Has everybody been keeping up with the campaign websites?

You don’t know what you’re missing.

First, of all, printed out, they are perfect cures for insomnia. Just try to stay awake reading prose such as “Supporting and sustaining Vermont’s businesses will be the first step in an eonomic development strategy” (Deb Markowitz, and, yes, that’s cut and pasted; her web site really says ‘eonmic’) or “I devoted my time to bringing entrepreneurs and business leaders together to develop economic development legislation that would create jobs” (Matt Dunne).

What is remarkable about the candidate web sites is not that they are filled by writing that recalls the late novelist Nelson Algren’s term “dead stick prose,” but that most of them read as though they were written by the very same practitioner of dead stick prose. It seems highly unlikely that there could be four writers who are quite that bad in exactly the same way.

(Four, not six, because the sort-of exceptions here are Sen. Susan Bartlett’s and Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie’s web sites. When Dubie “speaks” in the first person on his site, he does so in plain if uninspired English. On her site, Bartlett is both breezy and specific).

But today’s post is not primarily a literary critique. It is a plea to Vermont’s voters – and especially to its journalists – to read some of these web sites carefully, to note the (often concealed) specifics in the public policy positions, and to insist that all the candidates flesh out their relatively indistinct proposals with real detail.

Specifically, with dollars and cents detail.

The first job of any governor of any state is to be a prudent steward of that state’s fisc, as the public treasury used to be called. So when a candidate pledges, for instance, to take steps to improve the state’s economy, somebody ought to ask that candidate just how much those steps will cost, and just how the candidate intends to pay that cost.

And any candidate who responds, “by making government more efficient,” or words to that effect, is not qualified to be governor.

For instance, most of the Democrats say they will “expand broadband to every last mile by 2012” (Sen. Peter Shumlin on his web site; in his television commercial he says 2013) or “(b)ring the economic development potential of high-speed internet and cell service to all of Vermont’s businesses and to the last mile of every town in Vermont,” (Dunne).

That has to cost money. As Sen. Doug Racine had the gumption to acknowledge, “we cannot rely on the private sector to provide this service.”

Private Internet providers are not going to extend broadband down every little dirt road in every little hamlet unless the state helps pay for it, directly by appropriation or indirectly by giving the companies a tax break.

Either way, that means less money in the ol’ fisc.

(It should be noted here that by and large Racine is the most straightforward candidate when it comes to acknowledging fiscal realities. During the Legislative session, he even suggested a temporary tax increase).

The Democrats also like to talk about “investing.” “In our institutions of higher learning” (Dunne), in “energy efficiency” (Markowitz), in “smart grid and smart metering technology” (Racine), in health care (Racine and Shumlin).

Another word for “investing” is “spending.” It isn’t that the Democrats are being disingenuous here. Those spending proposals are real investments, which may pay benefits in the future. First, though, they cost money.

Even Republican Dubie, who wants to cut taxes and spending, calls for a “strong push to help Vermont students lead the nation in science, math, engineering and technology,” which sounds very much like an investment, or cost as it is sometimes known.

But isn’t it unreasonable to ask these candidates to tell Vermonters just – or at least roughly – what all these proposals will cost and how they will pay for them?

No. Au contraire, as they say just north of here, it’s irresponsible not to ask them. Certainly after August 24 when the Democratic nominee is known, it would be irresponsible not to insist on specifics from that nominee and from Dubie.

In fact — and this is specifically for the political journalists, including this one – it is irresponsible not to ask them for their paperwork. Let’s not take their word for it. When Candidate A says his/her broadband or higher education plan will cost X million bucks, let’s ask how they know. Who’s the high tech or higher ed economist who ran their numbers? Let’s see those numbers (this is especially for news organizations with lots of resources; are you listening Channel 3? The Free Press?) so we can run them past our own experts.

There is here a difference between Dubie and the Dems. Though the Republican, should he win, will propose spending money – every governor does –his campaign centers on his pledge to cut both spending and taxes.

OK, Mr. Lieutenant Governor: Just which programs would you cut or eliminate? Which taxes will you reduce? How much would that cost the state treasury? And precisely how would you offset the revenue loss?

