Here's a quick non-election diary. (Might as well get used to it.)

If you're a member of the Vermont chapter of the ACLU you know that the annual meeting is coming up this Saturday at National Life in Montpelier. This year's meeting should be of interest to GMD readers because the keynote speaker, Garret Keizer, is the author of a new book about privacy, which I commend to your attention. 

One of the activities of the annual meeting, and you need not be present to participate, is the election of seven members of the ACLU-Vt board of directors. Because this is the group of people that will give direction to the organization in the coming years, I encourage everyone who's a member to fill out their ballot and send it in even if you can't attend the meeting.

If you haven't voted yet I would like to encourage you to particularly support two candidates whom I know to be effective voices for civil liberties and the values I think most of our readers here are committed to.

First is Euan Bear of Bakersfield. Regular readers here may not know the name, but will recognize the contributions of nanuqFC, her nom de GMD. Euan is a lifelong writer and activist, working hard for civil rights and civil liberties, LGBT empowerment, and the rights of those who would be considered unpopular minorities. Even when you don't see her posting here her editing and political insights contribute to making GMD the great source for news and political analysis that it is. I greatly value her work and her friendship. In addition, her attention to detail and parliamentary procedure qualifies her to make a unique and possibly irreplaceable contribution to the work of the ACLU.

Second is Jeffrey Dworkin, a Montpelier lawyer and psychologist. I got to know Jeff a few years ago when he was appointed to chair the citizens' committee evaluting whether the city of Montpelier should acquire Tasers for its police force. The committee's report was so exhaustive that it is destined to be the starting point for any serious consideration of Taser acquisition and use by law enforcement in Vermont, and after consideration of the work of the Committee the proposal to acquire Tasers was dropped. Jeff's experience and knowledge make him a great candidate for the ACLU board.

I know that there are other great candidates for the Board, and if I knew them I'm sure I could say very positive things about most of them, but from my own personal knowledge I think that Euan and Jeff are deserving of your consideration and support. 

Today’s Free Press apparently didn’t have enough real news about local elections, so they thought they’d manufacture some drama for good measure.

Seizing on a cryptic and decidedly marginal effort by an unspecified number of Bernie Sanders “supporters,” outside the polling place at Edmunds Middle School, as an indication of discontent in Bernie Town, the paper chose for its caption:

Write-in campaign signals half-hearted support for Sanders.

What exactly was this “campaign” you well might ask?  It consisted of one or more “Bernie For Senate” signs sporting a hand-lettered paste-on and a printed sheet urging voters to write-in the Senator’s name rather than checking it off in the correct box.  

This, the placard explained, would “send a message” that, while the voter supported Bernie for reelection, there were some unspecified “points of disagreement.”

Apparently it never occurred to the Free Press that this might be a ham-handed effort to tempt voters into accidentally spoiling their ballots.  Suggesting that voters who support Bernie might nevertheless have some unnamed “points of disagreement” with the Senator after the many terms he has served on Capitol Hill is hardly a shot in the dark.

Rather than consider the obvious, however, Free Press writer Joel Banner Baird chose to consult Attorney General Bill Sorrell who was just trying to press some last minute flesh of his own in the vicinity of a sign bearer. Probably too self-absorbed at the moment to really care, Sorrell ventured a guess that it might have something to do with the F-35 location in Burlington, which the entire DC delegation has supported despite local controversy.

But even though Mr. Baird thought it was a big enough story to earn that headline, he apparently didn’t bother to go over and ask a sign-bearer about what it was, exactly, that he disagreed with Bernie.

Well, the votes are in and how do you think this write-in “campaign” did?  According to the Burlington City website, Bernie garnered 84% of the total vote, and only three of those votes were write-ins.  

My guess is that the total number of altered signs, which Mr. Baird failed to report, was no greater than three.

“Half-hearted support?”…um… doesn’t sound much like it to me.

This morning on the Mark Johnson Show, Mark and Vermont Pundit Laureate Eric Davis were mulling over the election, when the subject of Phil Scott’s future came up. And Davis mentioned that two New England states have independent governors (Rhode Island and Connecticut) and a third (Maine) did in the recent past.

Which led into the question: would Phil Scott break loose from the VTGOP at some point in the future and run for Governor as an Independent? Both agreed that Scott has tremendous popularity, and might best be able to tap it as an Indy — given that the “Republican” label seems to be a net negative in Vermont. Davis, in fact, averred that Jim Douglas may well have been Vermont’s last Republican governor — but not Vermont’s last non-Democratic governor.

