But first, everyone, especially those who read Friday’s post before it was corrected at about 10AM, is urged to scroll down to read the special Sunday post explaining what went awry, and why,

Now let’s deal with the forest-trees problem in re: the Democratic primary for governor and perceptions thereof.

Whether some people are so carefully examining the trees that they can’t see the forest, or vice versa, makes no difference. In general, observers have been so carefully scrutinizing the numbers (with five candidates, one could win with less than 30 percent of the vote, etc.) that no one has noted that the contest has taken form.

Racine

Not over strategy or tactics, either. Over policy. One of these guys wants to raise taxes.

Somehow, because the “narrative” has been created and set in stone that the five Democrats don’t disagree on much, the emergence of a real disagreement has been all but ignored.

Not that State Sen. Doug Racine of Richmond has come out and proclaimed in so many words, “I want to raise your taxes.” Nowhere on the home page of his campaign web site does the word “taxes” appear.

But he isn’t being cute about it, either. What is prominent on his web site is a link to his November 20 appearance on Vermont Public Radio’s Vermont Edition, where Racine clearly said he thinks the answer to the state’s budget shortfall has to include some new revenue.

That means higher taxes.

On that program, and again in an interview last week, Racine said his policy was modeled on what Gov. Richard Snelling, a Republican, did when the state faced a similar revenue shortage in 1991. Working with a Democratic Legislature, Snelling did cut spending. But to ease the impact of spending cuts, especially on the poor and the ill, Snelling and lawmakers agreed on temporary tax increases.

“(Snelling) went to Vermonters and said, look we’re all in this together, we’re all going to feel a little bit of the pain,” Racine said on the radio, calling for the same “balanced approach” to be used next year, when the state faces a revenue-spending gap of at least $90 million.

Racine said he, too, would cut spending, would “try to find efficiencies in state government, and think about using the rainy day funds.” But some new revenue would probably be necessary, he said.

How much and how it would be raised he has not yet figured out, he said, adding that he and some campaign aides were trying to work out the details of a specific proposal.

The other four Democrats running for governor haven’t absolutely ruled out calling for any new or higher taxes. But neither have they come close to suggesting any such thing. In a recent article on “the state budget problem” on her web site, State Sen. Susan Bartlett of Hyde Park spoke only of the need for cutting the General Fund budget and holding down school costs. Senate President Peter Shumlin of Putney announced his candidacy last month saying, “Vermonters cannot  bear more of a tax burden.”

(Although he said much the same thing earlier this year, but then put together a budget package that included higher taxes for upper-income earners; Racine and Bartlett voted for it).

The other two candidates, Secretary of State Deb Markowitz and former State Sen. Matt Dunne of White River Junction have said little about how they would deal with the impending budget problem.

So Racine is taking a gamble. Most people don’t want to pay higher taxes. As Racine himself said, the Democratic field is strong. Most Democratic voters would be reasonably happy with any of the five. So why wouldn’t most primary voters choose one of the four who doesn’t call for higher taxes, even if they’re advertised as temporary?

(The 1991 tax increases were rescinded in 1993 as scheduled, though the sales tax was later raised back to five cents; it is now six cents).

“Running for office is a gamble,” Racine said. “I’ve run for office before. Maybe it’s a function of my age. I’m telling people what I think.”

But just looking at the politics of the situation, maybe it’s not such a foolish gamble. One way to carve out a plurality victory in a five-person Democratic primary is to appeal to the social welfare liberals – call them the “One Vermont” constituency, after the group that formed last year to fight cuts in programs that help the poor.

These voters are likely to make up a heavy share of the Democratic primary electorate, and if they unite behind one contender, that candidate would probably win the primary.

Traditional political strategy calls for the candidate then quickly to trim back to the center for the general election. But as Racine acknowledged, in this case, that would be close to impossible.

“If you’re out there. It’s really hard to trim back because you’re not trimming, you’re contradicting,” he said. “It would hard for me the day after the primary to say I didn’t mean everything I just said.”