And don’t say, “by reducing waste, fraud, and inefficiency.” As the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan used to note, there is no line item in any government agency budget reading, “waste, fraud and inefficiency.”

Then let’s hope Dubie does not succumb to that national Republican deception of claiming that taxes can be cut without loss to the treasury, that lower taxes will so spur the economy that tax revenue will stay level, maybe even go up.

This is unadulterated garbage, and should be described as such. Lower taxes did not lead to higher revenue under George W. Bush, under Ronald Reagan, or under John F. Kennedy in the 1960s.

Yes, in raw terms, revenues did rise after those presidents cut taxes. But only because the economy grew. Yes, it grew somewhat faster because taxes were cut. But in all those cases, the government would have ended up with more money in the till under the older, higher, rates. The authority here ought to be Gregory Mankiw, the highly regarded economically conservative economist and loyal Republican who was the head of Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors: “Lower tax rates might encourage people to work harder and this extra effort would offset the direct effects of lower tax rates to some extent, but there was no credible evidence that work effort would rise by enough to cause tax revenues to rise in the face of lower tax rates.”

The Reagan tax cuts, Mankiw wrote, “did not cause tax revenues to rise,” and he called those who predicted that they would “charlatans and cranks.”

Or, in this context, unqualified to be governor.

Though money and politics is the subject of the bulk of today’s post, those filings will not be discussed here Friday. As regular readers know, the intent of this web site is to cover the stories nobody else is covering, and almost every major news organization will send a reporter to the Secretary of State’s office Thursday afternoon to get the info.

All those reporters can read and do arithmetic at least as fast and as accurately as this one, who is happy to defer to them.

Sen. Bartlett: Enough money?

This one will, however, get copies of the filings, look them over, and discuss them Monday if there is anything worth discussing that the other folks have not already covered.

Speaking of politics and money, a housekeeping note and an appeal. The News Guy, who has a life outside these postings, is going to take some time off in August (exact dates to be determined). Aside from the time off, many of the 39 days and (roughly) ten posts between now and the August 24 primary will be devoted to covering that primary, primarily the contest for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.

This means going to campaign events, which in turn means driving around the state, which in turn means buying gasoline and occasional lunches and possibly a motel room or two if an important event ends too late and too far away to drive home safely.

It means, in short, spending money, and despite those advertisements you see over on the right, the News Guy’s major source of revenue is reader donations. Readers who have not donated are urged to do so.

Just Look over on the right under “Pages,” where it says, “Donate. It’s easy.

Speaking of politics, money, and news coverage, kudos to the Burlington Free Press, which, first of all, did not run last week’s very bad Associated Press story about the race for Auditor as if there were two, not three, major candidates. Then on Monday, the Freep had a front page story centering on the other guy, Doug Hoffer, who is challenging State Sen. Ed Flanagan for the Democratic nomination. (The winner will take on Republican incumbent Tom Salmon).

One of the papers that did run the bad AP story, the Brattleboro Reformer, then used the AP’s corrective (but not correction; it didn’t acknowledge the earlier story) about the Democratic primary, and also had a staff-written story about Hoffer.

But the Barre-Montpelier Times-Argus and the (jointly owned) Rutland Herald only appended a semi-correction to a letter to the editor, promising to do better in the future and saying “(T)he Associated Press was in error by not including Doug Hoffer in its article.”

Yeah, but you were in error, too, fellas. Editors ought to know who is running for major statewide office.

Okay, now to those campaign finance reports, even though we don’t yet know who raised how much.

Except that we sort of do.

One may take, as the saying goes, to the bank, that Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie, the only Republican seeking the governorship, will report having raised more than any of the five Democrats. A couple of weeks ago, one of Dubie’s senior campaign staffers mentioned the figure of $800,000. Sure, he could have been bragging. But that would have been foolish. The exact figure will be known to all the world Thursday evening. The smarter move would have been to low-ball the expectation. Dubie has probably raised more than 800 grand.