Which got me to go back and look at Scott’s victory speech last night. The only victory speech at the Republican gathering. And it sure as hell didn’t sound like he was talking to his fellow Republicans. (And they didn’t react like he was; there was only one weak smattering of applause in the whole, brief speech.)

What he said… after the jump.    

It’s not easy being a Republican in this state. Even for a moderate like myself.

Ooh, not a strong start. Get all Debbie Downer on your party, and slap the toxic label “moderate” on yourself. But do continue.

There are some who imply that the Vermont Republican Party has become irrelevant. But tonight, first and foremost, I need to say that this is a democracy, and every single voice is important. No voice is irrelevant.

This was the “applause” line. But look: he’s defending his party by saying that they’re just as relevant as, say, Peter Diamondstone. Way to fire up the troops, Phil.

If we really want to see an end to the gridlock that has gripped our country, then we must ignore those critics on both sides of teh aisle who dismiss every Republican who works with a Democrat and vice versa.

No, that’s not good either. Phil, remember, you’re speaking to a roomful of people who HATE Democrats, who think the Dems are arrogant and on course to drive Vermont off a cliff. You want these Grand Old Men to work with… those people?

We have to roll up our sleeves. We have to work together, listen to each other, admit that we don’t have all the answers, and be willing to acknowledge that a good idea can come from anywhere.

Now, does that sound like a guy who’s ready to suck up to the Lenore Broughtons and Jack Lindleys of the world? Or does that sound like a guy who’s ready to dump his party and go independent?

I choose option B.  

I was just wandering around WCAX’s website and came across this little number:

As Vermont Democrats celebrated Election Day victories, Sen. Patrick Leahy told WCAX News he plans to run for re-election.

…”I was in this room two years ago when I won and I expect to be in this room when I win again,” said Leahy, D-Vermont.

There’s not much more to the story than that. But has Leahy said this anywhere before?

His term expires in 2016; he’ll be 76 years old, and I’ve kinda-sorta assumed that he’d bow out and there’d be a Welch/Shumlin battle to replace him. If he does run for his eleventy-billionth term (kidding; it’d only be his EIGHTH), that’d really gum up the works for Vermont’s upwardly mobile Democrats.  

“I cannot fathom it.”

That’s how Rob Roper, former executive director of the VTGOP (back when they could, y’know, afford to pay staffers) turned conservative radio huckster, today began “Common Sense Radio,” his daily hour of free-market gospel paid for by the nonprofit Ethan Allen Institute.

Because, ahem, the free market wouldn’t support his crappy radio show.

“I am at a total loss to understand what people who voted for Obama were voting for,” he continued. Well, I could give him a hint: voters were soundly rejecting the ultraconservative quasi-libertarian economics and Christian Right social policies of Your Republican Party. Not to mention its absolutely horrible record of governance when in power, and the 30-plus years of proof that conservative trickle-down economics don’t work. And Mitt’s complete lack of personal appeal. But maybe I’m nitpicking.  

Rob’s take on the Vermont results: “It was pretty harsh.”

Ha ha, yeah.

But it didn’t take the Robster very long to get back on his scooter and come up with some (wrong, farfetched) answers. They tripped lightly off his tongue, unladen by facts, reason, or connection to reality.

“People out there were voting for a handout,” he said. “Mitt Romney was right about the 47%.”

After the jump, worshipping windmills, blaming public education, and a Secret Republican Victory.

Yep, blame it on the bottom-feeding government-dependent bloodsuckers. Not the deserving poor, of course; those hit by natural disasters, veterans, hardworking folks temporarily down on their luck, seniors who worked all their lives for Social Security and Medicare, and the legitimately (to borrow a term from Todd Akin) disabled.

No, when Rob and company talk about the 47% who just want more government teats to suckle on, they mean the lazy, undeserving poor. The ones who, as one of Rob’s callers said today, “spend all their money on cigarettes and beer and dope, and then they go back and ask for more help.”

Somehow I don’t think 47% of the country falls into that category, Robster.

He did manage to discern a “silver lining” in those “harsh” Vermont returns. And wait till you hear what it is; it might just make you laugh out loud.

Rob Roper seriously said “This election killed single-payer health care.”

Yes, the election where the Dems nearly swept the statewide offices and the Republicans failed to make the slightest dent in the Dems’ legislative majorities. See, we really lost this election. So sez Rob. How so, you may ask?

Because of the ads run by Vermonters First, the Democrats promised not to raise the sales tax. They took that off the table.

