The third and final clip of the Bartlett interview begins with a discussion of Susan’s idea for an Office of Innovation and Intellectual Property to help innovators bring their ideas to fruition. She rightly notes that Vermonters have a long tradition of doing things in new and different ways, and that supporting innovators as they turn their ideas into products will improve both our quality of life and our economic base.  

Then we turn to more controversial matters. Susan bucked the trend with her response. She nicely ties in her answer to the earlier discussion of innovation. Gadgets and creatures and how they are all blended together with real human actors represent ground-breaking creativity, and that is the draw for her. Having a governor who can articulate a vision for the future could take some getting used to.

To close, Susan shares just how busy this campaign season has been and we end with a reminder that August 24 is Primary Day!

Part 1 is HERE

Part 2 is HERE

[Note: No endorsement implied. Just continuing the VTblogosphereTV tradition of showcasing the qualities of the guest.]

Susan Bartlett’s campaign website

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(As usual, GMD’s policy is to promote 1st person pieces by major candidates for statewide office in Vermont.  Please note: I moved some of the content below the fold, since the piece is fairly long.   – promoted by JulieWaters)

It’s always inspiring to attend a high school or college graduation and watch the future leaders of our nation enter the next phase of their lives. These new grads will enter the workforce and may strive to become the next great agricultural innovator or to start the next Facebook. However, here in Vermont, graduations are bittersweet moments — because we know that a large number of these students will leave our state for jobs elsewhere in the country and may not ever return.

Vermont hasn’t been competing effectively with other states in some key areas. Small company start-ups have been steadily declining. And with Vermont ranked dead last in broadband connectivity, we lack the high tech infrastructure like widespread broadband Internet service and cell phone reception that are necessary for new, innovative companies.

Even existing companies cannot retain our best and brightest. One business leader I spoke with made this point crystal clear. He explained that he tries to hire UVM students to work at his company, but when they realize that the home they could afford doesn’t have high-speed Internet or cell phone reception, they decide to take jobs out in Colorado instead.

But Vermonters have a unique passion for their hometowns. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been out of the state – Vermonters always feel like Vermonters. And though young people are leaving the state to take jobs elsewhere in the country, they are all saying the same thing: “we want to come home.”

Interestingly, we’ve found that our campaign’s message of innovation, entrepreneurship and 21st century thinking has resonated not only with those Vermonters who live in the state but also with those who live across the country. With the help of Facebook, Twitter and other online tools these Vermonters in the diaspora have reached out to the campaign and offered their support. They have been volunteering from their homes to help with writing projects, raising money, and contributing donations during fundraising drives.

A group of these supporters recently worked to capture this movement of Vermonters around the country who want to come home. The minute-long video created by campaign supporters features a montage of interviews with eight former Vermonters who currently live around the country. From Washington DC to San Francisco, these campaign supporters explain why they are supporting Matt and describe the vision of the future of Vermont that they share. You can view the video here:

While many people would shy away from featuring people from out of state in their campaigns, we’re proud to be sharing the stories of Vermonters who live across the country and want to come home.

We have the opportunity here to build the environment that allows our young people to stay in our state and to help allow Vermont expats to come back home. By bringing high-speed broadband Internet to the last mile of every town, we can foster the innovative, entrepreneurial infrastructure Vermont needs to create the next generation of jobs. By revitalizing our downtowns we can develop exciting, authentic communities that are centers of commerce, entertainment and recreation along with affordable housing where new graduates will be able to live and work. And by reinvesting in our institutes of higher education we will help keep students attending school in state rather than heading across the borders to attend college.

I’d like to thank the grassroots supporters who helped film this video around the country and edit it together. If you have a story to share about someone who wants to come home to Vermont, I encourage you to leave it in the comments below. I look forward to hearing your story and continuing to help Vermonters come home.

The effort AARP is waging to get a utility rate break for a low income Vermont resident has yielded another interesting insight. The last dust-up in was over the ill advised legal track explored by CVPS lawyers with an argument that They [low-income residents] would only spend the savings on cigarettes. This resulted in an apology from the head of CVPS for insensitivity.  