So should he win the primary, the Republicans, presumably led by Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie, would undoubtedly – and credibly – assail him as a “tax and spend liberal.”

Not as deadly a label in Vermont as in many other states. But still a potential problem.

On the other hand, before the election – even before the primary — the Legislature, including three of the candidates, is going to have to pass a balanced budget for the state. Voting to cut programs for, say, poor, sick, children, might not be any more politically palatable than voting for a temporary tax hike.

But that’s for later. For now, the Democratic race has a structure. It even has an issue. And an obvious question for the other four candidates: Without any new revenue at all, exactly (and that means exactly, with numbers) how would you balance the budget?

Lots of political developments since we last dealt with them here. So let’s deal with them here.

Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie is running for governor, so Republicans will not have a primary, which they hate.

Democrats, on the other hand, must love primaries because they have so many of them. To their great joy, they will have one for governor.

Lite Gov Dubie

Great joy (for them) might not be the consequence.

(Republicans might have a primary for lieutenant governor, but that doesn’t count because, as has been noted here before, nobody cares who is lieutenant governor because nobody knows what the lieutenant governor does because the lieutenant governor doesn’t do anything).

Though assured of nomination, Dubie has to be considered an underdog for election because he is: (a) a Republican; and (b) a social issue conservative in a socially liberal state, and specifically an opponent of abortion rights in a state where most voters favor them.

That last factor might not be as big a problem as some liberals hope. The swing voters here, pro-choice Republican and independent women (and some men) are not likely to vote against Dubie over the abortion issue, being aware that he can do nothing to change the status quo. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, a woman’s right to an abortion is Constitutionally protected. The odds of the Court reversing itself in the next few years are roughly zero, making any governor’s views on the subject roughly moot.

Some pro-choice activists, to be sure, disagree, arguing that having an anti-choice gov alters the vibes. These activists are, however: (a) Democrats who won’t vote for Dubie anyway; and (b) wrong.

All the Democratic candidates agree on being pro-choice. In fact, all the Democratic candidates seem agree on just about everything, making it difficult to tell them apart without a scorecard.

At some point, the News Guy will provide that scorecard. For now, a general overview of the field is all that is needed.

This exercise will proceed on the assumption that there will be five Democratic candidates even though: (a) Right now there are three; and (b) it’s a good bet that there will end up only being three (though perhaps not the same three) or four.

The (sort of) declared three are State Senators Doug Racine of Richmond and Susan Bartlett of Hyde Park and Secretary of State Deborah Markowitz. The all-but-declared is Senate President Peter Shumlin of Putney. The fifth possibility is former State Senator Matt Dunne of Hartland.

The reason all five might not stay in the race can be summed up in one word: Money. Even in Vermont, candidates for governor need a goodly amount of it, there are only so many Democratic contributors in and out of state, and what with the recession and all, they have less to give.

Making it somewhere between uncertain and unlikely that all five will raise enough to be viable.

Markowitz and Racine have already raised enough to compete, and considering his leadership position, Shumlin might well be able to match them.

The other two? Bartlett reported no fund-raising when Markowitz and Racine did in July, but she does have a spiffy web site which, among other things, offers supporters a click to contribute. No sign of any Dunne fund-raising, and he seems not to have a campaign web site.

Besides, who is he? Well, he’s reportedly a charming and impressive fellow. But he’s a two-term state senator who has run one statewide campaign, in 2006.

He lost.

To Dubie.

Which might prompt a typical Democratic primary voter to wonder why he could beat him this time.

To be fair to Dunne, Shumlin once lost to Dubie, too. That was when Dubie first got elected, in 2002. But Shumlin had an excuse of sorts. That was a three-way race, with Progressive candidate Anthony Pollina taking enough votes away from Shumlin to elect Dubie.

