One more look back at the election before proceeding to matters of greater substance.

Start with this surprising statistic: fewer Vermonters voted last week than in the last mid-term election of 2006.

Sounds peculiar, doesn’t it?. That one was a runaway, with incumbent Republican  Gov. Jim Douglas whomping Democrat Scudder Parker  by 56-to-41 percent.  Then-Congressman Bernie Sanders won the open U.S. Senate seat by an even wider margin. Peter Welch’s victory over Martha Rainville for the House seat Sanders was vacating wasn’t quite as huge. But  53-to-44 percent isn’t exactly close, either. Well before election day, few doubted who the winners would be.

But 262,524 Vermonters went to the polls, roughly 20,000 more than the number turning out for this year’s neck-and-neck race to choose the first new governor in eight years.

This year’s final tally is neither official nor complete. According to the web site of WCAX-TV (Channel 3), which had by far the best vote-counting operation of the night, with 99.9 percent of the vote in, 241,697 votes had been cast for governor. Unlike the official count of 2006, that total does not include write-ins. But write-ins plus that last tenth of a percent are not likely to add more than a few hundred votes to the total.

Bernie Sanders is both more polarizing and more fun than most politicians, which might have boosted turnout. And until the last week or so, the Welch-Rainville race seemed kind of close. But neither of those factors, nor the two combined, seem sufficient to explain why turnout was higher for those romps than for this year’s nail-biter. The question deserves further examination.

But first a digression. It is high time that Vermont politicians and Vermont news organizations – both print and on-air – stopped bragging about the state having voter turnout rates in the 70-to-75 percent range. That may be the percentage of registered voters who came to the polls last Tuesday. But the standard measurement for voter turnout is the percentage of eligible voters, meaning citizens who are at least 18 years old.

Thus in 2,000, the year of the last Census, there were 461, 248 Vermonters who were over 18. But about 10,000 were non-citizens or otherwise ineligible to vote (though this state does not disenfranchise inmates or ex-convicts). That left 451,982 Vermonters eligible to vote, of whom 63.1 percent did cast ballots in that close presidential election.

Last year, according to the latest Census Bureau estimates, there were 671,760 people in the state, of whom 20.3 percent, or 136,213, were under 18. That left 535,547 Vermonters of voting age.

The 2000 count is from the “actual enumeration,” as the Constitution requires, while the 2009 statistics are a Census Bureau estimate The estimate, as it turns out, might be more accurate but it did not count non-citizens. Considering the immigration of the last several years, there are probably many more non-citizens in the state than there were in 2000.

But just for the purposes of discussion, assume there were twice as many. That would leave roughly 516,000 eligible voters in the state, making this year’s turnout about 47 percent. That’s still higher than most states, but not that impressive.

OK, let’s return to the question of why this year’s turnout was relatively low. Obviously, we are in the realm of conjecture here (even more than in the process of comparing not-totally-comparable statistics), but here are two theories: Early voting, which increases every year and seems to depress turnout in more places than not; or “negative” ads.

The quotation marks are there because, while acknowledging that this is the widely used term for dishonest, trivial, misleading political commercials, what is really deplorable about these commercials is that they are dishonest, trivial, and misleading. There is nothing at all wrong with a candidate being “negative” about his or her opponent as long as the negative message is true and relevant.

‘True,’ in this case, means what it means. ‘Relevant’ means that the commercial be about an actual policy position of the candidate – or in some cases, a blatant act of personal dishonor – not a distorted interpretation of some long-ago vote to refer a bill to committee, or the revelation that the candidate once went to dinner with an unlikable fellow.

This year’s campaign in Vermont had plenty of false and irrelevant ads (though no one seems to have sunk quite as far as the dinner-date theme), and plenty of analysis that the tone of the advertising hurt Republican candidate Brian Dubie, whose ads were criticized even by some Republicans.

