“Truth in Advertising,” is a slogan, a policy, and a law, not a contradiction in terms.

It just seems that way.

Truth in political advertising may still be a slogan and a policy. But it is more often a contradiction in terms because it is exempt from law. Coke may not claim that Pepsi will give you hives, nor Ford allege that General Motors cars are unsafe without risking a lawsuit.

But in a campaign commercial, candidate Smith may say just about anything about candidate Jones without legal consequences. If the allegation is false, Jones can’t sue, at least not with any hope of winning. The only remedy for dishonest political speech is – and ought to be — honest political speech, on the part of the accused candidate, decent citizens, and assorted opinion leaders.

Oh, and on the part of the press, or, to use the (sadly) more current term, the media. Applying the same standards to all candidates, journalists ought to scrutinize political ads for accuracy and honesty. Herewith, then, the first of what will be several “ad-watch” posts on the Vermont governors race.

But let’s add a third standard to accuracy and honesty: a little subtlety, a recognition that, in politics at least, not every statement is either the truth or a lie. As noted in an earlier post, “lie,” is a harsh word that should be avoided unless the facts allow no alternative. Sometimes people are just wrong. In their enthusiasm, they often fail to see the whole picture.

Or maybe they decide not to see the whole picture.

Besides, in politics it’s easy – and infernally common – to make a statement which is not false – which is technically factual – without really being the truth, or at least the whole truth. Political commercials can be true and not true at the same time.

Take the Republican Governor Association ad on behalf of Republican candidate Brian Dubie saying this about Dubie’s Democratic opponent, Peter Shumlin: “As a proud architect of Act 60, he’s raised your property taxes. Last year, Shumlin led the effort to raise over $20 million in taxes on the working families of Vermont.”

The second sentence is accurate. Shumlin did help lead the effort to raise taxes by about $20 million, and it’s reasonable to assume that those taxpayers were Vermonters, members of families, and “working,” in that they were, in one way or another, gainfully employed.

Very gainfully, as it turn out. In common parlance, “working families” suggests (though it does not explicitly state) middle-income folks – cops, teachers, store clerks, salespersons, keypunchers, and the like. Those are not the people whose taxes Shumlin helped raise. They were, in fact, the people whose taxes he helped lower, while the top two or three percent of the income distribution ladder paid the higher taxes.

As to the first sentence quoted above of the RGA ad, it’s at least half true. Shumlin was one of the architects of Act 60. Whether that means he’s “raised your property taxes” is debatable, and probably depends who “you” are.

Property taxes have gone up since Act 60. But they would have gone up anyway. More? Less? Who knows? But differently, and as a careful analysis in Tuesday’s Free Press demonstrates, many Vermonters, perhaps most, are paying less in property taxes than they would have under the previous school finance system.

Do not suppose, however, that only Republicans produce political commercials in which debatable allegation is treated as absolute truth. A Shumlin ad entitled Hold It says that Dubie “pushed for a $100 million property tax increases for middle class Vermonters.”

This assertion can not be branded false. Dubie did support Gov. Jim Douglas’s January, 2009, proposals to shift some obligations from the General Fund (financed largely by the income and sales taxes) over to the Education Fund (largely financed by the property tax). The Shumlin campaign provides credible estimates that over a two-year period, the additional burden on the Education Fund might have been $100 million.

But the Ed Fund also gets some money from other sources. Furthermore, in theory, at least, schools could have cut their budgets to offset part of the tax hike. In other words, Dubie never proposed a $100 million property tax increase. He supported proposals that Democrats argue would have imposed that increase. Not exactly the same thing, even if the Democrats seem to be more right than wrong.

Alas, there is one political commercial on the air in Vermont these days making claims that are simply false. This is the Dubie ad  (Dubie’s ads are not available on his web site) claiming that Shumlin plans to release “nearly 800 nonviolent criminals from prison,” and  “turn… drug dealers and child pornographers out on the street long before their sentences were served.”

Shumlin has made no such proposals, though the wording in his “Vision for Vermont” document talking about “transitioning Vermont’s 780 non-violent officers to become productive members of society,” could lead a casual reader to think that the candidate was considering a large-scale prison exodus. But a closer look at the six paragraphs in his document dealing with corrections policy leaves little doubt that he envisions a far more intricate change under which many non-violent offenders wouldn’t go to prison to begin with.

