As has been noted here before, sometimes very smart people act in ways that are…oh, for now let’s just say that are not very smart.

As has also been noted here before, some of these very smart people are senior officials at the University of Vermont.

Their very-smartness is proven not simply by their advanced degrees, fancy titles, high salaries and sumptuous offices, but also by their obvious success as senior officials at UVM. The university is bigger than it was a few years ago. Its larger student body has higher SAT scores. Its larger faculty earns more money. The entire institution has a higher reputation in academia nationwide. These officials must be very smart people, indeed.

So why do they want to suppress freedom of speech on campus?

Well, that’s a stupid question. All people in power want to suppress free speech in their realms to avoid being criticized, ridiculed, and opposed. This instinct applies to governments, corporations, foundations, universities, churches, and the Kiwanis Club. So let’s re-phrase the question.

Considering that this particular attempt to suppress free speech on campus is possibly illegal, probably unconstitutional, certainly confrontational, and therefore doomed to fail, why did the very smart senior officials at UVM decide to make themselves appear to be not simply would-be tyrants but bungling tyrants?

In fairness, the University has not circulated a document entitled “Proposed Policy to Suppress Free Speech on Campus.” Furthermore, the document that was circulated by UVM’s Provost and the General Counsel’s office – the “Interim Policy on Solicitation,” has not been vetted by a lawyer for either the News Guy nor the UVM faculty. It is conceivable, then, that the policy does not attempt to suppress free speech on campus, but only seems so to attempt.

Meaning the folks who composed it brought trouble down upon themselves unnecessarily. Still not smart.

But not likely, either. Laymen though they may be, the News Guy and the professors can read. And if the words on the page are not designed to give University officials the power to decide what may or may not be espoused, opposed, posted, organized for (or against) or debated, they’re a mighty good imitation thereof.

To be sure, colleges should have policies restricting commercial solicitation. Students ought not be bothered in dormitory rooms, study halls or library stacks by peddlers of software, soap, or sandwiches. But this policy statement is not limited to commercial solicitation. It also covers “Noncommercial solicitation,” which “includes, without limitation, petition drives, public opinion polling, membership drives for recognized groups and organizations, preaching, proselytizing, political organizing, political canvassing, and political campaigning.”

For such activity, the policy says, “prior approval” of the University administration is required. As Alan Gilbert of the Vermont American Civil Liberties Union pointed out, “prior approval is prior restraint,” which is Constitutionally questionable.

Not that the university shouldn’t impose some reasonable restrictions on where political activity could take place; the petition-gatherer need not pursue students into their dorm rooms or laboratories. But on all campuses certain areas are recognized as public forums. At UVM, these would include the big bulletin board outside the Bailey-Howe Library and the Green between the library and the buildings fronting Main Street, including the massive new Dudley Davis Center.

But the solicitation policy asserts that “Because of its fragility and its designation as a historic landmark, the University Green’s availability for solicitation is limited.”

Come on! This doesn’t meet the laugh test. As pointed out by David Shiman, the education professor who heads United Academics, UVM’s faculty union, “the University Green has historically been the agora for campus and community,” the place where debate, demonstration, and, yes, even confrontation, have taken place. It is the obvious site for them to take place. Requiring individuals or organizations to get “prior approval” before expressing themselves on the Green would constitute a blatant inhibition of free expression.

(Full disclosure: The News Guy, very part-time adjunct faculty at UVM, is a member of the union).

To give the credit which is due (which is minimal) the solicitation policy does promise a version of “viewpoint neutrality,” saying, “(i)n those instances in which the University, through the official and deliberate action of authorized officials, chooses to open a designated forum for public expression, the University will not discriminate on the basis of the viewpoint of those engaging in expression allowed within that forum. Defamation, obscenity, and other forms of unlawful speech are prohibited in all instances.”

Oh, now UVM hot-shots proclaim themselves arbiters of which speech is and is not “lawful.”

And no “defamation”? The heart of debate is defamation. All authority should be defamed, starting with presidents (of the United States and the University) and extending to almost everyone else, including the writer of this post.

