,479, was in amounts ranging from $850 to $2925. Those could have been salary payments, or reimbursements for major expenses, it’s not clear which.

But let’s be as charitable to the Hack as we can possibly be, and say that she “earned” $40,000 in salary from December through mid-July. From mid-July through mid-November, salary and reimbursements are separately categorized. During that period, Johnston was reimbursed a total of $5,222.91, and she was paid $40,979.49 for consulting services.

And now, let’s add it up. If you count only the $8,000 checks from the July 15 report as salary, and generously assume the rest of the money was for reimbursement of expenses, then Darcie Johnston took home $80,979.49 in salary. Other remuneration (probably campaign-related expenses) added up to $20,255.17.

For a grand total of $100,234.66. Nice work if you can get it.

Overall, the Brock campaign spent more than $800,000, including $300,000 of his own personal money. What did he get? A whopping 38% of the vote.

And what lessons did he learn?

Asked if in hindsight he’d have changed his spending strategies, Brock said: “No. Well, with additional funding, I would have spent more.”

Translation: “I burned all my money. If I’d had more, I would have made a bigger fire.” What was it Einstein said about insanity?

I think Deane Davis is rolling in his grave, just like Sewell Avery.

Exhibit C: Doug Hoffer, the King of ROI. Spent $53,842.95, got 140,805 votes. Cost: 39 cents per vote.

Compare that to Randy “I would have spent more” Brock, who laid out a whopping $7.27 per vote. I know, I know, running for Governor and for Auditor aren’t necessarily comparable. But Hoffer was significantly outspent by Vince Illuzzi, while Brock’s campaign spent far more than Governor Shumlin’s. The playing fields were much more comparable than in a typical campaign season.

But the point is: Doug Hoffer got his money’s worth, more so than any other candidate in 2012. He spent frugally and won. Y’know, that uncharismatic socialist mumbler might just make a really fine Auditor.  

______________________

This careless (and pointless) overspending by Republicans — and their insistence that all they have to do is spend more — belies their traditional standing as the party of frugality, the party you can trust to act like adults and hold down the cost of government.

And it aligns nicely with the Republicans’ national record in recent years: the party that cares deeply about the deficit whenever a Democrat is in the White House. Otherwise, whoopee, tax cuts and reckless spending for all!

Between Reagan and Bush II, the deficit consistently grew faster during Republican administrations than Democratic ones. That string was broken with Obama; the deficits have been larger during his first term. But that’s almost entirely due to the legacy of Bush II: the tax cuts, the wars, and the huge costs of the Bush recession. Obama’s stimulus is responsible for only a fraction of the deficit. Also, by all independent accounts, Mitt Romney’s tax and spending plans would have ballooned the deficit even more.

It’s a shame, really. Our system works better with two credible parties. The Republicans have been squandering their credibility for years, thanks to their spendthrift ways and their preoccupation with social issues. It’s clear from the massive and failed investments of the Brock campaign and Vermonter First, not to mention the hundreds of millions sunk down the national Super PAC ratholes, that Republicans aren’t capable of carefully handling their own finances, let alone the state’s or the country’s.  

Today was the deadline for campaign finance reports in Vermont. I’ve been out all day and haven’t had a chance to pore over the reports, but I couldn’t resist taking a quick peek at Vermonter(s) First, the conservative Super PAC almost entirely funded by camera-shy heiress Lenore Broughton.

Drum roll, please…

Her cash donations to Vermonter First for the entire campaign season: $1,002,500.

Say it like Dr. Evil: One MEEEEEELLLyun dollars!

In the past month, VF got three donations totaling $650 from individuals not named “Lenore Broughton,” plus a hearty $2,500 from the Virginia-based National Right to Work Committee. But basically, all the money was Lenore’s.

VF reported total expenditures of $952,435.92, so there’s still fifty grand or so left in the kitty.

Our congratulations to Lenore Broughton for squandering a million dollars and getting absolutely Jack Squat in terms of election victories. So does Tayt Brooks still have a job?

As regulars on GMD already know, I am the spokesperson for Northwest Citizens for Responsible Growth, a Franklin County grassroots group that opposed permitting for the state’s largest Walmart on a tract of prime ag soils in St. Albans.  For ten years we did all that could be legally done to resist the siting; twenty, if you count the first, successful, effort to oppose location of the store there.