Instead, Shumlin said, the state should provide “community mental health, substance abuse,…affordable housing…and adult education services…to allow (non-violent offenders) to become successful and productive members of society,” while at the same time saving millions of dollars.

The wisdom of this policy is debatable. It can be attacked as naïve or unworkable. But it has nothing to do with letting offenders out on the street before they’ve served their terms. Nor would it include “drug dealers and child pornographers” whose offenses, while “non-violent” in common parlance, are either “listed” in Vermont law (the most serious crimes) or were made the functional equivalent of “listed” earlier this year.

Corrections Commissioner Andrew Pollito (via email)  said that “Act 157 (S.292) of this past legislative session defined nonviolent felony as, ‘a felony offense which is not a listed crime… or an offense involving sexual exploitation of children.’”

Shumlin may have been a bit sloppy in explaining his corrections policy. His estimate that it could save $40 million a year is a rough one, as campaign manager Alexandra MacLean acknowledged,  and very possibly too optimistic. His claim that Vermont incarcerates a higher percentage of non-violent offenders than any other state really can’t be confirmed, according to Sen. Dick Sears of North Bennington, the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. (identified by the Shumlin campaign as its corrections expert).

It’s also possible that many people hearing Shumlin came away with the impression that he did plan to save that $40 million immediately by releasing hundreds of prisoners. But that’s not what his campaign statement said, and the Dubie campaign did not reply to an email asking for some documentation that Shumlin had ever said he would release prisoners before their terms expire.

Furthermore, according to Sears, there is nothing unusual about the kind of policy Shumlin proposes. Sears, who meets with lawmakers from other states on law enforcement matters, said the policy is known as “justice re-investment,” and is being pursued (or at least carefully considered) in Kansas and Texas, among other states.

It should save money, he said. The kind of community services Shumlin has in mind would cost about $6,500 per offender per year, Sears said, far less than the $40,000 or more it costs to hold someone in prison in the state, and even less than the cost of the prisoners Vermont farms out to private correctional facilities in other states.

The Dubie ad, it seems, is not an example of  truth in advertising. If it isn’t quite a lie – there’s a touch of confusion about just what Shumlin might have meant – it’s close.

Now we know. Peter Shumlin is kind of rich. Ten million smackeroos of net worth has to be considered kind of rich even if it’s chump change these days to some Wall Streeters.

And the political impact of this knowledge will be…oh, quite probably minimal to non-existent, though Brian Dubie’s campaign did its best to turn Shumlin’s financial assets into a political liability.

“When Peter Shumlin says he would rather be on his farm spreading manure, we don’t know which property that is because he has 18 of them,” said Dubie campaign manager Corry Bliss, in an email to reporters. “When Peter Shumlin shows his Senate ID to the trooper who pulled him over for speeding, we don’t know which car he was driving, considering he owns seven of them. Peter Shumlin says he would like all Vermonters to have the opportunities he did, yet the anti-business tax policies he supports in the Legislature make that impossible. It is obvious why he does not object to paying more in taxes, as he can clearly afford it. For the rest of us who do not have millions in assets, higher taxes are an unaffordable luxury.”

As will be presently demonstrated, this is a strange argument coming from Republicans, who even more than other Americans venerate material wealth and those who attain it. But first, let’s fill you in on the back story here, which could explain why the Dubie campaign might have found itself embarrassed by Shumlin’s release last Friday of a detailed list of his financial holdings.

For weeks, reporters covering the Shumlin-Dubie contest have been bombarded almost daily with emails from the Dubie campaign challenging Shumlin to “tell Vermonters where he has business, property and other investments.” Not very subtly, the emails suggested that Shumlin was holding off on releasing the information because he had something to hide.

“Vermonters have a right to know where his financial interests lie and who Peter Shumlin is beholden to,” campaign manager Bliss said on September 10 (though Vermonters who speak English would say they had a right to know to whom Shumlin is beholden). “The question must be asked – what is he hiding?”

A question Bliss repeated September 18: “Again, we ask, what is he hiding?”

The reporters who received these missives did nothing about them for the simple reason that they were not news. No law requires candidates to disclose their personal finances, and Shumlin was “late” doing so only according to the Dubie campaign, whose authority to set these standards has not been universally recognized.

Not that the Dubie camp didn’t have a point here. Most candidates make their financial info public, and Dubie had done so months ago. Shumlin did keep delaying, missing at least two self-created deadlines. Had he delayed much longer, reporters would have written stories wondering why, and at least raising the possibility that he had something to hide. At that point, they probably would have quoted the Dubie emails, which would then be considered news, rather than just the fulminations of the opposing campaign.