There are only three options to pay for single-payer: the sales tax, a 14% increase in the payroll tax, which Shumlin has taken off the table to some degree. The only one left is the income tax.

And by Rob’s reckoning, the income tax would have to be quadrupled or quintupled to cover his massively overinflated view of single-payer’s cost. And that would be political suicide.

So see? We may have won the battle, but Rob’s side just secretly won the war. And Lenore Broughton didn’t toss a million bucks down the toilet; she actually sprung a clever trap on those clueless liberals.

Hoo boy. Talk about desperate Republicans.

Over the ensuing hour, more conclusions were drawn from the same poisoned well, thanks to the combined brain power of Rob and his regular callers. One of them said “This all goes back to the 19th Century, to Karl Marx. This is a religious war, and we’re losing it.”

Rob then noted that Vermont is one of the most unchurched states in the union, and concluded that “Liberal politics has replaced the church. Those windmills on mountaintops are less about energy than about having icons to worship.”

Stop just a minute and let that sink in. Yeah, we’re just like them Egyptians and those folks what built the big heads on Easter Island and Stonehenge and stuff. Us liberals, we like to build stuff and worship it.

And of course, Dick from Barre chimed in with his intimations of the coming Communist/Nazi/Humanist/Muslim statist regime: “Unless we change direction, we’re going to be pledging allegiance to something other than the Stars and Stripes.” And Dick’s fellow traveler (sorry), George from Barre, called Bernie Sanders the Huey Long of our day. George noted that Long may well have seized power as a populist/socialist dictator if he hadn’t been assassinated.  

I don’t think he meant to imply that somebody should do the same to Bernie.

Apparently, according to the Robster and the Barre Gang, this all starts with the public schools, which discourage competition and excellence and try to make everybody feel good. Which produces masses of lazy, dependent, entitled Americans who blindly vote for the Democrats. And worship wind turbines, smoke cigarettes, drink beer, and do dope.

I couldn’t help but listen to the whole hour, just to find out what kind of shit would come out of this crowd after yesterday’s election. Now I have, so you don’t have to. I’ve never before listened to an entire hour of Common Sense Radio, and as God is my witness, I will never listen to an entire hour again.  

Although Jvwalt has already mentioned it below, this bears repeating…by a woman: with last night’s results, New Hampshire becomes the first state in the nation to have an all-female Congressional delegation and a female Governor.

Wow!  It’s been a long-time coming; and it happened in New Hampshire, not in the most progressive state in the nation, our own Vermont.  

We only have one woman serving in statewide office and none in Congress!

We couldn’t even manage to elect a highly qualified Democratic woman to the Lt. Governor’s seat, in the most Democratic state in the nation, when her opponent’s strongest argument was that he is a “nice guy.”

If Republicans can be faulted for underestimating the importance of the Hispanic population,  Americans as a whole should be ashamed that fully 225 years+ since the nation’s founding, fully half of that founding population, women, are barely represented in elected office.  

The deficit is so great that we found ourselves listening to a bunch of white middle-aged men discussing women’s reproductive functions in Congress, to the deliberate exclusion of any female input!  Many of these same white middle-aged men have moved biological control of women’s bodies onto their “to-do list,” and we have just witnessed an election that re-litigated women’s rights in an attempt to roll back the clock to the 1960’s.

That one party could so thoroughly hang women out to dry and still retain half the popular vote is simply appalling!

While we must celebrate the victories of Elizabeth Warren and other female leaders, the fact that we must still make special note of gender in those celebrations, just as we note Mr. Obama’s racial diversity, speaks, once again, to the remarkably tattered state of our celebrated American ethos.

Good morning.

That deserves repeating, “Good morning!”

We woke up to a world where everything (more or less) makes sense again. We (more or less) trust our fellow Americans not to jump into the mouth of the volcano for at least two more years.

A message has been sent to the GOP that  demographics are changing more quickly than they can gerrymander and suppress.

It is a message that will once more be ignored as the party struggles to make it up to their “investors” who, sadly, are people like the Koch Bros. and their crackpot constituents. The Koch brothers think the country was never more “American” than it was in the era of robber barons; and the crackpots live in a world of their own, that is equal parts Calvinistic revenge fantasy and anti-intellectual reverse snobbery.

So, after billions of dollars have been wasted all around, we are pretty much back where we started from. Not much progress, I’ll grant you; but think what could have been on the menu had things gone just a little bit differently:

. Potentially four Supreme Court justice turn-overs in the next four years, which would undoubtedly lead to…

. De-coupling of military spending from the budget ; then ballooning it to benefit the “military-industrial complex.”