Could that happen again? It could, but so far Pollina shows no signs of being interested in another statewide race (he has not actually run every two years since the Pleistocene Era; it just seems that way). No other Progressive is likely to get more than a few percent of the vote. To be sure, in a very close race, a few percent could be decisive, but without Pollina, the Progs are less of a threat.

Who’s the Dem front-runner now? Well, Markowitz has raised the most money. But Racine has a better web site and has been more aggressive. His statement after Dubie revealed that he was running, calling him “part of the Administration that has failed for seven years to deliver on the promise of new jobs,” was by far the most vigorous and politically astute coming from the Democratic contenders.

For now, call him the front-runner.

There’s one other problem facing “the other” Democrats, the ones who have not entered the race and/or raised much money, whichever two (or three?) they turn out to be. Since there’s not much disagreement on issues, there’s not much incentive for a Democratic voter to take a flyer on an underdog. It isn’t as though there’s some issue or crisis that a Matt Dunne, say, is uniquely or even unusually qualified to meet.

That’s because there is no crisis. It’s important to remember this because candidates and ideologues always have a vested interest in proclaiming one.

Not that everything is peachy keen. It is not, but the only problems that might reasonably be considered crises—the economy, climate change – are thoroughly national in character. There is nothing peculiar to Vermont about either of them. Sure, the state has a fiscal mess. But so do about 45 others, most of them worse than Vermont’s.

There is one other point to make and one more question to ask. The point is that it’s early, time for a Dunne or Bartlett to figure out how to squeeze up the middle to victory in a multi-candidate race. Time, also, for a couple of those Democrats to get together and create a de facto Gov-Lite Gov ticket.

It stops being early (herewith the pseudo-official proclamation) January 2. It starts being late March 1.

The question is: Why does anyone want to be governor? By all indications, the next governor will have to spend his/her first term raising taxes and/or cutting programs. That’s no fun. Worse, it’s a prescription for being a one-termer.

Third?

Jim Douglas finished third?

Take a look. There it is in black and white, In the latest political contribution reporting period, Douglas’s campaign raised $91,203.

That’s less than the $102,416 raised by State Sen. Doug Racine, who is one of the Democrats who wants Douglas’s job. It’s a lot less than the $190,737 raised by Secretary of State Deb Markowitz, who is another one.

Enough numbers. Numbers are booooring. In and of themselves, campaign finance reports are booooring. But sometimes there are stories behind the numbers. Sometimes there are even mysteries, which of course are not boring. This is one of those times.

We have here two questions and two mysteries. The questions apply to the Democrats, and we will get to them presently. The second mystery is really not so much a mystery as a secret, the secret of why campaign money is so important. It is a secret kept though the answer is in plain sight, but never discussed by the insiders, including political journalists.

We’ll defy the fraternity rules here, but thanks to the other mystery, it looks as though we won’t have time or space to do it today. So this will be a two-part exercise, to be completed Monday.

OK, let’s get to that first mystery: Does the (relatively) paltry Douglas report indicate that the governor might not seek a fifth term next year?

Probably not. It’s early. So early that there is still time for State Sen. Susan Bartlett, who says she is running but has raised no money, to become competitive. So early there is time for State Sen. Peter Shumlin, who has not yet said he is running, to announce his candidacy and get into the game.

So certainly there is plenty of time for Douglas to raise enough money by next year at this time to give him a huge financial advantage over whichever Democrat wins the primary (which won’t even have happened a year from now; it’s scheduled for September 14, 2010).

Douglas himself noted that the Democrats need more money earlier than he does, because Racine and Markowitz (at least) will be running against each other in that primary, while Douglas will be unopposed for the Republican nomination.

“They now have more money to beat each other up with,” he told the Barre/Montpelier Times-Argus.

So let’s beware the danger of over-interpretation. The danger in reading the tea leaves is that they may contain no message at all.