As to the Democrats, it’s all but certain that Secretary of State Deb Markowitz will report raising more money, and Sen. Susan Bartlett less, than their three competitors. Markowitz’s campaign aides have not thrown around a number, a la the Dubie camp. But they are obviously operating under the assumption that their candidate will lead the money parade as she did in the earlier filing last summer.

Bartlett effectively acknowledged she’d be last, issuing a statement Tuesday afternoon conceding that after the numbers are in the “conventional ‘wisdom’ will be that my candidacy is in last place.”

But Bartlett argued that “there have been many Vermont elections in which the highest spender hasn’t been successful, I’ve won some of those elections and plan to do it again in August.”

Leaving the three guys, Sens. Doug Racine and Peter Shumlin and former Sen. Matt Dunne, perhaps in that order.

Or perhaps not. Dunne will no doubt have the least of the three, but Shumlin has bought television advertising time while Racine has not, perhaps meaning that Shumlin has more money to spend.

Or just that Racine is biding his time and saving his money for later. Amy Shollenberger, his campaign manager, said the campaign was “working on  a paid media strategy for sure,” and exploring “different options.”

Which could mean that the campaign isn’t sure it will be able to afford much TV time.

“We’re running a really grass-roots campaign,” Shollenberger said.  “It’s different from some of the others. We relying on a lot of volunteer help.”

So say officials of all the Democratic campaigns except Markowitz’s.

“The ground game in this race is going to be very important,” said Shumlin Campaign Manager Alex MacLean. “It’s going to be mail, phone calls, and canvassing, because we’re targeting such a small number of people.”

Kevin  O’Holleran of the Dunne camp had a similar message, saying the candidate who “comes in with the most money and is able to buy a whole bunch of TV time isn’t going to be successful. We’re building up more of a grass roots campaign.”

All that could be the denial and/or desperation of losers.

Or, in this case, it might be true.

Because the turnout really is likely to be quite small. Political Scientist Eric Davis suggests no more than 60,000 voters in the Democratic Primary. And the estimates go down from there, down to as low as 30,000.

Just to put this into some context, in 2008, Democratic candidate Gaye Symington got 69,534 votes finishing third in the governor’s race after running one of the most bumbling campaigns ever. Not just ever in Vermont. Ever anywhere. Yes, that was a general election, Still, her total would have to be considered the rock-bottom Democratic vote, a rock-bottom not likely to be reached next month.

If these low estimates turn out to be accurate, reaching the “masses” (even just the Democratic-voting masses) may be less important than mobilizing committed supporters, appealing to two or three socio-political niches, and getting loyal voters to the polls.

It would be kind of like “the old days”(“old” meaning back about 1980) when primary campaigns worried less about TV ads than about “identifying your ones and twos” (committeds and likelies) and arranging for enough high-school seniors and bored housewives to drive them to the polls.

An old-fashioned election. How Vermontish. It’s the political equivalent of eating local food, fixing up vintage houses, wearing fleece vests to dress up. It might work, Susan Bartlett is right. More money does not necessarily lead to victory.

But not enough money necessarily leads to defeat. The Democrats may be about to find out how much is enough.

Now that the Legislative session is semi-officially over, the 2010 campaign for governor has semi-officially begun.

Of course, it semi- semi-officially began in January of 2009 (no, that was not a typo; that was 2009) when Sen. Doug Racine of Richmond said he would run.

But like two of his opponents – Sens. Peter Shumlin of Putney and Susan Bartlett of Hyde Park – Racine was otherwise occupied until May 13, when the Legislature adjourned, but with the proviso that it “reconvene on the ninth day of June, 2010, at ten o’clock in the forenoon if the Governor should fail to approve and sign any bill and should he return it to the house of origin.”

So technically the Legislature remains in session, which created a minor political flap when the campaign of Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie’s, the unchallenged Republican, solicited contributions from lobbyists for an event scheduled before the official adjournment. Realizing its error, the campaign promptly unsolicited.

But technically shmecknically. For all practical purposes, “The Ledge” (a term coined by the late Molly Ivins to describe the version down in Texas, but too good not to be given wider currency) is over, and the attention of the state’s politicians – and its journalists – can shift to the campaign. It has.