Besides, as Shiman points out, the “neutrality” pledge is belied by another clause stating that the “approval of solicitation activities will generally be subject to applicable time, place, manner, and subject matter provisions unless, in the considered judgment of the responsible administrative official, the proposed activities are unlawful or are likely to be disruptive, to cause undue interruption of the essential operations of the University, or to infringe significantly upon the rights of University community members or members of the public lawfully using campus grounds or facilities, such as rights of privacy, personal security, or reasonably unimpeded ingress and egress.”

“These grounds for denial,” Shiman wrote to the Administration, “are so vague that the clause about neutrality becomes meaningless. The University…asserts that they may deny permission whenever they want. This is unprecedented for any university, other than perhaps a tightly controlled religious institution.”

Not unreasonably, Shiman wondered whether one of the administration’s goals was to stifle union organizing efforts. Labor organizations are not official university-recognized entities, and under the proposed rules their on-campus activities might have to “be sponsored by authorized University officials…”

or University-recognized student groups or organizations,” which, he noted, could “have a particularly chilling effect for union drives.”

Interim Provost Jane Knodell said it was not her office, but the General Counsel’s office which was in charge of the solicitation policy, and referred the News Guy to Deputy General Counsel Tom Mercurio. Mercurio did not return a phone call, nor did UVM spokesman Enrique Corredera. They might not have had time. Or they might not have wanted to try to defend the indefensible.

OK, it’s an “interim policy.” Perhaps before making it final, the very smart people of UVM will remember that universities are and ought to be places of vigorous, spirited, even if sophomoric (after all, some of the participants are actual sophomores) debate. The folks who run universities should encourage such activity, not stifle it.

Otherwise, they aren’t even slightly smart.

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Back in 1945, when most of the real ball-players were off at war, the theretofore (and largely here to-aft) hapless Chicago Cubs met the slightly less hapless Detroit Tigers in the World Series.

Walking into the ball park for the first game, Chicago sportswriter Warren Brown was asked who would win.

“Nobody,” he said.

In the wake of Tom Salmon’s switch from the Democrats to the Republicans, it’s time to consider Vermont politics in the light of that story. Not because of what Salmon did, but because of the way he did it: not very well. He seemed pleasant and moderately articulate, but a bit wooden.

Not nearly as wooden as his prose, though. He actually said, “The Democratic Party left me,” which was a cliché 30 years ago.

But this is Vermont, which, with Howard Dean gone and Jim Douglas going, is bestridden by political mediocrities. Right now, most of the likely candidates to replace Douglas as governor have a history of either losing or most unimpressively winning. There’s not a fearsome face in the crowd.

Start with the Republicans. The front-runner to whom all will defer should he want the job is Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie.

Winner of four statewide elections. Strong record, no?

No. Dubie snuck into office in 2002 because Progressive candidate Anthony Pollina took enough votes from Democrat Peter Shumlin to allow Dubie to slip in with a plurality. Then he kept getting re-elected because: (a) He is by all evidence a nice guy; (b) His Democratic opponents were palookas; (c) Nobody cares who the lieutenant governor is.

Outside the Republican inner circle Dubie has only the tiniest personal following. If he runs, he will get the hard-core Republican vote and nothing more, unless, of course, the Democratic candidate is yet another palooka.

Or, considering how much more conservative Dubie is than the average Vermonter, maybe even if the Democratic candidate is yet another palooka. Meaning he’d probably lose.

(Digression: And doesn’t it seem that he’ll not run? The very fact that he’s taking time to think it over (assuming that’s not an act designed to make him appear modest) indicates his heart isn’t in it. After all, the only point to being lieutenant governor is to run for governor. Why hesitate?)

If Dubie doesn’t run, many Republicans will turn to State Sen. Randy Brock of Franklin County, the only Republican aside from Douglas and Dubie (and Jim Jeffords, who soon thereafter became an ex-Republican) to win statewide office since roughly the Pleistocene era. That’s a sign of strength, isn’t it?

Not really. Brock beat an incumbent Auditor of Accounts who had been caught fudging her educational credentials. Even if the evidence did not quite support the judgment “lying about” those credentials, it was close enough. Elmer Fudd could have beaten Elizabeth Ready in 2004.