Today it is reported one top lawyer at the Vermont Public Service Board has taken word for word language from a utility industry lawyer and used it in a Department legal brief.  

In a filing last month before the Public Service Board by Sarah Hofmann, the department’s director for public advocacy, more than two of six pages are word-for-word identical to a filing made in January by David Mullett, a lawyer for the Vermont Electric Cooperative and municipal electric departments.  

The PSB lawyer,(correction:Hoffman is the Department of Public Service [DPS] attorney) the Director of Public Advocacy is cozily using legal language supplied by lawyers for the utility her department regulates. This could illustrate what forces keep that revolving door spinning speedily between regulated industries and regulators, our erstwhile public advocates.

Just another successful game of capture the regulator Douglas /Dubie style.  

The PSB deputy commissioner sees no problem with this:  Wark called the complaints about Hofmann an attempt “to divert attention away from the facts to an unseemly innuendo”  

“The department did use some of Mr. Mullett’s legal analysis, with his permission, because it is solid work that shows that the concept of this cross-subsidy is bad for consumers,” he said. “The department did nothing wrong.”

Elections – Governor: As much as the bottom line, candidates tomorrow will be playing to the expectations of observers on their fundraising reports. An example of that can be heard in Bob Kinzel’s VPR report this morning on Susan Bartlett’s fundraising. No one doubts that Bartlett will be last in terms of dollars raised, but by playing down that expectation as much as she does, any respectable bottom line could be seen as a win.

So what are the candidates likely to report? No one outside of the campaigns themselves can say for sure, but here are some educated guesses of what we may expect to see:

Markowitz will certainly lead the pack, and may potentially crack three quarters of a million dollars. A showing in the low $700k range should surprise no one (Publisher’s note: Insiders report that this number is high, and that the hyperventilating hubbub about Markowitz’s haul, which some have suggested will exceed even $800k, is unrealistic. Look for something more in the $500-$600k range).

Racine will come in second, but won’t have reached half a million. Expect to see Racine’s total raised to be near $400,000.

The bronze medal will be interesting to see. Dunne will have a win if he comes in raising more than a quarter million dollars which will surprise some observers. Peter Shumlin, of course, is legendary for his fundraising prowess, and he has been able to tap the national LGBTQ community (including, reportedly, $15k from a single Boston event). Given the late start, some observers project him to report in the $300,000 range, but he and Dunne may well be closer than expected. A Dunne third place showing – although unlikely – would be a big blow for Shumlin. It could turn out that way, but it looks pretty unlikely. In the case of Susan Bartlett, the question will be whether she has achieved 6 figures, as that seems to be the bar she is setting for herself in the media.

Cash on hand? Harder to say. It’s the spending season and Markowitz has staffed up more than her competitors, while Shumlin has already begun TV ad buys. Who has been spending money on internal polling and who hasn’t? Cash on hand is likely the more significant number for the next few weeks, and those numbers will be anybody’s guess.

But the combined reports will show that, since the start of this process a year and a half back, the five Democrats will have raised in the neighborhood of $1.75 million dollars – all for a Vermont primary – and that right there tells us what a different electoral world we now live in.

It also tells us there’s a lot of interest and money out there to return the Governorship to Democratic hands.

You know that lifeline program that helps poor people pay their electric bills if they can't afford them?

News flash: in Vermont, it doesn't exist.

This is a surprise to a lot of people, but unlike every other New England state, Vermont doesn't have a program like that. The Public Service Board is holding a proceeding right now to consider whether and how to create such a program. It's been a long struggle by a lot of low-income advocates, and thanks to the AARP and the Vermont legislature there is now a chance that it will actually happen.

But guess who doesn't like the idea: the electric companies and the Douglas-Dubie administration. In fact, the utilities and the Douglas-Dubie administration are so chummy that the Public Service Department has taken to lifting passages wholesale from the utilities' filings. Two whole pages from a six-page brief filed by the Publilc Service Department were lifted right out of a brief from the Vermont Electric Co-Op and a group of municipal utilities.