It may have hurt him because it undercut his major political strength – his image as a nice fellow. But it also may have been one factor holding down the turnout.

The political scientists disagree here, with some pooh-poohing the assertion that many voters are so turned off by nasty campaigns that they decide to stay home. But in some campaigns, the most contentious mud-slinging has been followed by the most meager turnouts, and if the cause and effect is not provable, neither can it be ruled out.

If that happened here this year, Dubie might not have done any better had he chosen a different strategy. The people who stay home out of disgust with the tone of campaigns tend to be middle-of-the-road voters, and in most of the country, more middle-of-the-roaders vote Democratic, if they vote. If that’s true here, Dubie might have lost by a larger margin had he run a higher-toned campaign.

And in conclusion, a brief word about the national results.

A big Republican victory. A meaningful Republican victory, the significance of which should not be minimized.

Or maximized. Here is what politicians learn every time their party wins big.

No, scratch that. Here is what politicians fail to learn every time their party wins big.

The winning big does not mean the people agree with you.

At best, it means that on that day, those voters who voted (in the off-year, always less than half the eligible electorate and about two-thirds of those who will vote next time) agreed with you marginally (or perhaps minimally) more than they agreed with the other party.

More likely, all it means, especially when the out-of-power party wins big, is that the voters are dissatisfied, and that voting for you, you being “the other guys” was the only way they could express that dissatisfaction.

If you fool yourself into thinking it means any more than this, you’ll be….just like all who went before you.

First, the announcement:  A final decision will not be made for another week or so, but this web site is probably in its final days.

The election is over, the year is coming to an end, and so, most likely, is the News Guy.

It has been fun. It may have done some good. But with the election over, the year coming to an end, perhaps it is time to go.

A few weeks ago, the proprietor of this site woke up and found himself 70. No problem. There is but one alternative to getting older, and as long as most systems are functioning adequately, getting older is the preferred option.

But it is a reminder that if one is going to do something different, one had best get to it. Being the News Guy isn’t all that different from previous activities.

It isn’t much less time-and-effort consuming, either, and at least in the old days, the time and effort was compensated for with…compensation. At best, this web site breaks even. Happily, under the present circumstances, profit is not necessary. But neither is expending all that time and effort, enhancing the appeal of either (a) spending the time and effort at something potentially remunerative; or (b) not spending the time and effort at all.

Because a few interesting subjects have been put on hold during the election campaign, the News Guy will continue for another couple of weeks. But that’s probably it.

Now to the analysis. Last Friday’s post (The Big Day Dawneth) pointed out that the “downside” of Brian Dubie being governor would have been the constant (and worse! Incorrect) repetition of the mantra about Vermont’s economy being in such bad shape.

But there would have been an upside to a Dubie governorship, too, and one that might have transcended Vermont. That’s because Dubie – his anti-abortion stance and some attacks from the hard-line left to the contrary notwithstanding – is a politician of the center-right.

For instance, he was one of the few candidates in either party, anywhere this year to praise the new health care law. No Tea Partier, he campaigned for tax cuts and budget restraint, but not for decimating or dismantling government. According to office-holders in both parties, he has sometimes shown more flexibility than Gov. Jim Douglas in negotiating with lawmakers and officials.

Some critics argue that political expediency forced Dubie to try to come across as more moderate than he really is, that if he were not running in (sort of) left-leaning Vermont, he would have shown his true, farther-right, colors.

Maybe, but it makes no difference. He was running in Vermont. Had he won, he would have been governor of Vermont, and whatever private agenda he might have had, his would have been a center-right governorship, which is by no means the worst kind of governorship to have.

Especially now, where the center-right is endangered in Vermont and all but extinct elsewhere. The most prominent center-right office-holder in the country, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, is leaving office in a few weeks. With a few exceptions, the Republicans of the impending 112^th Congress can not be described as center-right politicians.