Developer JL Davis finally broke ground shortly before the election.  The topsoil has been removed and massive earthworks are underway to permanently take the land out of productive use.  The die has been cast and there is no turning back.

It seems like an opportune moment to remind Walmart that the world will be watching how it comports itself at the location of the longest organized resistance to a store siting.  Here follows the open letter that will be circulated to the press later today:

Now that JLD Properties has held its Walmart ground-breaking, we would like to use this opportunity to say that we are confident that Walmart will take every measure necessary to ensure that the St. Albans store will be the most ethically operated Walmart in history; that its workers will have nothing but positive employment experiences, and will be free to organize; that the store will not engage in predatory marketing schemes; that the historic St. Albans downtown will remain a vital community marketplace;  that the emerging importance of our working landscape will not be damaged; and that none of the negative impacts that have occurred in other communities when Walmart came to town will happen here.  

We are certain of this because Walmart will know that we are watching; and that we will continue watching and sharing our experiences, nationwide, through an extensive grassroots network of concerned citizen groups, with other communities who are being targeted by the retail giant.

St. Albans has become a national stage on which Walmart should want to perform conspicuously above reproach.  We have the opportunity to share these experiences more broadly than has ever been done before.

Furthermore, the developer, JL Davis, will know that we are watching to see that every assertion he made in the permit process holds up.  These include promises regarding quality job creation, traffic, viability of local retail and other important measures of community well-being; as well as the absence of “secondary growth” pressures beyond what existed at the time that Walmart received its permit.   In our opinion, Mr. Davis’ assertions in the permit process become Walmart’s obligations to Franklin County as a whole, once the giant retailer occupies his store.  

We recognize that enforcement mechanisms within the permit system are woefully inadequate; so we will not rely on official action to address broken promises.  Should we be disappointed in our expectations, and should any of the assertions made by Mr. Davis and Walmart over the course of the permit process prove, in reality, to have been untrue, we are prepared to hold Walmart accountable through organized market action.

there was no snow but I

found his track anyway  easy

I stalked him all morning

he was quick and almost clever

but I had his number

I had his scent too

I moved fast yet remained

as quiet as the nearby stream

always ready  eyes left and right

in case he backtracked

about eleven o’clock I had him

one shot took him down

god he was big  over 200 pounds

not counting what he had on him

I undressed him  was going to skin him

but decided to just stake him out

you know  like the Indians and the VC

did to warn us  and as a trophy too

besides I wanted a smoke real bad

and I had to get the hell out of there

out of state asshole  with a wad of cash

and what was left of a pint of JD on him

his daddy should have taught him

you don’t smoke and drink out hunting

well I’m all done for the day  cheers

get your buck yet Pete?  sure did

all the way home I’m seeing the look

on his face when my bullet hit him

what the hell did he expect?  out there

in the spooky old woods alone with his gun

it could just as easily have been me

well no  not really

next weekend I’ll head up north

a good piece of woods I know up there

hit that game supper on the way home

I love hunting season

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.

(Don’t try this at home, kiddies.  or, so close to home.)

Of all the staffing changes announced on Tuesday by Governor Shumlin, the one that caught my eye was the departure of Patrick Flood as Vermont’s Mental Health Commissioner. After only eleven months on the job, he’s being shifted to an unnamed position in state government. And although they haven’t found him a landing spot, he’s leaving his current job right away; Mary Moulton will serve as acting commissioner while the administration searches for a permanent replacement.

It seemed rather abrupt. And at the time, I speculated that Flood may have been shunted aside. That’s apparently not true; I’ve been told that the Shumlin team pressed him to stay on, but he was insistent on leaving.

It’s been a difficult year for Patrick Flood. And if he finally decided that he’d opt for an uncertain posting rather than keep on doing this job, I can’t say I blame him. I think I’d do the same. On multiple levels, this process has been something of a clusterf*ck.

Let me pause for a moment to make something clear: what follows is not based on any inside information or secret sources. This is inference and interpretation based on what I’ve read and observed.

After the jump: the waning of optimism, questions about FEMA delays, and a belated call for clinical experience.