Politically speaking, the Auditor of Accounts has one thing in common with the lieutenant governor: almost nobody cares who he or she is because almost nobody knows what he or she does. Substantively, there is a difference. The Auditor of Accounts actually does something. Brock apparently did it well enough.

But two years later he got beaten by Salmon, a challenger whose only credentials were having the same name as a popular former governor and being a Democrat.

Besides, Brock, who also seems to be a nice guy (based on one conversation) is even more conservative than Dubie. His conservatism does not make him completely unelectable in Vermont. But close.

Or what about Mark Snelling. Like Salmon, he’s the son of a popular former governor. But he’s a Republican, and people do care who the governor is, meaning the typical voter might examine his credentials beyond checking out his name.

His credentials are that he runs the family business and the Snelling Center, a think tank of sorts which…well, which does something having to do with looking into government and politics. Exactly what it does remains mysterious. Its impact, however, is clear: it has had none. Being the head of a think tank about which nobody thinks isn’t much of a credential.

There are a few other Republicans supposedly contemplating a run for governor, and for all anyone knows, Sens. Phil Scott , Vince Illuzzi, and Kevin Mullin might be good candidates. So might former Sen. John Bloomer. But none has ever run statewide. Only Illuzzi is widely known, and he might be too much of a maverick, and too much the economic populist, to win a Republican primary (though possibly the Republican most likely to beat a Democrat).

Oh, yes, the Democrats. Among whom we have one candidate (Sen. Doug Racine) who lost a statewide election he should have won; a potential candidate (Shumlin) who did the same, in the same year (2002); and another candidate (Sen. Susan Bartlett) who appears to have raised no money for her campaign and who is little known to the general public.

Granted, there is one undefeated champ—Deborah Markowitz, who has been elected six straight times as Secretary of State, a string of victories that would be more impressive had the elections been for, say, Homecoming Queen at Siwash U. or Treasurer of Local 252 of the International Tiremakers and Mechanics Union.

Like Sate Treasurer, Secretary of State should be an appointed position, and isn’t only because it gives politicians an office to run for so they can run for something else. Somehow, her predecessor (the one she knocked off in 1998) managed to do the job poorly, an extraordinary feat suggesting a level of incompetence so extreme as to be almost admirable.

Having knocked off an incompetent, being competent herself, not to mention rather charming, and a Democrat, Markowitz kept getting re-elected. Elmer Fudd would have done the same.

At this point, a certain generosity would be both compassionate and (more important) accurate. Political losers –Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama — have returned as better candidates and won big victories. Shumlin and Racine seem to be sharper, more aggressive, candidates than they were in 2002. Bartlett, an accomplished legislator, could emerge as the sleeper candidate of 2010. And who knows? Even Tom Salmon, if he could hire himself a better writer, might become formidable.

Right now, though, the 2010 campaign here looms as a clash of…well, not quite of midgets. But certainly not of giants.

Still, someone will win. Someone won the 1945 World Series, too. The Tigers in seven. Hank Greenberg, home from serving in the Army, hit two home runs.

But that didn’t mean they were any good.

On the surface, and for at least a level or two below it, Tom Salmon’s party switch is good news for the Vermont Republicans, bad news for the Democrats.

Three or four levels below? There’s where things get more complicated. However they turn out, though, the state should be glad that Salmon provides a handy opportunity to recognize some political realities that have been ignored.

Back to that in a minute. For now, let’s let Vermont Republicans, who so far have not had a very good year, enjoy their good day.

If nothing else, today there is one more Republican and one less Democrat in this state than there was yesterday.

But that’s the least of it. Sitting in front of their television sets or at their breakfast table with coffee and the morning paper, Mr. and Mrs. Swing Voter likely said to each other Tuesday eve and Wednesday morn: “Why that nice young man has gone from the Democrats to the Republicans. He must have a good reason.”

Better yet, the Tuesday evening/Wednesday morning local news cycle was dominated by Salmon proclaiming the message Republicans want the hear proclaimed: Beware them Demycrats; They gonna tax yo’ pants off.

OK, those were not the exact words the second-term Auditor of Accounts used, either in his announcement nor in answer to questions. But that was the gist of it, and it’s what the Republicans love to hear.