In Vermont, it is not clear whether leading Republicans have quite grasped what the Dubie defeat means for their party. Political fortunes are (in the words of a great poet) “constantly fickle,” so the GOP could rebound quickly. But it’s hard to see how. The party holds fewer than a third of the seats in the Houses, barely over a third in the Senate, and could not find credible candidates to run for either the U.S. Senate or Congress.

‘Credible,’ in this context, means ‘center-right’, the only kind of Republican who can win statewide elections in Vermont. The fact that no center-right Republican made any effort to take on Sen. Patrick Leahy or Rep. Peter Welch – even knowingly playing the sacrificial lamb role to build up some party cred for a winnable race in the future – speaks volumes about the poor prospects for the GOP in the state.

Yes, there are Lt. Gov-elect Phil Scott and re-elected Auditor Tom Salmon. But Salmon has, so far, painted himself farther right as he apparently prepares to challenge Sen. Bernie Sanders in 2012, an uphill battle to say the least. Scott is center-right, and right now seems to be the Vermont Republican Party’s best hope.

But it isn’t easy being lieutenant governor when the top guy is from the other party. It will not be in Gov. Peter Shumlin’s interest to give Scott much opportunity to look good, and the lite gov really has no official duties.

Well, presiding over the Senate, but with the Senate 20-8 Democratic, the presiding of a Republican will be largely ceremonial.

Had Dubie won, he might have helped revive the moderate wing of the Vermont GOP. He might also have been one of only a handful of Republican center-right governors in America (there are a few Democrats who fit that description), along with Mitch Daniels of Indiana and Terry Branstad of Iowa.

And the country needs center-right office-holders. For at least two reasons, even liberals ought to be glad that center-right politicians survive, and sometimes win. First, even when they are wrong, center-right officials keep the center-left from getting carried away with itself, as it is wont to do. Second, center-right politicians are not always wrong.  Because there are so many genuine needs, governments do have an incentive to keep spending money, sometimes more than is wise. Here moderate conservatives, wary of spending but not hostile to government, help restrain excesses.

Alas, other excesses on the right have all but obliterated moderate conservatism. Explaining how and why is beyond the scope of this post, but two examples should encapsulate the problem. Nationally, the conservative mainstream refuses to accept two facts: (1) cutting taxes means governments will have less (not more; less) money to spend; (2) the world is getting warmer, in part because of human activity. A political movement that willfully blinds itself to reason can accomplish nothing more than winning some elections. Winning elections is indeed one purpose of a political movement, and an important one. But so is rational governing.

Those are two Kool-Aid cocktails Brian Dubie did not drink.

Actually, Vermont may have a center-right governor next year – Peter Shumlin. Either winner would have faced the same immediate dilemma: expected revenues next year will be some $110 million lower than anticipated revenue. Though not as ideologically – even viscerally – hostile to higher taxes as Dubie, Shumlin doesn’t want to raise taxes either. It would be bad politics, and bad economic policy (though not as bad as laying off more state workers).

Like a center-right politician, Shumlin is going to propose budget cuts, possibly deep cuts, possibly deeper than many Democratic legislators can accept. The next session could be a tough one for Democrats. Maybe Vermont Republicans will enjoy themselves after all.

The Governor-Elect

NOTE: The last two days being essentially a blended blur, consider this an update on the post published this morning (scroll down) which itself was an update of the post published last midnight (scroll down farther).

Tomorrow, a Friday post as usual, which will be either the last or the next-to-last look at the election and its consequences.

So what will governmental/political life be like in Vermont with Peter Shumlin occupying the second floor corner office of the Capitol?

Different.

But maybe not all that different.

To understand how different, let’s start by assessing the Jim Douglas years, now coming to an end:

On the asset side: Eight years without scandal, and pretty much without turbulence. Douglas is not a rabble-rouser. Oh, he toyed with riling up the folks after that controversial sentencing of a sex offender, and then the awful murder of that young girl in Randolph. But he never felt comfortable doing it. Douglas is an even-keel kind of guy, a desirable quality in a governor. He kept the books balanced and the credit rating high. Unlike some current and recent governors of both parties, in states ranging from New York to Alaska, he did not embarrass his constituents.