And yet….and yet…something seems out of kilter here. There is no doubt that had he really wanted to, Douglas could have raised much more. He has two overwhelming advantages: He’s the incumbent and he’s a Republican. Incumbents can always raise more money, and so can Republicans because, even in overwhelmingly Democratic Vermont, most of the overwhelmingly rich people are Republicans.

Conventional political wisdom holds that you take every advantage you can. Coming in with the biggest financial report gives you a few days of news coverage as being the top dog. Douglas could have raised $250,000 or even more, effectively sending a message to the Democrats saying ‘all right, children, you’ve had your fun. Here’s how we play in the big time.’

Not only is this conventional political wisdom; it is Jim Douglas’s method of operation. As a candidate, Douglas has been relentless. Even when he’s been 20 points ahead, his campaigns have attacked his opponents. Just think of the attack (deserved but unnecessary) on Gaye Symington last year after she refused to disclose her family’s financial information. For Douglas, passing up a chance to make himself look stronger than his opponents seems almost out of character.

But pass it up he did. It isn’t just that he didn’t raise that much money; it’s that he reported only 101 contributors. It’s as if he wasn’t trying.

So far, Douglas has not had a good year. Until this past spring, he had suffered but one political defeat in his life, failing to unseat U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy in 1992. Since then he’s won every election he’s contested. As governor, he never got everything he wanted, but for six years he could block everything he didn’t want.

Now, after two of his vetoes were over-ridden, he faces a Legislature which not only has more Democrats, but shrewder and more aggressive Democratic leadership. He is also facing at least two more years of being governor when the state has no money. Generally speaking, being governor is fun when the governor can cut taxes and increase spending. Doing the opposite is clearly less fun.

It would hardly be surprising, then, if at least every now and then the words, “Why do I need this?” ran through this governor’s head. He’s just starting his year as head of the National Governor’s Association. Not a bad stage from which to take a final bow.

On the other hand, he’s only 58. And of the three candidates, only Douglas has spent money on actual politics (as opposed to logistics and organization) all year. Last month, according to his financial filing, he paid Public Opinion Strategies, the prominent Republican polling firm in Alexandria, Va., (creator of the famed “Harry and Louise “ads against the Clinton health care plan) $8,000 for “survey research.”

He’s also raising money. The same day he paid New Hampshire fundraising firm SCM Associations $4,000 for “fund-raising expenses.”

So he’s in the game. For now.

As to those questions about the Democrats. The first question is whether both Markowitz and Racine raised enough. They answer is yes. Obviously, raising more is better, but she didn’t raise that much more. Not enough to establish herself as a clear front-runner.

She has more cash on hand right now — $128,635 to roughly $82,000. But Racine, who didn’t start serious fund-raising until after the Legislative session ended, has enough in the bank, and has been raising money at a fast enough clip to be competitive.

But Markowitz had many more donors, almost all of whom can make more contributions to her campaign.

Another question is whether Markowitz was smart in trumpeting her fund-raising success on the liberal blog Daily Kos.

“I wanted to post a diary here to introduce myself and to announce the spectacular results of our first filing,” she wrote, before giving the web site’s millions of readers her campaign email address.

Smart, because it could help her raise more money and make her appear the established liberal favorite?

Or not-so-smart because it gives opponents, especially the Republicans, ammunition to attack her as being too far to the left, even for Vermont?

Actually, Daily Kos proprietor Marcos Moulitsas is less an ideologue than a pragmatic Democrat. But the web site’s strong stance against the Iraq war has linked it in the public mind with farther-left groups such as Moveon.org. Not that being strongly anti-war is a political liability in this state. But the blogosphere’s vibes have their negative connotations.

The biggest question of all, needless to say, is whether bringing in the most money assures ending up with the nomination, and then with winning the office. So far, Racine has done better than Markowitz at getting endorsements from legislators and other top Democrats. He has had the energy. She has the money.

Which is more important? Why? Why won’t anybody talk about it? Why is the importance of campaign money increasing in Vermont?

Tune in Monday.