Hey, remember when we found out that the Vermont Republican Party had struck a deal with the Romney campaign, in which the Mittster would park $5,000,000 in the VTGOP’s account in exchange for a $20,000/month gratuity? It’s kind of like Jack Lindley is the valet at Romney’s country club. Mitt pulls up at the front door in one of his Cadillacs, tosses the key to Jack, and says, “Hey, could you gas it up for me? But no joyriding, my man; I know what the odometer says.”

Well, according to new Federal Elections Commission filings, the Romney folks have continued to stash more cash with the VTGOP and three other state committees. The Vermont total is now $7,900,000.

Yeah, sucks to be Angry Jack. He’s got eight million RomneyBucks in the bank, and he gets a measly 20K in walking-around money. Politico.com explains the state-committee maneuver as a way for the Romney Victory Fund to elude donation limits; if it passes on some of the cash to state committees, even if it retains de facto control over the funds, it can collect bigger checks.

And if we know one thing about R-Money, it’s that no amount of cash is ever enough.  

According to Politico, the maneuver isn’t without risk:

The party committees – none of them in swing states – have wide latitude in how and where they choose to spend the Romney Victory cash. They are all controlled by Romney allies, and the funds will most likely be used for get-out-the-vote operations, but the recipient state party committees could technically spend it on TV ads or any other expense related to any federal election.

Ouch! “None of them in swing states.” (The other three are Idaho, Oklahoma, and Massachusetts.) Kinda gives the lie to Jack’s pom-pom waving in Seven Days:

“I’m not convinced we aren’t going to win up and down. And all my Democratic friends who think their boy Barack Obama is going to carry the day, well, he’s going to be lucky if he carries Vermont given the situation he’s in.”

Uh, Jack, I know what you meant, but you might want to stop referring to our first black President as “boy.”

Back to our story. The Freeploid had previously reported that, whatever federal election law might allow, there’s no way the VTGOP is going to touch a dime of that $7.9 mill.

…practically all the money being stashed in the state GOP’s account will be moved by the Romney braintrust to whatever battleground state it deems needs it most later this month.

Leaving Angry Jack high and dry. But hey, Jack’s a Romney loyalist; remember when he blew a gasket after the Ron Paul folks prevented Romney from winning a majority in the Vermont Presidential Primary? And how he helped the Romney forces screw over the Paul camp on procedural issues during the national convention? Given Jack’s warm regard for Romney, I’m sure he’s happy to gas up Mitt’s Caddy in return for a nice shiny quarter.  

Congratulations to Seven Days for trying to profile She Who Will Not Be Profiled, Lenore Broughton, the most influential person in Vermont politics. It’s about time someone in the news media put her under the spotlight, or at least gave it the old Bromage try. The article falls short in some important respects, and not just because of Broughton’s complete refusal to say anything to anyone who’s not under her thumb, but it was a commendable effort.

My purpose here is not to explore Broughton’s past or personality or proclivities, but to explain why I call her “the most influential person in Vermont politics.” (Among non-officeholders, let’s say.) Remember when I thought Bruce Lisman was going to throw his considerable Wall Street fortune into Vermont politics? Well, he’s gone from filling the airwaves with the sound of his voice to occasional speaking gigs at community breakfasts, and his Campaign for Vermont (Prosperity?) has been reduced to issuing position papers that get ignored by the media.

Broughton has more than filled the gap, however, with her unprecedented bankrolling of Vermonters First. How unprecedented? Broughton has already donated almost $650,000 in cash to the group. (The oft-reported $683,000 figure includes “in-kind donations,” which aren’t usually included in a campaign’s bankroll.) That’s more than one dollar for every living Vermonter. And considering that Vermonters First has already spent the lion’s share of her donations, I’m certain that Broughton will continue to write checks between now and Election Day. I wouldn’t be surprised if she tops the $1 million mark for this election cycle. But let’s just talk about what she’s spent so far.

On a national level, there’s lots of concern about the ability of people like David Koch and Sheldon Adelson to casually write eight-figure checks. Well, on a per-capita basis, a six-figure check from Broughton goes a whole lot farther than eight figures from Koch.

Earlier this year, Adelson talked about pumping $100 million into efforts to defeat President Obama. But he’s playing in a much larger pool. He’d have to spend at least $350 million on a national level to equal Broughton’s impact in Vermont.