On the debit side: For purposes of this discussion, we will glide over that little problem of coming down on the wrong side of the civil rights issue of the decade. Fortunately for Douglas, the Legislature overrode his veto of the marriage law. Otherwise, that’s how the world would have remembered him; this way, the veto will be only a footnote.

But that’s a one-of-a-kind issue, which does not help illustrate how things will be different under Shumlin. More to the point, under Douglas, Vermont spun its wheels for eight years. It isn’t that the governor did anything wrong; it’s that he didn’t do much.

Not the worst choice. Perhaps a governor who doesn’t try to do enough is better than one who tries to do too much. Meanwhile, though, opportunities are squandered, potentially productive paths never trod. Prudence is a virtue that can be overdone.

Judging from his campaign, Shumlin will be a far more adventuresome governor. He won’t just seize opportunities; he’ll try to create them, to explore new paths and try new plans in health care, energy, economic development, and more.

There is risk here, of course; politicians who plunge down paths never before trod are often forced to beat a hasty retreat with a face full of gorses. Shumlin is not a fool and probably knows this, but for now the point is not to assess the wisdom of his attitude, but simply to note it. For better and/or for worse, state government in Vermont will be more daring than it has been.

On most matters, of course, the new governor can only be as daring as the Legislature will allow. The big difference here will be that the new Governor is a Democrat, the party that will continue to dominate both houses of the Legislature.

Already Wednesday there were expressions of joy from Democrats and gloom from Republicans that the new governor could get the Legislature to accept whatever he proposed.

Maybe for a few weeks. The Legislature as a body has its own interests, ambitions, and fears. So do each of its members. Not a Republican, not a wise guy commentator, but a senior Democrat in the Legislature noted yesterday that at some point his branch of government would “begin to fight with the Governor.” It will almost surely happen, because it almost always does.

At that point, the otherwise irrelevant Republicans in the House and Senate might get some attention. Though a few races remain too close to call, the outlook as of Wednesday morning is that there might be two more Republicans in the House and one more in the Senate than there are now.

That will make the GOP delegation slightly more numerous but also more insignificant. For the last two years, the Republicans in the House comprised the nucleus of a possible veto-sustaining one third plus one. There weren’t quite 50 of them, but almost, and there was always the chance that they could attract an independent or even a maverick Democrat to uphold a Douglas veto.

On two celebrated occasions last year, they couldn’t manage that (though on one of them – the aforementioned marriage bill, several Republicans supported the override), but the possibility lent the GOP House minority a bit of oomph.

No longer. Even if Shumlin and the Democratic leaders of the Legislature have their differences, veto threats, much less actual vetoes, are most unlikely. Still, there will be enough Republicans (at least 48 in the House, seven or eight in the Senate) to engage in some deal-making under certain circumstances.

The weakness of the Republican Party in Vermont – in sharp contrast to its resurgence in so much of the country on Tuesday – deserves a closer look. Had Dubie won, his governorship might have offered some choice and opportunity to Republicans elsewhere. Not that Dubie was likely to be a presidential contender, but the election of a moderate Republican, even from a small state, might have provided a bit of ballast to an increasingly monochromatic party.

Tune in tomorrow for that closer look. But before leaving today, one more note:

Among the Democrats re-elected Tuesday was freshman Rep. Robert South of St. Johnsbury. Last year, when South voted to support the marriage bill override, the conventional wisdom in the Northeast Kingdom predicted he’d pay for the vote on election day.

He didn’t. In fact, the number of lawmakers defeated because they voted for same sex marriage, which was barely mentioned on the campaign trail, appears to be exactly zero. At least in this state, that argument is over.