According to the Free Press, Vermont Law School professor Brian Porto calls that plagiarism.

I'm not that concerned about plagiarism. I'm much more concerned about the fact that the agency charged with representing the public appears to be lining up against the public and with the electric companies.

In my years litigating major cases in the Public Service Board, I was involved in at least one case in which the state had to hire a private advocate for the public to avoid any conflict of interest.

Maybe it's time to consider that again. With all the money the utilities pour into these cases, shouldn't someone be speaking for the people?

(Putting this back on top since it’s today 🙂 – promoted by JulieWaters)

A reminder – the big family friendly gathering that has come to be known as the “blogger barbecue” moves back to its North Beach (Burlington) birthplace this Saturday, July 17th. Come mingle with members of the GMD and VDB communities, along with local and statewide political figures, activists and professional staffers. Don’t think the political blogging set should be getting so overtly chummy with the very people they cover? Come and tell them so! All are welcome and encouraged.

       

  

Date: Saturday, July 17, 2010

Time: 1:00pm – 5:00pm

Location: North Beach, Burlington, Vermont

Invite your facebook friends!

The embrace of an expensive weapons system with widely disputed merits, [Rep. Suzi Wizowaty, D-Burlington] continued, “will increasingly tie Vermonters to military spending.”

(Burlington F-35 opposition forms, Burlington Free Press, 07/14/10)

Wizowaty was referring specifically to the possibility that Burlington’s airport might become home to a new generation of ultra-expensive war machines (the F-35), but her words of caution here apply to the whole Welch/Leahy/Sanders supported military-industrial welfare complex.

Classical fascism as defined by Benito Mussolini involves the melding of corporate and state governance combined with a militaristic foreign policy. Sound familiar to anyone?

(good one that shows where some people’s priorities really are… – promoted by JDRyan)

In my job, I am first and foremost a bookkeeper/accountant/backroom guy; secondly, I bartend a couple afternoons a week.  In general, I like bartending- it keeps me honest, knowing the customers and the product and gives me someone more talkative to converse with than the Dell in my office.  Certainly bar customers are more interesting than Excel or QuickBooks (most of the time, anyway!).

But sometimes, it’s clear to me that I’m just not cut-out for such a job.  Today was one of those “sometimes”.

At the very beginning of my shift, just as the place opened, two guys walk in.  Usually I’ve got soccer on the TV (it’s mid-afternoon when we open), but at this rare moment in the season, there just aren’t any live sports on, so instead I’ve got ESPN on.  They’re covering George Steinbrenner’s death.  The one guy starts:  “well, good thing he died this year instead of last year or next year; the ‘death tax’ expired last year and renews next year, but this year, it’s a freebee.”

“Oh, yeah, well, I’d hope his family has more on their mind than tax payments.”

“Of course.  There’s grieving and all that.  But, I sell insurance at National Life, and let me tell you, anyone with any assets is fortunate to die this year.  Last year, and next year? a 45% tax on everything over 2.5 million dollars!  can you imagine! you work your whole life, you wanna pass on your legacy to your family, and the government wants to take 45%?!”

“Yeah, 45%, that’s a lot.  But if you’ve got 2.5 million, and you’re taxed 1.2 million, your kids are still getting over a million dollars for doing nothing at all… that’s not such a bad deal…”

“Wait, wait… if you work hard your whole life and are successful, surely you want and hope to pass that on to your kids…”

“yeah, sure.  Passing a million dollars on to your kids, who didn’t do anything  to earn that money- that actually seems to me more harmful than good.  You’re not really teaching them anything, just giving them money they haven’t earned.  ‘Seems it would be better to pass on a work ethic and  family values and strong morales than a million bucks that they’re just gonna piss away…”

“NO.  But if you’ve earned money, you want it to be there to provide for your family-”

“- sure, but that’s ignoring the vast majority of people who’ve worked hard their whole lives, haven’t been fortunate enough to ‘strike it rich’, and have nothing but debt or heartache to pass on to their kids-”

“NO, NO, if you work hard enough, you’ll have plenty to pass on.”