An increasingly cloudy outlook

Flood became Mental Health Commissioner in December 2011 (less than four months after Tropical Storm Irene) in an unusual job-swap: he changed places with Christine Oliver, who became Deputy Secretary of the Agency of Human Services. At the time, Flood expressed enthusiasm for Shumlin’s plan.

Flood said he was impressed by the cooperation and hard work of everyone in the field, though he warned “hard choices” lie ahead.

“Together we will come up with the best choices for Vermonters, I am sure,” he said

The public optimism was unabated through the 2012 legislative session, where the plan was tweaked (25 beds in Berlin) and approved. But over the ensuing months, Flood’s outlook became increasingly cloudy. Here he is in mid-June:

“Basically, things are going pretty well,” said Flood… At the same time, stresses and strains on the system remain, he said, and it will be January before the new system begins to “really turn the corner.”

“We literally spend hours every day making sure somebody can get a bed and we don’t always succeed,” said Flood, with the result that sometimes patients end up being parked in emergency rooms until space is available.

And in mid-August, reacting to continued delays in securing FEMA funds for mental health facilities:

“We are nowhere out of the crisis yet,” and the state could not afford to delay planning for the new hospital, which is on a tight schedule with plans to open in January 2014. Flood said patients are still finding themselves stuck in emergency rooms waiting for beds to open up for treatment.

Then, in mid-October, we got this gloomy outlook:

“It is literally like we’re fixing an airplane while we’re flying,” he told the committee. “It’s going to take time. We’ve been doing business a certain way for a long period of time and now we have to change it all.”

Flood said the current budget environment he’s working through is the most difficult he’s ever encountered.

And now, less than a month later, Patrick Flood is choosing Door Number Three despite the pleas of administration officials that he stay on. Perhaps he grew tired of playing Mechanic In The Sky.  

If things have been tough for Flood, they’ve been worse on the front lines. Anyone who works in a Vermont hospital can tell you that it’s very common for psychiatric patients to be stashed in emergency rooms, sometimes for multiple days. Marginal patients may be discharged sooner than they should, for the sake of opening a bed. Patients are shunted from facility to facility. Patients with different needs are often mixed, leading to dangerous (sometimes violent) situations. Doctors spend a lot of their time shuffling patients and searching for open beds instead of, oh, providing care.

Meanwhile, three things have been happening with the overhaul. Short-term fixes have been delayed, with scheduled openings and deadlines repeatedly pushed back. The long-term plan has been expanded from the original stripped-down version more than once. And, of course, fundamental uncertainties about FEMA funding still remain.

_____________________

Whose fault is the FEMA mess?

There’s been a lot of criticism for FEMA’s role in the delays. Mixed messages, changes in personnel, unclear regulations and procedures have all been cited. But it’s been almost a year and a half since Irene, and a decision by FEMA is nowhere in sight.

The Shumlin administration may be part of the problem. There are indications that the state is trying to fudge the rules in order to get more money.

First, there’s the question of whether the Vermont State Hospital was really a total loss. After the flood, there were many who believed that VSH could be refurbished — at least as a temporary hospital, and perhaps as a permanent one. But Governor Shumlin was adamant that the state would never return to VSH.

In early August, we learned that FEMA had issued an initial rejection of the state’s request for replacement of VSH and the Waterbury state office complex. Why?  

Jeb Spaulding, the secretary of the Agency of Administration, said that a contractor used the word “damaged” instead of “destroyed” in a set of recommendations the state filed with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

This was depicted as a sort of clerical error on steroids. But what if the contractor meant what he said? What if VSH can’t be classified as “destroyed”? In that case, FEMA’s initial rejection may become permanent, or Vermont may get a lot less money than it had hoped. FEMA is responsible for restoring losses, not building new stuff. If VSH could have been repaired and reopened, then why should FEMA pay for a brand-new facility in Berlin?

A second problem area came to light in mid-October. This time, it’s the difference between “temporary” and “permanent” facilities.

Flood and Spaulding said the Middlesex and Morrisville facilities should have no problem receiving FEMA funding for construction costs because they are temporary facilities that are being built as a result of a disaster. But, said Flood, nothing is definite.

“They usually pay for the temporary ones and not the permanent ones,” said Flood.