After the jump: an even scarier calculation.

This is why I thought Bruce Lisman was so potentially dangerous: in a small state, a single motivated individual can make an outsized impact through the simple power of unlimited money.

Beyond simple Census figures, Adelson is focused on the most expensive campaign in America. Even if he were to spend $100 million on the race for President, he’ll come nowhere near the official spending of the Obama and Romney campaigns. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the two major-party candidates had spent $575 million as of October 1.

By contrast, Broughton and Vermonters First have targeted a couple of low-budget races, for auditor and Treasurer. Doug Hoffer and Vince Illuzzi have spent $104,000 as of October 15; Beth Pearce and Wendy Wilton combined to spend $208,000. That’s a total of $312,000.

Lenore Broughton has spent more than twice that much.

Now, some of that has gone into issue advertising and direct-mail advocacy for down-ticket candidates. But VF’s primary focus has been on the races for Auditor and Treasurer. That’s where the lion’s share of its money has been spent. (For a sample, do a Google search for Doug Hoffer or Beth Pearce. Above the results you’ll see VF-funded links with anti-Hoffer and anti-Pearce messages.)

Feel free to check my math, but here’s what I get. $575 million (Presidential campaigns) divided by $312,000 (Treasurer and Auditor) is roughly 1,842. The two major Presidential candidates have spent 1,842 times as much money as Vermont’s four major candidates for Treasurer and Auditor.

If Lenore Broughton has spent, say, $600,000 on those two races, then to have the same financial impact on the Presidential race, Sheldon Adelson would have to spend $1,105,200,000. That’s one BILLION, one hundred million dollars.

Ten times as much as he threatened to spend.

I don’t know how much Adelson has actually spent, whether or not he’s come close to his $100 million threat. But Lenore Broughton has already, in real dollars, made Sheldon Adelson look penny-ante.

If one or both of Broughton’s favored candidates is elected in November, she will have fundamentally changed the landscape of Vermont politics. The idea that you need a credible, qualified candidate who can attract broad support? Irrelevant, if Broughton backs the other side.

This year, Vermonters First has presented very little in terms of a political agenda, focusing largely on “restoring balance” to the one-sided power dynamics of Vermont. (Which is a blatant and, for conservatives, hypocritical request for electoral affirmative action. But never mind.) It has said very little about its own political agenda.

But if you look at Broughton’s past history, it’s clear that her own political views are far to the right. Her political donations are mainly to Tea Partiers like Michelle Bachmann, Allen West, Sharron Angle and Christine O’Connell. The “charitable” donations of the Broughton Fund have gone almost entirely to “educational” ventures of the far right. (A fact that Seven Days’ article completely obscures.) Given Broughton’s own track record, it seems certain that in the future, Vermonters First will be an advocacy group for ultraconservative causes.

And she’ll be willing and able to throw truly scary amounts of money into an all-out effort to grab the wheel of Vermont politics and spin it sharply to the right.

And that is the meaning of Lenore Broughton. She is David Koch and Sheldon Adelson to the power of ten, sitting right in our front yard.  

Didn't live blog, but there are still some points to make.

1. Obama obviously did way better than the first debate, and to this observer he won both on style and substance.

2. Not sure how the interrupting, which both candidates did, will play.

3. Will someone finally point out the economic illiteracy of Romney's continued harping on small business owners who don't want to add employees because it will make their taxes go up? Businesses are taxed on income, not revenue. Whatever fraction of their increased revenue they spend on new salaries isn't part of income, so it isn't taxed at whatever the higher marginal rate is.

4. Economic illiteracy, part 2: marginal tax rates apply to the next dollar, not to all the earlier dollars. Thus, if Obama gets a higher tax rate for households over $250,000 in income that doesn't increase the tax rate on all the dollars below $250,000. If your pretax income goes up your after tax income goes up, even if a larger share of that next dollar goes to taxes.

5. I wish Obama had said more clearly that on the question of increasing income equality for women the Affordable Care Act prohibits discrimination against women in insurance premiums. 

6. Kind of baffling that Romney went to talking about his desire to represent 100% of the people in his closing. It just opened the door for Obama to talk about Romney's attack on the 47%. 

There is a new popular trope about where Vermont’s air pollution comes from, that’s intended to imply that installing wind in Vermont does nothing to protect our air quality.