It will be a long campaign, and because brevity is a virtue, today’s exercise will focus on just two features, the second of which is an early assessment of how the campaign is going.

It is not going well.

But first, a warning of sorts. Each of the various players in this comedy-drama has his or her own role. The role here is to ride herd. This web site hereby appoints itself a (one of many, it is to be hoped) campaign truth squad. Every word said or written by every candidate or released in his or her name will be examined, be it in a speech, an interview, an advertisement, a web site communication. Misstatement, miscalculation, deception will be exposed.

Mercilessly.

And gleefully. The News Guy is indifferent as to who wins the August 24 Democratic primary or the general election in November. He is hostile – very hostile — to factual error, unsupported assertions, misuse of data, conclusions based on conjecture rather than verifiable truth, cheap shots, meaningless cant, and will take great joy in calling them out.

But not with a petty, “gotcha” attitude. Nits will be left un-picked. Minor errors, inconsistencies, and slips of the tongue during interviews or debates are…well, minor errors, inconsistencies, and slips of the tongue. The point of this exercise is not to catch candidates in the kind of trivial flubs everybody makes in spontaneous speech. It is to stop them from substantively misleading the electorate.

Now, as to this business about the campaign not going well.

OK, it’s early. There’s plenty of time left for improvement. The early signs, though, are not encouraging. Judging from the campaign web sites (which is where most of the activity takes place for now), the candidates seem to be heading toward a campaign which will be: (a) dominated by pabulum; and (b) about nothing.

Or, to say the same thing in different terms, about itself.

In fairness to Vermont politicians, this politics of the self-referential (post-modern politics?) is a nationwide phenomenon. All over the country, races are being won or lost not according to any candidate’s vision of the future or position on substantive issues, but on who ran the less honorable campaign (“He did.” No, he did.”) and whose commercials were more misleading.

The scary, early, signs that Vermont may be headed in that direction came in the flapette between the campaigns of Democrats Matt Dunne and Secretary of State Deb Markowitz following Dunne’s call for all the contenders to reveal their personal financial assets.

Racine agreed. Shumlin called the idea “Montpelier parlor games.” Bartlett said voters are “concerned about their future and the future of Vermont, not the details of my finances.” But the Markowitz campaign launched a counter-attack against Dunne.

“If this was anything more than political posturing Sen. Dunne would have used his 11 years in the legislature to make this Vermont law,” campaign manager Paul Tencher said. “He also would have advised his opponents of his request before holding a press conference.” (all this according to a May 14 story in the Times-Argus).

He did both, shot back Dunne’s campaign manager, Kevin O’Holleran.

Apparently he did. In 1994, Dunne was a major backer (though not the sponsor) of H-830, which would have required the kind of disclosure he now supports. It failed.

On the issue, Dunne would appear to have a strong case. In both politics and government (except for the Legislature) Vermont’s disclosure and transparency requirements are weak. In many states candidates now have to reveal their financial assets. In theory, there is always the possibility that a candidate could hold huge blocks of stock in say, Entergy, or Corrections Corporation of America. If so, voters ought to know that.

But Bartlett is right, too. Voters care about what the candidates plan to do in office, not their portfolios. In her case, she and her husband reported income last year of less than $100,000. Assuming they don’t have the most incompetent financial advisor in captivity, they don’t own enough stock in anything to rise to the conflict-of-interest level. Neither, in all likelihood, do the other contenders.

Yet this is so far what the campaign is about. Whoever thinks it’s about anything else is invited to check the web sites and look for specific proposals or substantive ideas.

Good hunting.

Well, Bartlett may have one, worthy of future consideration. Check it out here. But for the most part, the sites are full of tedious jargon and tired slogans designed only to offend no one. As a result, they also interest no one.

Two items deserve special mention. Dunne’s web site notes that “at age 22,  Matt’s neighbors elected him to the Vermont Legislature,” which is probably not true. Because what it says is that all of Dunne’s neighbors were 22 when they elected him to the legislature, which seems unlikely.