The harder sell, they conceded, is convincing FEMA that the Rutland and Brattleboro units are both “temporary and permanent,” as they put it.

Which would seem to be a deliberate stretching of FEMA regulations. Rather than simply repairing what was lost in Irene, the Shumlin administration is trying to get FEMA to underwrite the cost of an overhauled mental health care system. Again, that doesn’t seem to be FEMA’s mission.

The state is having the same problem with FEMA over the rebuilding of highway culverts. The state wants larger culverts with more capacity to handle future floods; FEMA wants to restore the culverts to their pre-Irene state.

If Vermont is trying to game the system to prop up Shumlin’s vision, then (a) it would explain the lengthy delays, and (b) it raises the possibility that the administration will get nothing like the federal money it’s hoping for. And the blame would fall on state officials, not the feds.

____________________

A need for clinical experience

After Tuesday’s news conference announcing the staff reshuffle, reports VTDigger, “Flood said that it’s time for a person with clinical mental health experience to run the Department of Mental Health.”  

Well, that would certainly be a change of direction. The entire process, from its very beginning, has had little or no clinical input. Executives, administrators, and politicians have held sway throughout. The advice of actual clinicians has been ignored.  

Let’s go back to December 2011, and the announcement of the Shumlin plan.

The unveiling of Shumlin’s proposal came on the same day a top mental health psychiatrist called for almost the exact opposite of what the governor proposed. Dr. Jay Batra, medical director of the state hospital since 2009 and a professor at UVM, told lawmakers at a hearing on Tuesday that the state should have one central mental health facility serving 48 to 50 patients in order to provide the best clinical treatment and best staffing model.

…Dr. Batra, who was questioned closely by lawmakers, said that a central facility works best because staff can train together and gain the expertise to deal with severely ill patients and patients can get peer support. He also said he felt there was a demonstrated need for 48-50 inpatients state hospital beds.

A few days later, Dr. Batra said that he “was not consulted on the governor’s proposal.”

The head of the Vermont State Hospital, presumably the most qualified person in the state on caring for the severely mentally ill, was “not consulted.” Does that seem curious to anyone besides me?

In January, three of Vermont’s top psychiatrists echoed Dr. Batra’s views.

Take psychiatrist Terry Rabinowitz of Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington, who said the state’s plan for acute mental health care falls short and marginalizes the state’s most vulnerable population. He called it “not only a disservice but a dishonor.”

…Dr. Peter Thomashow, medical director of Central Vermont Medical Center… said the governor’s plan simply underestimates the difficulty of the patients who were sent to the state hospital, many involuntarily. Professionals in the wards and emergency rooms see things differently, he said.

“We’re talking about the most difficult population in psychiatry,” he said.

And, at an early January hearing…

[The House Human Services Committee] got a front row seat on the central disagreement over the plan when they were told via speakerphone by the head of Fletcher Allen Health Care’s psychiatric unit, Dr. Robert Pierattini, that the state cannot get by without a 30-40 bed state hospital staffed to handle patients needing intensive mental health care.

…Pierattini said the state needed a “Level 1” intensive care mental health facility with 30 to 40 beds to replace the Waterbury State Hospital, and the facility absolutely needs to be in a medical center and provide the full range of medical care.

When the Legislature was pondering the Shumlin plan, the views of clinicians were not heeded. Now, says Flood, after a very difficult year, “it’s time for someone with clinical mental health experience.” Ya think?

___________________

Stresses and strains

The Brattleboro Retreat is a centerpiece of the Shumlin plan. With 14 inpatient beds, it would be the second-largest facility in the mental health care system. And now the Retreat is having labor unrest and budget troubles. On Monday, unionized workers held an informational picket to spotlight the lack of progress in contract talks, and what it sees as “demoralizing” requests for concessions by Retreat management — at a time when the Retreat has gained a measure of financial health, and when workers have been stretched to meet post-Irene demands.

Then, two days later, the Retreat announced a total of 31 layoffs. citing “projected deficits in 2012 and 2013.”

These may be simple bumps in the road. But the Retreat has had more than its share of fiscal and managerial problems in the past. Under the Shumlin plan, the state will be relying on the privately-run Retreat to take the place of a state-run facility. Can the Retreat be counted on to consistently deliver what it has promised?