Some people are going to ask why I’m being so persistent on this issue. It’s simple:

We face an imminent, unprecedented planetary emergency.

Due to the chemical composition of the source of warming gases, at 6 degrees C temperature rise, the earth will have air and water so acidic, it will be incompatible with most life forms – including humans. We are currently on track for 7 degrees C. Every moment we waste in shifting from coal and other fossil fuels increases our momentum toward this catastrophe.

We need to ensure future wind installations are handled much better and with greater transparency and community involvement than the installation in Lowell. In my opinion, far more damage was done by the process used in Lowell than by the actual installation – because cramming an already planned and approved project down the throats of locals without bringing them into the process from the start has led to this incredible, angry backlash against all wind projects.

We don’t have time to mess around with the kind of angry opposition that was created by the greed, lax attitude toward & enforcement of environmental regulations, and the patronizing attitudes of those who dropped the Lowell development into the middle of a caring community.

The opposition created by this failure on the part of the state and the developers leaves us with a greater likelihood of facing the obscene devastation that will be wrought by the impending changes in climate.

In a world where few mammals and no sea creatures can survive due to the acidity of all planetary water, and where trees are reduced to little more than tinder for massive wildfires, the unnecessary problem caused by poor handling of the Lowell project is tragic. Even Shakespeare could not write a tragedy as heart-rending as the one humanity faces if we do not stop burning fossil fuels as quickly as possible, and stop burning coal quickest of all. The lousy handling of this project makes it just that much harder to do so.

Which brings us back to the topic of the diary. When people are angry, they tend to hold tenaciously to ideas that support their anger – even if those ideas are entirely wrong. Here’s one of many instances of one of those ideas, which has appeared in various outlets over the last several weeks:

In our part of the world, greenhouse gas emissions come from our chimneys and tailpipes, not our electrical outlets

Usually that claim is made in the form of calling someone else misinformed about energy and pollution, which is a tad ironic.  

Given the pervasiveness of this false pollution claim, it’s important to put this information in plain sight:

These graphs are taken from this NH study. While the study is specific to NH, the general principles hold true for all of New England. Here’s the “money” quote:

During periods of unhealthy air quality for ozone and small particles in [the state], approximately 92 percent to nearly 100 percent of this pollution originates from sources located outside of [the state]. These pollutants are transported into the state with the wind over great distances.

::

Coal Plant Emissions Trajectories:

Moved the rest to after the jump…

::

Mercury deposition. Yellow = arrives via long-distance transport in upper air currents:

::

Where our air comes from on high-pollution days (left) vs clear days (right):

Did you note the common thread? Our air pollution – and the majority of air pollution in New England – comes from the coal burning region of the country.

18% of the electricity fed into the New England grid comes from coal fired power plants [as of 2000, I’ve seen varied claims of the percentage since, generally lower, due to changes in efficiency and power sources – like the addition of wind & solar].

Offsetting the coal-powered electricity in the regional grid reduces the amount of coal those plants must burn. This in turn reduces the level of coal-fired pollutants in our air.

There’s another claim making the rounds that also needs to be understood in context. Wind opponents claim that it is second only to mountain top removal in terms of the damage it causes (ignoring, of course, the not-too-distant future in which climate change wipes out most of the ecosystems on the planet).

Second Only to Mountain Top Removal

Here’s a map of the state of Vermont showing the impact of the Lowell Wind project compared to the impact of one small mountaintop removal project in Kayford, WV.

The little dot in the upper right is roughly 4 times the size of the Lowell project (my drawing tool didn’t have a smaller pen size).

The big square covering just under 1/5 of the National Forest (which turns out to be almost exactly the boundaries of the Breadloaf National Forest), is the size of one, single mountain top removal coal mine in Kayford, WV:

Unlike mountaintop removal, there will be significant regeneration of the forest over the vast majority of the Lowell site. This is not the case in the barren wasteland left behind by every single mountain top removal coal mining project.

Wind, solar, and hydro power replaces coal in our electric mix. ALL of them are needed if we want to replace coal as quickly as we MUST in order to prevent the worst devastation of climate change. Stopping wind will make it impossible to meet the very hard deadline that has been set by the laws of physics.

To get an even better idea of the difference in scale, here is a map of JUST the removal that has happened in the Appalachia Region of West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The Kayford site, which is the size of the entire Breadloaf National Forest, is one of the tiny dots just south of Charleston, WV on this map:

There is no VT wind project planned, or possible, that would even show up as a dot in that map.