Then there is the latest advertisement on Dubie’s web site. It’s called “Pure Vermont” and manages, in three minutes and 26 seconds, to say almost nothing. But at the end, walking along a lakeshore, Dubie and his wife tell each other they love one another.

It could be along five months.

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.

Deb Markowitz

Ok, the Legislative session is over so it’s time to talk a little politics.

The news, in case you missed it in the Burlington Free Press Monday, is that former Gov. Phil Hoff endorsed State Sen. Doug Racine of Richmond  for governor next year.

Generally, an endorsement guarantees a candidate the vote of the endorser and (maybe) that of his or her spouse. Considering that Hoff hasn’t run statewide for more than 30 years and that  perhaps as much as half the likely Democratic electorate in next year’s primary has only the foggiest notion of who he is, a first reaction would hold that this case fits the general pattern.

But maybe not. Hoff, who became the first Democratic governor in more than a century in 1962, remains a hero to Vermont Democrats who can remember the 1960s. If nothing else, his endorsement gives the Racine campaign an early shot of gravitas.

Furthermore, in his column, Hoff said he wasn’t just issuing a statement, but would be “campaigning hard.” He said he and his wife, Joan, ” will visit different counties, meet with old friends and new, and have good conversations about the importance of this election and the importance of electing Racine.”

Doug Racine

If Hoff, who is about to turn 85, is half the campaigner he was a few decades ago, he could help Racine.

Does this make Racine the early front-runner?

Not really

In the first place, it’s almost too early even to have an early front-runner. And then, getting a key endorsement or two is only one way for a candidate to be taken seriously. The other way is raise a lot of money, and here Secretary of State Deb Markowitz may be outstripping Racine.

“We have over 500 donors, some from every county in the state,” Markowitz said. “I’m expecting we’re going to have a (financial) report we’re really going to be proud of.”

Those campaign finance reports are due July 15, just about when the other semi-officially announced candidate, Sen. Susan Bartlett of Hyde Park, said she “will have a web site and all that stuff .” Bartlett, who only last week announced that she would run, said (on a voice mail message as she and the News Guy played telephone tag) she was still “talking with folks and getting the kitchen cabinet organized.”

Starting later is something of a disadvantage for Bartlett, especially because she’s the only candidate who hasn’t run statewide. Markowitz has held state office for almost 12 years, Racine ran for governor in 2002, and State Senate President Peter Shumlin, who has not ruled out running, lost to Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie that year.

But – again – there’s plenty of time, time enough for Bartlett, Shumlin, or even someone else to get into the race, get known, and get nominated.

One reason Markowitz is expected to raise a lot of money is that she has a long-term relationship with EMILY’s List, a Washington-based nationwide organization that raises money early in the campaign process (the name is an acronym for “Early Money is Like Yeast’” there is no Emily) for women candidates who are pro-choice on abortion.

As is Bartlett, but Markowitz noted that “EMILY’s list and I go way back ” and the organization is well-connected in Democratic fund-raising circles around the country.

Right now, at least until Bartlett really begins to raise money and campaign, the Democratic race is a one-on-one contest between Racine and Markowitz, with each trying to accentuate his or her strengths, while subtly (or perhaps not so subtly) pointing to the other one’s vulnerability.

The conventional wisdom is that Markowitz will “win” the first test, reporting more financial contributions than Racine on July 15. Getting and spending more money doesn’t necessarily win the race. But not raising enough usually means losing the race, and at any rate the political reporters will make much of the first financial reports because…well, because they are some indication of strength.

And they are numbers, meaning they are objective measurements.

But no one should be surprised if Racine ends up with enough money, even if not as much as Markowitz.

“I’m  focused on fundraising because I know that Deb has been working all winter on it,” Racine said. “It’s going well.”

Notice that neither candidate provided even a rough estimate of how much had been raised. Politics, as Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick once noted, is rather like poker, and the wise player does not reveal his or her hand.

(Who were those guys who once noted? A theatrical reference. A gold star for the first reader who sends a comment indentifying it correctly).