Also, with planned multiple facilities to replace a single VSH, the chances for NIMBYistic delays are multiplied. This is already happening in Middlesex, where a homeowner is trying to block construction of a small secure facility next to his property. The dispute may end up in court.  

What’s worse are the real problems with staffing and supplying multiple facilities. The initial cost of a new VSH would have been higher, but would have allowed long-term savings from economies of scale. Even worse, as Dr. Batra said last December, is the dilution of expertise that may permanently degrade the quality of care. And since the new system will have fewer beds spread around the state, there will be an ongoing need to shuffle patients around the system. That can’t be a good thing.

____________________

Conclusion

If there are answers to some of the questions I’ve raised, I’m happy to hear them and report back in this space. But looking back over the course of this issue from last December through today, there are a lot of warning signs. And I’ve been told that where there’s smoke, there’s usually fire.

Generally speaking, I give the Shumlin Administration very high marks for meeting the challenges of post-Irene reconstruction. But I have serious doubts about the wisdom of its mental health care plan, which has been bedeviled by delays and uncertainties and may have been ill-conceived from the start. In the meantime, people with significant mental illnesses are getting much less than the treatment they need. And even after the ongoing crisis is resolved, we may be left with a misconceived and underfunded system.  

 Following election loses Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal seems to recognize that his Republican Party has a simple problem. So the Governor called for an end to “dumbed down conservatism” which he claims is responsible for trouble at the polls and is damaging the Republican brand.

Said Jindal, “We need to stop being simplistic, we need to trust the intelligence of the American people and we need to stop insulting the intelligence of the voters.”

Well, US Congressman from Texas Louie Gohmert may require more than one memo or some other form of intervention to stop the stupid. This past Wednesday Rep. Gohmert nominated Newt Gingrich for the position of speaker of the house during party leadership votes.

"You don't have to be a member of the body to be speaker," Gohmert, of Texas, told the caucus during the closed-door meeting, according to a source inside the room.

It isn’t clear from reports  if this is true or not but Gohmert’s effort on behalf of former Speaker Gingrich, who resigned from the House under a cloud more than dozen years ago was not seconded by any fellow Republicans. Speaker Boehner, who was uncharacteristically not moved to tears, remarked “Louie, I love you too” after winning the vote.

Maybe the stupid is baked into the cake.

The chart and much more can be found here

In a post election interview with the Wall Street Journal Senator Mitch McConnell clings to his Bush tax cuts for the wealthy

“'We Have a Voter Mandate Not to Raise Taxes”

And commenting on negotiations with President Obama,  he added:

“You know, he [Obama] doesn't own the place."

Ever since Karl Rove’s epic rant last Tuesday night on Fox News, Republicans across the country have been searching for explanations — and almost universally reaching the wrong conclusion. And often, turning themselves into the pure-hearted victims of damn dirty Democrats.

And now, joining the parade, is soon-to-be-ex-Republican State Representative Jim Eckhardt, who lost to challenger Anne Gallivan by 37 votes. Take it away, VTDigger…

The one-term lawmaker blames his loss on “garbage politics.”

Eckhardt says the Vermont Democratic House Campaign distorted his record in a mailing that was sent to constituents the day before the election.

The dastardly mailer focused on Eckhardt’s attendance record, which included time away from the Legislature during school vacations.  

“I don’t mind suffering a loss if I felt that the loss was justified,” Eckhardt said. “I think this dirty, dirty last minute BS they pulled just blew me out of the water. I had no time to respond to their crap.”

(Cough.) Excuse me, Mr. Eckhardt. A couple of points, if I may.

 

First: this one last-minute mailer came after months and months of deceptive advertising from Vermonter(s) First that endlessly repeated Republican lies about the Dems. Including a whole lot of mailers on your behalf.

We’re sorry if you think the one Democratic mailer was so much more impactful than all those conservative missives. I presume you’ll be having a sharp word with one Tayt Brooks, International Man of Mystery, about the utter failure of his million-dollar Super PAC campaign.  

And second: The effectiveness of last-minute attacks is highly questionable. Conventional wisdom in politics is that in order to move public opinion, an attack needs a little time to sink in. If your voters spent the entire campaign staring vacantly at the wall and drooling, and then made up their minds because of the last piece of bulk mail they received, well, I think you lack respect for your constituency.  