Problems?  Sure, we still got ’em; but look what we narrowly missed.  

So come out of the bomb shelters and dance in the sunshine.  Our cup is half-full this morning.

After the truly terrible 2010 election in New Hampshire that installed a far-right Tea Party supermajority in the Legislature, it was a very good night for Democrats (and women!) across the Connecticut River.

Historic accomplishment: New Hampshire is the only state with a female Governor and an all-female Congressional delegation. Maggie Hassan easily beat Republican Ovide Lamontaigne for Governor, and the two Democratic women — Carol Shea-Porter and Anne Kuster — defeated Republican incumbents Frank Guinta and Charlie Bass.

The Dems have a real shot at gaining a dead-even split in the state Senate, and are making big gains in the House as well. And, of course, President Obama won the state handily. A great night for New Hampshire Democrats, and yet another repudiation of Tea Party politics.  

The final returns aren’t all in yet — please, Legislature, can we require town clerks to report their returns to the Secretary of State on Election Night? Pretty please? — but it looks like the Dems will hold on to their 22-8 majority in the state Senate, although there are at least three races still hanging.

The Elections Division only has 75% of all precincts — c’mon, Legislature, this is ridiculous! — as of 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday. But here’s how things look in the truly contested races.

Caledonia County: Two seats up for grabs. 20 of 23 precincts in. Will be a Dem/Repub split, with Dem incumbent Jane Kitchel and Repub incumbent Joe Benning re-elected. Former Douglas Administration functionary David Dill, one of the Republicans’ hopes to pick up a seat, is finishing a distant third, and barely outpolling Democrat Stephen Amos.

Chittenden County dogpile: Six seats. Only 16 of 29 precincts in, but the results have held very steady so far. The top six, in order: Ginny Lyons (D), Tim Ashe (D/P), Diane Snelling (R), Sally Fox (D), David Zuckerman (P/D), and Phil Baruth (D). Phil has 10.48% while Debbie Ingram (D) is in seventh place with 8.01%, so barring a huge Ingram vote in the unreported precincts, the incumbents all win and Zuckerman joins the Senate.

After the jump: Up in the air in Essex-Orleans and Franklin.

Essex-Orleans: Two seats up for grabs, and this one’s a nail-biter. 28 of 36 precincts in. Buddy Bobby Starr (D) is first with 6,182 votes. Right now, John Rodgers (D) is holding onto second place with 5,510. Robert Lewis (R) has 5,442. The other Republican, Jay Dudley, is a distant fourth. If the results hold, Rodgers would take Vince Illuzzi’s seat — but right now he only leads by 68 votes.

Franklin County: The two Republican candidates hold narrow leads with 12 of 15 precincts in. Norm McAllister 7,062; Dustin Degree 6,827; Don Collins 6,727; and Caroline Bright 6,460. A late comeback by Collins is still very possible.

Washington County: The three incumbents are winning fairly easily with 14 of 20 precincts in. Bill Doyle (R) 12,426; Ann Cummings (D) 11,051; Anthony Pollina (I) 9,508. Republican Buddy Barnett rode his Vermonter First mailers to fourth place with 7,116.

Windsor County: The Vermonter First effort fizzled here too. Dick Tracy didn’t have nearly enough ammo, and the three Democrats won easily.

Overall, the Dem/Prog majority will, at worst, lose one of its 22 seats, and might still finish with 23. Yet another terrible result for the VTGOP and Vermonter First. And with Zuckerman’s almost certain election, you can add one more to the ranks of the Prog-friendly group in the Senate.  

(A sequel to the great 80s film, starring Lenore Broughton as Miss Daisy, Tayt Brooks (International Man of Mystery) as Boolie, and John McClaughry, who showcased his bent for ethnic humor in his star turn as El Jefe General Saturinho Borhorquez, performing in blackface as longsuffering chauffeur Hoke Coburn.)

If Lenore Broughon has more smarts than spite, then she must surely be calling Tayt Brooks in for a meeting today — either a very long one, or a painfully short one. Because the Tayter just burned through something close to a million dollars of Broughton’s fortune with virtually no results to show for it. After that little escapade, Brooks ought to be fired on the spot, and their benighted Super PAC Vermonter(s) First should be shuttered immediately.

Look at the record. Vermonter First spent heavily on negative ads aimed at the Democrats and on behalf of Wendy Wilton, Republican candidate for Treasurer, and also spent lesser amounts for Republican candidates for State House and Senate.