Needless to say, both candidates insist they are running less against each other than against Republican Gov. Jim Douglas.

“I believe Jim Douglas is politically weaker now than he was before (the Legislature overrode his budget veto),” said Racine. “Vermonters are looking at him differently, seeing someone who did not fulfill his responsibility, which is to find consensus.”

Markowitz agrees, saying that in her travels as Secretary of State, “what I hear is that more and more people are ready for a change. They want leadership in Montpelier.”

But what kind of leadership, what kind of consensus? Here the two candidates note the differences between them. Racine is painting himself as the strong, outspoken, Democrat whose views are well known.

Which, he not so subtly notes, can not be said of all the candidates.

“I know where I am and I know where Susan and Peter are, because we all have voting records. Deb has been in a position where she has not had to be involved in the policy issues the Legislature faces.”

Markowitz doesn’t really argue the point.

“I don’t have a voting record,” she said. “People don’t know where I stand. All they have to do is ask me.. They’ll find out.”

But she, too, gets in her digs, in her case without mentioning anyone by name.

“Vermonters …want the Governor and legislative leaders to have an honest dialogue and work out their differences,” she said in a recent campaign email.”The budget is not a political football to pass back and forth.”

A sideswipe at both Douglas and the Legislative Democrats, sending the message that those guys are all part of the system and implying that she, though a statewide official for more than a decade, is not. Markowitz is trying to paint herself as something of an outsider.

And while she doesn’t dwell on it, a younger outsider. Racine is 57, Markowitz ten years younger. Not that much younger, actually, but as it happens, exactly the age of another candidate who ran as something of an outsider (though he was a U.S. Senator), as well as the voice of a new generation. That candidate is now President of the United States, and not a bad example after which a Vermont contender could model herself.

One other difference has emerged between the two Democrats – their approach to that seemingly eternal (and some  would say infernal) conundrum facing Vermont Democrats – how to deal with the Progressive Party, and especially its leader ,Anthony Pollina, a once and perhaps future candidate for governor himself.

The differences are subtle, more nuance than polar opposition. But describing them will not only take a little time, but will also provide the opportunity to indulge in a short essay about the myths and realities of the Democratic-Progressive alliance/rivalry.

Tune in tomorrow.

Though a poll taken now would surely find him trailing Republican Gov. Jim Douglas, from what might be called the political energy perspective, Racine could even be considered the front-runner in the general election, thanks to his de facto campaign associate: Jim Douglas.

It was Douglas who declared that most Vermonters would find it “perverse” that Racine had already announced his candidacy. A plausible contention, but in making it, Douglas was reacting to Racine.

Front-runners do not react. Especially incumbent front-runners.

By reacting, and by focusing his reaction on Racine, Douglas did Racine the favor of seeming to be – if only for the moment – the “other guy” in the mix. Right now, it’s Douglas versus Racine.

Secretary of State Deb Markowitz, who has created an official campaign “exploratory committee” but not officially declared her candidacy, could not have been pleased. Neither, probably, were Sens. Peter Shumlin and Susan Bartlett, who are also among those “mentioned” as possible Democratic candidates.

While it is a plausible contention that most Vermonters would find a two-year campaign for governor “perverse,” the suggestion is implausibly inconsistent coming from Douglas, who in the past has supported four-year terms for governor precisely because the current two-year system essentially means that governors can never stop campaigning.

Certainly Douglas never stops. He can’t. Statewide campaigns take two years these days. That’s not a matter of any candidate’s choice. It is the imperative of campaigns that (yes, even in Vermont) revolve around television, and therefore depend on the money needed to pay for TV ads. To raise enough money, campaigns have to get organized early. Twenty-two months before the election is not too early.

So, “perverse” or not, it was smart of Racine just to jump into the race last month.  If you’re going to do it, do it. Whether his assertiveness is what convinced Treasurer Jeb Spaulding to decide not to run is unknowable and irrelevant. What is known and relevant is that one of the more formidable contenders took himself out of the contest.