“Um, OK.  Seems like plenty of people work plenty hard- don’t they constantly say, even during these times, even during a recession or depression or downturn or whatever, that ‘productivity is up’?  ‘productivity is always up’, because the system is gamed that way.  I’m not sure what problem is being addressed by letting rich people keep their money once they’ve died.  ‘Seems to me there are plenty of people in need who could use it a lot more… seems to me we could take that money and provide good schools or healthy food or doctors check-ups to a whole lot of people just from the tax on Stienbrenner’s Estate- if he died next year or last year.

“Either which way- his kids now own the New York Yankees- they probably are going to do just fine for themselves, even if they had to pay $500 million in taxes.”

Anyway.  It went on for a bit.  They didn’t stay long.  They didn’t leave a tip.  And, frankly, I’d rather not have their business.

Frankly, what bothers me much more then the greedy and self-serving notions of wealth that these two dip-shit meatheads exhibited: the total contempt for human (and familial) life.  Their opinion of what Steinbrenner’s kids should think about first and foremost on their dad’s death: how to avoid paying taxes.  How anti-social, anti-human.  Here’s a clue guys: the first thing you should think about when your dad dies: all that you’ll miss, all that he’ll miss, all that you’ve shared, how much and what you’ve shared and been taught by him….

Me?  I’m not really cut-out for being a bartender.

A quick follow up to one part of the mojometers, just to clarify something, and since it concerns a portion of the report I was responsible for writing, I thought I’d just take it.

In referencing the Markowitz campaign, it wasn’t my intention to send the message that they weren’t doing field work. Clearly they are. As I mentioned, they recently staffed up. The point I wanted to make was that they have only begun to work field hard recently, while many of their rivals have been developing field infrastructure more seriously for longer.

It is fact that Markowitz staff time has been more focused on fundraising, as compared to the others. What is opinion, then, is that this suggests a relative, inherent undervaluing of the ground game, and a proportionate increased reliance on (the soon-to-come) paid media.

The response from Markowitz staff and partisans, put simply, is that the comparatively late focus on field isn’t undervaluing it, its simply doing it right – and that is one school of thought.

Certainly its not the only one. A good example is the Dunne campaign. Dunne is being advised by at least one seriously heavy hitter in the political organizing world. He’s also being supported by 21st Century Democrats, an organization the focuses on campaign field work. His campaign, backed by such seasoned professionals, has been serious about the ground game for many months now. All of which is to say, what the “right” way is continues to be subject to much debate among the experts.

And this is Vermont, home of Democracy for America, which is known for promoting it’s own, far more time-intensive model of campaign field organizing, and that DFA culture has certainly impacted the way many of us in Vermont – myself included – look at this stuff.

So anyway, I hope that fleshes out the thinking a bit, and helps to distinguish the facts from the opinions in the piece.

From the Brattleboro Reformer (emphasis mine):

Primary ballots sent to cities and towns around Chittenden County had to be destroyed and replaced due to a printer’s error, Vermont officials said Monday… they could not immediately say how many ballots were affected or how much it cost the printing firm, Mid-West Printing Co., of Sapulpa, Okla., to replace them.

Why are we ordering our ballot printing services from Oklahoma?

Wouldn’t that money be better spent instate, adding to Vermont state taxes?   Do we actually need a private company to perform these services? at all?

Who makes the decisions as to where the ballots are printed in the first place?  Was it the choice of the Secretary of State’s office to get Ballots from 1,500 miles away?  (I checked it on Mapquest).

There’s an affect when we improve our local businesses; it’s not just about the raw dollars.  If we employ Vermonters, we improve the state as a whole and if we keep our resources local, we encourage more local spending as well.  That improves our economy and improves our general situation.  

Someone explain this to me: why are we spending state dollars in Oklahoma when we could be spending them here?