To those who keep spreading this particular claim, please stop hurting your cause with hyperbolic claims about the damage of wind vs mountain top removal. Continuing to claim that the carefully sited wind projects in VT are even remotely comparable to the damage from mountain top removal seriously harms your credibility regarding your environmental concerns.

You could not be more effective at pushing away those who would happily help you fight for proper environmental controls on wind construction if you repeatedly poked them with a pointy stick.

As I’ve said many times in the past, I believe in strong regulations and equally strong enforcement of those regulations for wind projects. I believe Lowell was handled very, very badly on several fronts.

Hyperbolic and specious claims about the actual harm are not helpful to the cause, and will do nothing to strengthen regulatory oversight in future projects.

Some further perspective is provided by Bill McKibben in an article about the opposition to Cape Wind (which sounds remarkably similar to the opposition to VT wind):

But those criticisms, however valid, are small truths. The big truths are these: Each breath of wind that blows across Nantucket Sound contains 370 parts per million of carbon dioxide, up from 275 parts per million before the Industrial Revolution, before we started burning coal and gas and oil. That CO2 traps the sun’s heat-about two watts per square meter of the planet’s surface. Right now the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is higher than it’s been for four hundred thousand years. If we keep burning coal and gas and oil, the scientific onsensus is that by the latter part of the century the planet’s temperature will have risen five degrees Fahrenheit, to a level higher than we’ve seen for fifty million years.

…

Big truths have to trump small ones. It becomes a caricature of environmentalism to object that windmills kill birds or fish-in fact, new windmills kill very few birds compared with the original models. In fact, says Greenpeace, offshore windmill platforms in Europe have often turned into artificial reefs providing prime spawning ground for fish. But even if windmills did kill some birds, that’s a small truth-the big truth is that rising temperatures seem likely to trigger an extinction spasm comparable to the one that occurred when the last big asteroids struck the planet. Already polar bears are dying as their ice empire shrinks; already coral reefs are disappearing as rising sea temperatures bleach them, and by some accounts, they may be gone altogether before the century ends.

The choice, in other words, is not between windmills and untouched nature. It’s between windmills and the destruction of the planet’s biology on a scale we can barely begin to imagine. Charles Komanoff, an independent energy consultant in New York, calculates that Cape Wind’s windmills could produce as much as 1.5 billion kWh annually. Or, looked at another way, if  they aren’t built, twenty thousand tons of carbon will be emitted each week as coal and oil and gas are burned to produce the same amount of energy. The windmills won’t provide all the power for the Cape, but they might provide something like half, which is a lot.

You’d think that reporting the news would be a simple thing. Something happens; you learn all you can about it; you report it.

Well, as anyone who’s done time in the sausage factory can tell you, it’s not that simple. For that matter, anyone who’s ever been involved in a news story and then read the coverage afterward sometimes comes away with the conviction that the reporter must have been at the same event in an alternate universe. This isn’t (usually) because of malice of incompetence; it’s just that “the news” is more of a Rashomon thing than a simple matter of black and white.

Two examples from today’s political coverage: First, what’s the lead item from campaign finance reports — the Governor’s race or Lenore Broughton? And second, the handling (or ignoring) of Randy Brock’s attendance record as Auditor.

Shumlin v. Broughton. The most obvious way to cover Monday’s campaign finance reports is to focus on the race for Governor. And yes, there was a big story: Shumlin has a million dollars in the bank, and a 10:1 cash advantage over Brock. But it’s not exactly new news that Shumlin has a big financial edge. Rather, the most significant story for the present and future of Vermont politics was Lenore Broughton’s seemingly endless outpouring of cash into the coffers of Super PAC Vermonters First. It’s unprecedented in Vermont politics for one person — who has been completely secretive about her plans and motivations — to single-handedly spend enough money to buy an election. And if Wendy Wilton or Vince Illuzzi wins in November, that’s exactly what Lenore Broughton will have done.

Most of Vermont’s media outlets covered it as you’d expect: the Governor’s race was the topline, and Broughton came second — or was completely left out.  

The Freeploid, Vermont’s Most Colorful Newspaper, seemingly did the latter. It ran stories on Shumlin/Brock and Bernie Sanders’ monstrous pile, plus an informational sidebar listing other statewide candidates. But as far as I can tell from its website, not a peep about Broughton. Criminal.