Also known and relevant is that the Democrats in general are being aggressive. After their fourth straight defeat by Douglas in November, Democrats seemed stunned and cowed. The Republican governor bestrode the state like the last Republican colossus in New England, easily surviving Barack Obama’s Vermont sweep.

But in the last six weeks or so, Douglas has stumbled a bit. Nothing calamitous to be sure, and nothing that can’t be reversed. But at the very least he has for the moment lost control of the political/policy conversation. His insistence on deep budget reductions, no tax increases, and sharp cuts in school spending has inspired more opposition than support, and has gotten no traction in the Legislature.

A visitor to the Senate Finance Committee’s meeting room yesterday would have seen on the wall a white poster on which three circles had been drawn, representing three means of solving the state’s fiscal mess. One was labeled “cuts,’ but the other two were “stimulus” (as in the Federal law signed yesterday), and the third “revenue.”In each circle were the words, “How much? Where?” The senators are obviously planning to use all three circles.

The governor also seemed a bit discombobulated by the latest Lake Champlain brouhaha. After travel writer Peter Greenberg included the lake in a “must-miss” list in his new book, Don’t Go There!: The Travel Detective’s Essential Guide to the Must-Miss Places of the World, Douglas’s office put out a statement calling it “outrageous  that Mr. Greenberg chose to rely on misleading information from an anti-growth organization trying to score cheap political points.”

The apparent reference was to the Conservation Law Foundation, which did seem to have been one source for Greenberg’s conclusion, which arguably over-stated the case; only parts of the lake are badly polluted.

But politically speaking, some assertions are better ignored than attacked. And whatever the merits of the case, Matt Crawford’s column in Sunday’s Free Press put the finishing touches on the political argument, not in Douglas’s favor.

Greenberg’s comments may have been “over the top,” Crawford said, “but you have to admit, Lake Champlain seems more like a cesspool than a pristine place these days, and the chance for improvements coming on any front seem slim to none.”

Ouch. In the Vermont sports fishing community, Crawford has clout. Though “only” an outdoor writer, he was one of the best reporters on the Free Press until he decided to work full time for a more civilized outfit while still contributing two columns a month to the newspaper.  On the record of his past work, no one could reasonably call him partial to the ultra-Green faction. His column, then, put a fitting if unwelcome end to a politically uncomfortable  couple of weeks for the governor.

Now, all this is transitory to the nth degree. Right now, few Vermonters care about next year’s governor’s race. Only weird people like the writer (and quite likely the readers) of this web site are paying attention. And beware of the attention-payers. Just a little more than a year ago the experts were assuring all of us that there was no way Hillary Clinton could fail to win her party’s presidential nomination and no way John McCain could succeed in winning his.

So there’s plenty of time for Racine, who ran an uninspired campaign for governor in 2002, to squander his advantage, plenty of time for Markowitz or one of the other Democrats to become the front-runner, more than enough time for Douglas to regain his political footing.

Right now, though, Doug Racine must be feeling pretty good.

Jeb Spaulding

Already? Oh, it’s not so already. In the words of one possible Democratic candidate, State Treasurer Jeb Spaulding, “if we were one of 48 states that had four-year terms, this would not be early. The next election date here is same as in all those other states.

True, enough, and in most of those 48, potential candidates are doing just what the ones in Vermont are doing-talking to potential supporters and contributors, thinking about (if not actually talking about) setting up an organization, keeping a wary eye on possible opponents.

(The only other state with a two-year term for governor is neighboring New Hampshire. It’s possible that little is going on there, but only because incumbent Democrat John Lynch is so popular that it seems he might be governor for life).

We know that the 2010 election campaign is on because State Sen. Doug Racine has already said he is running. Not thinking about it. Not setting up an exploratory committee. Not weighing his options. Running.

“People were calling me,” said Racine, who lost a close race to Gov. Jim Douglas in 2002. “(former Gov. Phil) Hoff invited friends to his house and people urged me to do it, so I said I will do it.”

Having told a living-room full of political types, Racine knew the story would leak to reporters within days. So he leaked it himself. The race is on.