One last insight from Eckhardt: “If you want to know why they targeted me my guess is because I’m very vocal.”

Er, no, Jim. It’s not because you pose such a singular threat to the Shumlin Hegemony. You were targeted because you represented a swing district. It was simply a winnable seat for the Dems. Nothing at all to do with your excellent communication skills.

Let us turn to the voluntarily outgoing Rep. Oliver Olsen, who discerns a link between the Eckhardt takedown and a similar last-minute hit job in 2008 that took out another Republican state representative.  

Wow. Two mailers in four years. That’s a rare feat of trendspotting.

Now, watch in awe and wonder as Olsen explains why Vermonter First was perfectly okay, while these two mailers were dastardly political misdeeds:  

He says he’s not aware of any GOP PACs launching a negative attack at the 11th hour.

“It’s one thing to challenge someone’s record and give them a chance to respond,” Olsen said. “It’s quite different to go out deliberately to issue a mailer in a manner in which there is no opportunity to respond.”

Well, that’s one way of putting it. Note the curiously qualified denial in the first line: he’s not aware (weasel word) of any GOP PACs (leaving out the GOP itself) launching a negative attack at the 11th hour (every other hour yes, but the eleventh? Not at all. At least not that he’s aware of. By any GOP PAC).

Slap someone with a single late mailer and it’s evil. Carpet-bomb them for months on end and it’s perfectly okay because they had an “opportunity to respond.” While the carpet-bombing continued right up to the last minute.

Nice set of ethics you’ve got there, Ollie.

Look. From what I’ve read about the Eckhardt mailer, it seems an obvious case of stretching the truth to make an opponent look bad. These things happen a lot. All the time. On all sides. In my estimation, the Republicans have it all over the Democrats in partisan truth-stretching. And, as Mr. Dooley famously put it, “Politics ain’t beanbag.”  

The main event at today’s nooner was the post-election shuffle detailed in my previous diary. When the discussion turned to other topics, the first was the announced closing of the Energizer plant in St. Albans. “This is a big deal,” said Shumlin. “We will go up there and meet with the employees, and work with each individual to help match them with a new job.” He noted that some of the Energizer workers may well catch on with Mylan Technologies, the St. Albans firm that’s undergoing an expansion.

Talk of employment and offshoring led to IBM, and a discussion inspired by yesterday’s GMD post about the company’s reputed plans to slash its domestic headcount in the next three years, as reported by tech journalist Robert X. Cringely.  “IBM is hugely important to Vermont,” he said. “My assessment of that piece was, I don’t know exactly what IBM’s national or international plans are, but what we have going for us in Vermont is that in Essex, they make product. They make chips that are critical to almost every iPhone and every piece of computerized equipment.”

That revealed a close reading of the source material for my IBM post, which focused on the continuing movement of IBM’s service operations overseas. “The difference between IBM’s plans for Vermont and the rest of the nation is, we don’t have service jobs, we have manufacturing jobs.”

When asked if those manufacturing jobs couldn’t also be shipped overseas, he said “I think if it were transferable, it would have happened a long time ago.” But he reiterated that he doesn’t have any insight into IBM’s plans. Good cheerleading, and he does have a point, but it doesn’t contradict anything reported by Cringely.

After the jump: Shumlin and the DGA, and the pluses and minuses of the “fiscal cliff.”

The DGA gig. His position as DGA chair, assuming he gets it (nudge nudge, wink wink) would benefit Vermont by putting the state in an influential position. “I find that my relationships with other governors around the country are critically important,” he said. “I get huge policy help and personal connections working with my fellow governors. And if I can be chair of an organization that sets the agenda for those discussions, it’s helpful to our state.”

When asked by a certain alternative journalist in Carhartts if he was concerned about the fundraising dimension of the DGA and having to beg for cash from large corporations and the wealthy, Shumlin said his role would be in policy, not fundraising.

The “fiscal cliff.” He expressed “trepidation” about the so-called “fiscal cliff” and its across-the-board spending cuts, which would include every program that funnels money to Vermont. If the President can’t convince the Republican House to take action, “it would be tremendously crippling to our fragile economic recovery, and tremendously crippling to our state budget.”