WCAX’s website shows a brief item about Shumlin/Brock and nothing else. WPTZ, whose Stuart Ledbetter was actually on hand yesterday at the Secretary of State’s office, has an item that leads with Shumlin/Brock and features Broughton as the second item.

VTDigger’s main story began with Shumlin/Brock and then cycled through the rest of the statewide races before getting to a sizable item on Broughton. To its credit, Digger also broke out the Broughton story as a separate item, easily accessible from its homepage.

Only Peter Hirschfeld of the Vermont Press Bureau put Broughton first. He did a thorough examination of Broughton’s impact on the 2012 campaign, including quotes from several principals. (Article is paywalled, but here’s a link for those who subscribe.) And he got some compelling comments from Broughton beneficiary Wendy Wilton:

“What’s interesting to me is I don’t think they would be doing what they’re doing unless they felt very strongly about the candidates they’re supporting,” Wilton said. “I think they’re really looking at the candidates and where they see someone they think is worthy of support and capable of winning … they’re putting a lot of money into it.”

Nice little backhanded slap at Randy Brock there, Wendy. Hirschfeld also noted that Wilton and Broughton have some history, having jointly served on the board of a school-choice advocacy group. Which led to this fun little echo of Paul Heintz’ Tayt Brooks trap:

Asked when she last saw Broughton, Wilton said she couldn’t recall. “It was a long time ago. I’d have to think about it,” Wilton said. “I don’t recall.”



Pressed, Wilton said she hadn’t seen Broughton in over a year.

Sounds suspiciously like the Tayter’s initial reply to Heintz. Too bad Broughton herself is unavailable to confirm Wilton’s account. Or to confirm or deny anything else whatsoever, for that matter. But kudos to Hirschfeld for getting to the heart of yesterday’s news, and reporting it thoroughly.

Where’s Randy? Last week, when Brock tried to make a big stink about Governor Shumlin’s attendance record, I noted that some questions were floating around concerning Brock’s own attendance record during his time as State Auditor.

Funny thing. Turns out the Freeploid (then simply the Freeps, still a full-sized newspaper) covered this story way back in 2008, when Brock was running for re-election. The story can still be found in the Freeploid’s extortionately-priced Archives, but it was dug up and circulated around by the state Democratic Party.

The gist: Martha Abbott, then Progressive candidate for Auditor, reviewed Brock’s official calendar and found that he could only be documented as working in his office on official business 31% of the time. He was not at work 20% of the time, and there was no indication what he was up to 38% of the time. Brock complained that this was a misreading of his calendar, which would only reflect his official interactions with others, not the full range of his work.

He acknowledged that he sometimes worked from home (without giving a figure) but insisted that he was always available by phone or e-mail. Which is kinda different than actually being at your desk, it must be said. And he said that he hoped voters would focus on his accomplishments, not the minutiae of his calendar.

He could, of course, say the same about Governor Shumlin, if he wasn’t being opportunistically hypocritical.

VTDigger picked up on the story, and got Brock to add some fresh comments. He noted that the 20% time away from the office “could include weekends,” which is a nuance he did not allow to  Shumlin. And,

Brock added that he didn’t spend much time at his second home in Florida as state auditor, aside from an “occasional long weekend.”

Again, he doesn’t want Shumlin taking weekends — let alone a “long weekend,” horrors! — but he’ll give himself some leeway.

Funny thing about this story. The Freeploid, which covered it back in 2008, did not cover it today. Nor did they, as far as I can tell from searching their website, cover it after I dropped my little hint last week. Even thought they’d already done so four years ago. The topper: that 2008 story was written by Nancy Remsen, who’s still part of the ‘Loid’s political team.

Now, I don’t expect Remsen to recall every story she wrote four years ago. But I would expect the Freeploid’s editors (do they still have any?) to do a quick Archive search and maybe give it a quick update. Since it was Brock himself who tried to make attendance into an issue, you know.  

What a difference a weekend can make.

Just think, last Friday a pro-health-care group, Vermont Leads, was getting all kinds of criticism because they held a rally at a park near Lenore Broughton's house in Burlington, and then walked down to her house to deliver an invitation to discuss single payer health care. After all, this was seen as the kind of thing we just don't do in Vermont, although we put up a spirited defense here at GMD. Over at The Scoreboard, Seven Days reporter Paul Heintz called it “pretty shabby”, saying, “There are better ways to make your point than to hassle someone at their house.“

Well, things are looking a little different today. The campaign finance reports are out and they show that Miss Daisy has dumped another $548,000 into the Vermonters First bank account, for a total so far approaching three quarters of a million dollars.