That’s why Republican State chairman Rob Roper quickly issued a statement arguing that, “the message is that we are the fiscally responsible party, and it’s really gratifying, with Auditor Salmon’s coming to the party, that that message has gotten through,”

Actually, all we know so far is that the message has gotten out. The ‘through’ part remains to be seen. But surely it doesn’t hurt to have a man elected as a Democrat, not to mention the son of a former Democratic governor, say he believes “the Vermont Republican Party is closest to accepting the reality of our times and is therefore the best equipped to manage the very real and troubled economic and social conditions which confront us, not only today, but in the coming decade.”

Yeah, he could use a better writer, but for now it’s the sentiment that counts. Seeking to keep the momentum going, Gov., Jim Douglas said that the Salmon switch proved that “the taxing and spending plans of legislative Democrats are out of touch,” and that the Democratic “supermajority has moved further to left.”

Just the point the Republicans have been trying to make all summer. This was just about the first time they’ve gotten it onto the front page.

Where it won’t stay for long, whereupon we come to the question of whether Salmon bought himself a day’s publicity in exchange for a lot of political trouble.

Consider. Until Tuesday, he was all but assured of re-election as auditor. He was the incumbent and a Democrat, pretty close to invincible in this state these days. Now he’s the incumbent and a Republican, who could get beat.

Who, one might even say, is likely to get beat if the Democrats can come up with a good candidate to oppose him. And do not doubt that Democratic State Chair Judy Bevan is lining up some likely contenders—men and women with business credentials, perhaps enough money to help finance the campaign, and political skills, maybe even a touch of charisma.

Under Bevans, who took over earlier this year, the Democrats are more aggressive.. For years, the Democratic leadership was very issue-oriented. It isn’t that Bevans doesn’t care about issues. But she cares a great deal about winning. Gone are the days when the Democrats would just sit back and let some ambitious, well-meaning, shlub enter their primaries unopposed. Salmon can expect a tough race for re-election.

Or in a Republican primary for governor should Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie opt not to run. With a lively Democratic primary for governor likely, only devoted Republicans will vote in the GOP primary. Devoted Republicans generally prefer…devoted Republicans, meaning Republicans who have been devoted to the party for years, not months.

But that’s not the only political lesson to be found in the penumbra of the Salmon switch, nor the only one that does not bode well for the newest Republican, who explained his action by saying, “the majority of Vermonters do not want to see tax increases as a response to poor planning.”

Assuredly they do not. But that isn’t what happened. In response to the Recession, the Democrats who control the Legislature did raise taxes, minimally. But they also cut spending, even spending on programs for the sick, the elderly, and the poor.

In doing so, they enraged some of their staunchest supporters, who wanted them to raise more taxes and cut little or nothing. just as the tax hikes enraged the staunchest Republicans, who wanted more spending cuts and no tax increases.

Nobody’s taken a poll recently, but a good bet would be that each of those “staunch” constituencies accounts for roughly 20 percent of the Vermont electorate (with the left fringe probably a bit larger than the right). As to the 60 percent in the middle, every indication so far is that they don’t have any problem with the budget the Legislature passed over Douglas’s veto last spring. In fact, what Vermont seems to have engaged in this year is a successful exercise in democracy, with the lawmakers ending up roughly where a majority of the people wanted to be: budget cuts but not too many; small tax increase on only a few.

How does anybody know that? Nobody does, not for sure. But so far, signs of a backlash against the budget (or, for that matter, same-sex marriage) have been all but non-existent. A few letters to the editor. An occasional op-ed page screed. There were those “tea party” demonstrations, but they were small, and directed mostly at Washington, not Montpelier.

Actually, it would be surprising if there were much of a backlash, because there has been no calamity. Predictions by Republicans (and Salmon) that the new budget would hurt the state’s economy have not come true. In fact, in this Recession, Vermont’s economy has done somewhat better than most other states. For political instability, the Republicans need economic instability.

They may yet get it, and it is possible that mass subterranean resentments smolder way down deep. Right now though, way down deep, maybe all the Vermont Republican Party got this week was one more voter.