It was pointed out that only yesterday, Congressman Welch and Senator Sanders had expressed doubt that a deal will be made by the end of the year, and that we might be better off that way. “They make a good policy point,” Shumlin responded. There would be short-term damage, but it might set the stage for a better long-term resolution: if there’s no deal, “all of the Bush tax cuts go down the drain, and we can go back to a more rational federal tax policy for wealthy Americans. Congress could then turn around and give middle-class Americans the tax cut they deserve and leave the wealthiest one percent, two percent of Americans, who have never had a lower tax rate in the history of American, to pay their fair share to get us out of this mess.”  

Sounds to me like there’s a split in his thinking on the fiscal cliff. (Which, as many have pointed out, is more like a fiscal curb than a cliff — at first, it’s only a brief step-down that gradually gets worse.) As a Governor, he’d like to see continuity in federal funding for state programs. But as a Democrat, he wouldn’t mind waiting to strike a new deal until the slate is wiped clean on January 1.

All in all, it was an interesting occasion. But c’mon, man: An entire gubernatorial news conference, and not one reporter brought up Bill and Lou. Where are your priorities, people???

Oh boy, my first ever trip to the Fifth Floor!

Yes, I went to Governor Shumlin’s weekly news conference today, because I’d heard that some personnel changes were in the offing. Also, I had the time.

And indeed, several changes were announced. No huge surprises,  no dramatic turnover. None of Shumlin’s “team of rivals” is leaving. Here are the highlights:

The highest profile departure is not a surprise: Steve Kimbell is leaving as commissioner of the Department of Financial Regulation (formerly BISHCA). Shumlin noted that he had to talk Kimbell out of retirement to take the DFR job in the first place, and Kimbell was expected to leave. Deputy Insurance Commissioner Susan Donegan will take Kimbell’s place. Shumlin praised Kimbell’s work in streamlining financial regulation — or, as the Governor put it, “Let’s regulate those who need it and get off the backs of those who do not.”

Chief of Staff Bill Lofy is taking a job with the Democratic Governors Association, where he is almost certain to “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” Shumlin isn’t officially the chair of the DGA just yet, although some of his statements about a DGA candidacy were phrased in the straight future tense rather than the conditional. (Today’s press release says that Shumlin is “expected to chair” the DGA.) Replacing Lofy is Liz Miller, who shifts over from her current post as Public Service Commissioner. And her replacement at Public Service will be Chris Recchia, who’s now Deputy Secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources.

Shumlin’s first choice as his new Chief of Staff would have been Alex MacLean, but she’s leaving the administration sometime after the first of the year to pursue opportunities in the private sector.

After the jump: More on MacLean; plus Patrick Flood, movin’ on.

This is the change that Shumlin dreads the most; MacLean’s been by his side since he was Senate President Pro Tem, and she managed his 2010 campaign for Governor. There were traces of emotion in the Governor’s voice as he recounted her service. She doesn’t have a new job just yet; Shumlin said she had a number of opportunities to consider. (Is GMP hiring?)

The most interesting departure might be Mental Health Commissioner Patrick Flood, who’s been spearheading Shumlin’s post-Irene effort to reinvent the state’s mental health care system. It’s been a rocky process, with plans changing more than once, severe shortages of inpatient beds, practitioners strained to their limits, and of course the ongoing delays in funding decisions from FEMA.

Flood is being shifted to another position in state government. Exactly what position hasn’t been decided yet, which sounds like they’re getting him out of the way. Shumlin insisted that the move does not signal any changes in the mental health care overhaul;  rather, he said, the plan is in place and now it’s a matter of implementation.

A national search will be conducted for a new commissioner, but Flood’s departure will happen quickly; Shumlin has tapped Mary Moulton as acting commissioner. She’ll be on loan from Washington County Mental Health, where she’s Director of Intensive Care Services. She will return to that position when a permanent commissioner is hired.

Finally, Dixie Henry is moving from the Department of Health to the Agency of Human Services, where she will be Deputy Secretary. Her now boss, Doug Racine, was not on hand; Shumlin noted that he was “out of state.” Possibly in the Witness Protection Program.

Coming up in a separate diary: The Governor on Energizer, IBM, the DGA, and the fiscal cliff.