By announcing his decision early, Racine both outflanked his potential Democratic primary opponents and did them a favor. He got his name in the news and becomes-however fleetingly-the front-runner. On the other hand, by going first, he got the game started; now the others don’t have to worry about seeming excessively ambitious if they put together campaigns.

At least the other two possible candidates contacted for today’s exercise didn’t bother to be coy.

“It’s hard not to think about it when two or three people a day come up and ask you to do it,” said Spaulding. “So I’m thinking about it.”

So is Secretary of State Deb Markowitz, who said that while it was “too early to begin all-out campaigning,” she would decide by this summer. Many Democrats expect Senate President Peter Shumlin to run, and perhaps Auditor Tom Salmon. Now and then one also hears the names of former State Senator Matt Dunn and Democratic operative Chuck Ross, who was an early supporter backer of Barack Obama.

There could be more. Lots of candidates attract…lots of candidates. After all, if there are five or six people running in the primary, the winner might need no more than 20 percent or so of the vote. All sorts of politicians think they can do that. So do all sorts of non-politicians.

The Democrats, then, are starting out a lot earlier and with many more possible candidates than they did two years ago, when at first nobody would run, and then finally nobody did run, though in this case nobody was also known as Gaye Symington. No reflection on her character or intelligence; she was just one of the worst statewide candidates ever. Not just in Vermont ever, either. In the whole country ever.

This crop looks better, though it’s hard to say which one would be strongest or how the field would shape up. Spaulding seems to be, in his own words “slightly more centrist” than the others, perhaps meaning he’d be most likely to win the general election if he could win the primary, in which liberal voters dominate.

But Racine indicated that he, too would try to appeal to centrist voters.

“I lost my race in the middle,” he said. “There are a lot of folks out there sort of in the middle.”

Markowitz is feisty, popular, and is likely to be the only woman, also a probable advantage in the primary. Racine and Shumlin are well-known, but in part because they’ve lost races for, respectively, governor and lieutenant governor.

Of course, with lots of candidates starting early, Democrats could have the opposite problem from the one they faced last year-a fiercely contested race for the nomination that would weaken the eventual winner in the general election.

But that’s politics; you escape one problem only to jump into another. On balance, the Democrats are better off this way. If nothing else, while they all try to pre-empt each other, they might just pre-empt Anthony Pollina, the Progressive and/or independent who edged Symington out for second place last year and has indicated he might run again.

Democrats can’t keep Pollina from running. But one of his advantages last time was that while they dithered, he ran, perhaps hoping that the Democrats would not field a candidate at all. Lacking a similar advantage for 2010, he might think twice about getting into a three-way race he couldn’t possibly win.

Not that the Democrats are likely to win a three-way race, either. In fact, as long as Douglas continues to get majorities, nobody can beat him in a two-way race. With a 55 percent victory in the face of a general Democratic blow-out last year, Douglas is the Heavyweight Champeen of Vermont politics.

But with one exception, he only a beat a few palookas. Symington, the hapless Scudder Parker in 2006, and the befuddled Peter Clavelle in 2004. Only Racine gave him a tough fight. Indeed, Racine might have won had an independent candidate, Cornelius Hogan, not (probably) drained more votes away from him than from Douglas

Racine led in the polls right up through the final weekend, and when he lost the polling firm was scorned and ridiculed. Perhaps unfairly. Racine had a plurality, never a majority, and he was badly outspent at the end, with Douglas ads on the air right through Election Day afternoon. Besides, undecideds were moving Republican all over the country, and Vermont was no exception. Douglas probably got almost all the late deciders.

Markowitz, Racine and Spaulding all said any Democrat had to assume that Douglas would run again. They think he might be vulnerable. “A certain amount of fatigue” sets in with any politicians after several years, Spaulding said. Racine said there was dissatisfaction even with what he called Douglas’s “base” in the business community, because “he hasn’t delivered on economic development plans.”

Confidence? Or bravado?

There remains, to be sure, the possibility that Douglas won’t run for a fifth term. In that case, Vermonters would get a glimpse of a political organization in worse shape than the Vermont Democratic Party: the Vermont Republican Party.