I don't know if there are any formal rules to this, but if you can afford to write a check out of your personal fortune that is greater than the per capita income of twenty-three individual Vermonters (or, if you'd rather think of it this way, more than a dollar for every man, woman, and child in the state), I think it has to be recognized that you're now playing in the big leagues.

Or, to put it another way, if you're shelling out that kind of cash to buy elections in Vermont you've officially signed up to be a public figure.

Note: For those who can’t get enough of political money stuff, the campaign finance reports for 2012 are now available online thanks to Your Secretary of State Jim Condos. They’re all PDF’s, so not searchable. But they’re there for your browsing pleasure.

Today was the final deadline before Election Day for campaign finance reports. And as befits such an august occasion, Vermont’s political media was on hand in force at the Secretary of State’s office. Oh, the assembled brain power sent bursts of blue lightning around the room, I tell you. Anne Galloway of VTDigger, Stuart Ledbetter of Channel 5, Dave Gram of the AP, Peter Hirschfeld of the Vermont Press Bureau, John Dillon of VPR, Nancy Remsen of the Freeploid, and a yong woman sitting behind me whose name I failed to get. And who else… oh yeah, Paul Heintz of Seven Days.

And me.

Well, let’s get to the numbers, shall we? Take it from the top:

Super PACs: As I reported earlier, Lenore Broughton has bankrolled Vermonters First to the tune of nearly $650,000. And VF Treasurer, spokesperson, and Keeper Of The Vault, Tayt Brooks (International Man of Mystery) has spent a big chunk of that money, mainly on TV and Internet ads. One item of note: $17,500 to Public Opinion Strategies, a Republican polling and research firm. Methinks the Tayter is looking to target his money on the races he can make a difference in. Bad news for Randy Brock, that.

Meanwhile, the liberal group Priorities PAC reported almost identical fundraising and spending in the past month — about $15K each — leaving it with about 10K in the bank. Lisa Steele has kicked in $20,000 of Priorities’ loot. Other donors include outgoing state Senator Hinda Miller ($1,000), State Senator Bill Carris ($1,000) and David Coates ($2,000). Priorities has spent most of its funds on TV ads; $1,810 at WCAX, and nearly $12,000 for Comcast cable.

Governor: As I reported earlier, Peter Shumlin eased off the throttle a bit, raising “only” $172,000, while spending less than $33,000. He goes into the last three weeks of the campaign with over a million dollars in the bank. Compare that to Randy Brock, who took in a paltry $45,000 this period while spending $177,000. He has about a hundred thousand dollars in cash on hand — one-tenth as much as Shumlin. And it’d be even worse if he hadn’t loaned his own campaign $300,000. He’ll have to open his wallet wide if he wants to stay competitive in the homestretch.

(Bear in mind that many campaign expenditures may have already been made for things that will happen in the next three weeks, so the “cash on hand” figures may be a bit misleading.)

I’ll also take a moment here to point out that Vermont’s Costliest Consultant, Darcie Johnston, took almost $11,000 of Randy’s money in the past month for her role in piloting the Brock campaign into the nearest iceberg. If she had any shame whatsoever, she’d take a voluntary pay cut. Here’s a suggestion: after the election, she should refund a portion of her salary based on the margin of Brock’s defeat. If he loses by 20 points, she gives him a 20% refund. Fair?

After the jump: Good news for Beth Pearce (and she’ll need it), a cash crunch in the Auditor’s race, and more.

Lieutenant Governor. Incumbent Phil Scott raised $53,000 this period, for a campaign total of $139,000. He’s spent a total of $117,000, leaving him with a modest cash hoard. But still more than challenger Cass Gekas, who raised a bit under $12,000 this time for a campaign-to-date total of $39,000. And she’s already spent over $30,000, so not much left for a last-minute push.

Treasurer. The wise guys still call incumbent Beth Pearce a political newbie, but she sure knows how to push the fundraising buttons. She’s taken in more cash than any statewide candidate not running for Governor. She garnered a truly impressive $53,400 this time around, for a campaign total of $183,000. She’s spent $138,000 so far, so she’s still got a nice kitty for those last-minute ad buys.