The outcome: Few voters, if any, were moved. Wilton lost badly, the statewide Republicans lost very badly, and the balance of power in the Legislature shifted very slightly at most.

Does that sound like a wise investment to you?

Let’s apply free-market principles here: If you fail at a job, you deserve to get the boot. Hasta la vista, Tayter!

Okay, we’ve had our fun. Now, a look at the reasons for Vermonter First’s complete failure.

After the jump: Bad strategy, bad tactics, bad product, bad salesmanship.

Big dumb money. VF spent big, and spent poorly. It was a classic old-media campaign right out of the 90s (endless TV spots and mailers), plus a new-media effort that consisted of banner ads, which have been shown to be tremendously ineffective. It’s as if Tayt plotted his new-media strategy by consulting a six-year-old copy of “Internet Advertising For Dummies.”

One observer at last night’s Democratic gathering believes that VF could have gotten a lot more traction if it intelligently invested all those Broughton bucks. I can’t disagree. But fortunately for our side, Lenore handed her checkbook over to a clueless hack.

Over-the-top messaging. All the unsubtle negative stuff aimed at the Dems — the $5 billion secret, the government running your health care, all the alleged tax increases — convinced very few voters, if any. After two solid months of hammering, the Democratic margins of victory were unaffected.

I think we’ve reached a point where there’s so much overproduced, overwrought fearmongering in political advertising that it’s just filtered out by the vast majority of voters. When there’s a constant drumbeat of negative messaging that looks like it all came out of the same evil little shop, eventually it becomes background noise. And it doesn’t help if you just double down on the same negative stuff.

Empty messaging. VF’s entire pitch was “Restore Balance”: elect more Republicans because we ought to have more Republicans and fewer Democrats. No positive reasons, no policy proposals, just “There aren’t enough Republicans because Democrats have won too many elections, so please let us win a few?”

That’s not a message. That’s standing on the corner holding a tin cup.

Disrespect for the customer. First rule of sales: make your product appeal to the clientele. Instead, we got blast after blast of AAUGH TAXES OBAMACARE TAXES AAAUGH. I realize that a lot of conservatives live inside their little Fox/Rush/Wall Street Journal bubble, but hell, anyone who’s lived in Vermont for more than five minutes has got to know that most Vermonters don’t buy that shit. If Tayt Brooks was half as smart as he thinks he is, he would have tailored an approach that could draw in centrist voters.

A faulty product. There was a big problem with VF’s “star attraction,” Wendy Wilton. She was an ideologue with a long public record of partisanship pretending to be a technocrat, and trying to paint Beth Pearce, who had a long record of expertise in public finances, as an ideologue pretending to be a technocrat. It’s a lot harder to make an effective pitch when you’re trying to sell the exact opposite of reality.

Plus, Wilton proved incapable of playing the role. She mounted attack after attack, each more nonsensical than the last — the mark of an ideologue. She was also unable to defend her technocratic bona fides under Pearce’s sharp counterattacks. If your product is fundamentally defective, you’re gonna have a hard time selling it.

A house built on sand. (From the Biblical parable.) VF’s impressive pile of advertising had absolutely no foundation. The VTGOP’s complete absence of field organization, grass-roots activity, or get-out-the-vote capability meant that there was no one “closing the sale.” There was no follow-up. There were no personal contacts, door-knockers, phone callers, no neighbors talking to neighbors. VF itself, with its payroll of one (Tayt), couldn’t do that job no matter how many Broughton Bucks it flushed down the loo.

As was well documented by the Vermont Press Bureau’s Peter Hirschfeld, the Vermont Democrats had a huge unseen advantage this year: an unprecedented, statewide, bottom-up and top-down coordinated effort with strong coordination by paid staff and endless hours of work by volunteers. The Republicans had none of that. VF’s campaign was all about the bling and not about the grunt work that actually accomplishes things in politics. Even in our post-Citizens United world.

By way of conclusion. All in all, it was a misconceived effort whose only asset was Lenore Broughton’s checkbook. Lousy strategy and tactics, no support structure, a bad product to sell, bad salesmanship.

So if Broughton is smart, she’s showing Tayt Brooks the door. And Rob Roper and John McClaughry and Jeff Wennberg and Darcie Johnston and and and and. If she wants to actually buy influence with her mattresses full of cash, she’ll have to be more picky with her hiring process.

And we shouldn’t be lulled by the failure of Vermonter First. Another, smarter Super PAC might very well come along. (Bruce Lisman, anyone?) Money remains a potent weapon in politics, but only if you combine it with intelligence.