But now, Shumlin has released his personal financial information in a manner that seems to answer the question of what he has been hiding: nothing. This could explain the petulance of the Dubie campaign’s reaction, the gist of which was – well, maybe he didn’t have anything to hide, but he’s too rich to be governor.

Wait a minute. Aren’t these the same people who two years ago were urging everyone to vote for John McCain, who is substantially richer than Shumlin? Granted, consistency is not the hallmark of either political party, and the revelation of Shumlin’s wealth does provide Republicans with the opportunity to make the case that the Democratic nominee is too rich to understand the bill-paying problems of the average Joe and Jane.

But along this path dangers loom for Dubie. First of all, neither here nor elsewhere is there anything unusual about a rich governor. Shumlin is less rich than many a past and/or present governor of other states (the Rockefellers, Nelson and Winthrop, of, respectively, New York and Arkansas;  the Romneys, George of Michigan and Mitt of Massachusetts; Schwarzenegger of California; Baxter of Maine; Bush of Texas), and probably less rich than some past governors of Vermont. At least one of the Proctors was no doubt richer in real (if not nominal) wealth. So it isn’t as though the idea of a rich governor is likely to shock the voters.

Besides, this is America, where we are all taught that getting rich is admirable. So universally held is this value that even those who claim to disdain it, don’t. Just think of all the folks raking in big bucks writing books and delivering speeches about the delights of living simply.

But the Americans who most enthusiastically venerate wealth and the wealthy are Republicans. The successful entrepreneur, the corporate executive, the banker, the developer — these are the people Republicans consider role models. For a Republican to criticize a candidate because he has made a lot of money is rampant hypocrisy.

Furthermore, from the evidence before us, unlike McCain, who got very rich by marrying a very rich woman, Shumlin got rich in what used to be the old-fashioned way: he earned it. Shumlin and his brother inherited a moderately successful business from their parents and made it more successful. With money from the business,  Shumlin invested in rental properties and blue-chip stocks.

Precisely as conservative, business-oriented, and (largely) Republican teachers, preachers, and assorted busybodies advise.

Or to put it another way, instead of just using his money for current consumption and indulgence, Shumlin, like an old-fashioned Vermonter, deferred instant gratification to invest for his and his family’s future. Very prudent. Very thrifty. Very Republican.

To Shumlin’s credit, he didn’t defer all gratification forever. Among his reported assets are a vacation home in Canada (worth $223,200), a boat ($28,000), and a vintage 1964 Porsche ($45,000). Pleasures the average guy can’t afford, but he couldn’t afford FDR’s or JFK’s sailboats either, which didn’t seem to bother anyone.

There remains that argument in Bliss’s email about how Shumlin “does not object to paying more in taxes, as he can clearly afford it,” whereas for most Vermonters, “higher taxes are an unaffordable luxury.”

Note the clever, if not entirely honest, assumption that Shumlin plans to raise taxes despite his insistence that he does not. But this is the Dubie campaign’s mantra, and perhaps its last hope – to keep insisting that Shumlin will raise taxes, evidence or lack thereof notwithstanding.

It might work, and now that everyone knows Shumlin could more easily afford to pay higher taxes, the argument could gain some traction. Here, too, though, there are some dangers for Dubie in making this case.

Because while the record shows that Shumlin has voted sometimes to raise taxes and sometimes to reduce them, he has always voted to make the tax system more progressive, a system in which richer people pay a larger percentage of their wealth in taxes.

In other words, Shumlin has always been in favor of a tax policy which would mean higher taxes for him.

Yup, he can afford it. But against the backdrop of thousands of folks richer than he complaining about a possible return to the tax rates they paid in 2000, the guy who doesn’t hesitate to raise his own taxes because he thinks it’s the right thing to do doesn’t look bad.

Shumlin is open to all kinds of legitimate criticism – about his policies, his voting record, his legislative leadership. Or perhaps even about his wealth, if the criticism comes from a radical leftist. But when Republicans take aim at this particular jugular, they risk a self-inflicted wound.

To paraphrase Cole Porter, Mr. News Guy regrets he’s been unable to post for today. Madam.

And you, too, Sir.

For reasons less interesting than those which compelled Miss Otis to cancel lunch. But with the same results.

Come back Monday.