And she’ll need it, with Vermonters First trying to paint a target on her back. Indeed, if it wasn’t for Lenore Broughton, Republican challenger Wendy Wilton would be falling far short of the mark. She raised less than $25,000 in this period for a campaign total of $74,000. She’s already spent $70,000, leaving her with only about $4,000 in the bank. That’s a sad commentary on the fundraising prowess of the Republican hierarchy, considering that they touted her as an especially strong member of their ticket.

But the VTGOP’s shortcomings hardly matter for Wilton. Her campaign depends entirely on Broughton’s largesse. And if you think that’s a healthy state of affairs, then I’d like to interest you in the purchase of a slightly-used golden dome.

Auditor. Neither Vince Illuzzi nor Doug Hoffer set the world on fire this time. Illuzzi raised $10,600 this period, for a campaign total of $75,000. And he’s already spent $70,000 of that. Hoffer, meanwhile, raised a bit less than $15,000, for a campaign total of $47,000. He’s spent $34,000 so far, which means he has more cash on hand than Vince.

But again, that hardly seems relevant since Vermonters First has poured a lot of money into advertisements on Vince’s behalf.

Attorney General. If Bill Sorrell had a credible opponent, he might be in real trouble. He spent a lot of money fending off the primary challenge of TJ Donovan, and has failed to replenish his campaign fund since August 28. In the past month he raised $12,000 and spent nearly $20,000. For the campaign to date, fundraising totals $131,000 — and expenditures total $140,000. Yikes.

Then there’s ol’ Six Teats, Jack McMullen. His fundraising continued to flounder, but he finally opened his own checkbook to the tune of $144,000 in loans to his campaign. But he’s already spent pretty much all that cash; he reported expenditures of $150,000 in the past month. Even with his massive personal loan, I estimate his cash-on-hand to be about $23,000. Which is more than Sorrell, certainly; but will it be enough to erase his longstanding reputation as a political joke? I don’t think so.

Secretary of State. Poor Jim Condos. None of the assembled scribes even bothered to ask for his report. But I don’t think he minds, considering that he’s the nominee of all three major parties plus at least one of the minor ones. As I’ve said before, it’s Jim’s world. We’re all just living in it.

Finally, just for shin splints and giggles, I asked for the Democrats’ and Republicans’ finance reports.

The VTGOP continues its financial funk. It took in $3,500 in donations last month. That’s $1500 from FairPoint Communications, and $2,000 from a Lavern Gaynor of Naples, Florida. Not a sou from a Vermonter, sad to say. The party didn’t spend any money last month. For the campaign to date, the VTGOP has raised almost $54,000 and spent $49,000. Buddy, can you spare a dime for a formerly proud party that’s down on its luck?

The VT Dems raised $7500 this time (including $1500 from FairPoint, clearly playing both sides of the street) for a campaign total of $128,000. The Dems have spent $132,000, but somehow I don’t think they’re too worried about covering their costs.

Especially when their Governor has a million buckaroonies in his pocket, and no real need for any of it.

There you go. The next campaign finance deadline is November 15, safely after the election. I will be looking forward to that date, if only to find out exactly how much money Lenore Broughton will have spent on her attempt to single-handedly buy an elective office or two.  

Governor Shumlin’s fundraising pace slowed last month. He “only” raised $173,000 since September 15.

And he spent a mere $32,664. Not even trying, really.

Throughout the campaign, Shumlin has fundraised at warp speed, and spent on impulse power*. The result: He’s got a million bucks in the bank.

*The Odum Memorial Sci-Fi Reference.

Let me repeat that: Three weeks before Election Day, Governor Shumlin has a warchest of over a million dollars. Randy Brock, by contrast, has a measly $100,000 to play with.

Yeah, it’s over.  

Well, now I understand why Randy Brock hinted at a disappointing fundraising total last week. Because the real news is disastrously bad.

During the past month, Brock raised $45,000 — a slower pace than in recent months. And in the same period, he spent $177,000.

For the entire campaign to date, Brock has spent $585,000, and raised $689,000. But the latter figure includes his $300,000 loan to himself. Without that loan, the Brock campaign would already be about $200K in the hole.

And now he needs a strong push to the finish.

Anyone still doubt that this campaign is over?