Answer: Yes, and historic, too. If not the closest major-party, major-office primary anywhere, ever, it’s close. If nothing else, the Democratic primary is more fun to talk about than the economy, the sundry wars, or, for you Red Sox fans (one of which the News Guy confesses he is not, save when they play the Yankees), baseball. This election has it all: drama, suspense, even a little humor. So enjoy.

Question 2: Is having no winner (yet) bad for the Democrats, meaning good for Republican Brian Dubie?

Answer: Yes. But, then again, no.

Sure, the Democrats would be happier to have an undisputed winner, rather than one guy (Peter Shumlin) leading another (Doug Racine) by 192 votes, and only some 500 votes ahead of the third-place finisher (Deb Markowitz).

The Dems had hoped to hit the ground sprinting Wednesday, raising money and debating Dubie. The first debate had been scheduled for tomorrow evening (the News Guy was to have ‘liveblogged’ it from on site in South Burlington) but it has been postponed. Democrats think and Republicans fear that either Shumlin or Racine (and perhaps Markowitz, too) is a better debater than Dubie, who has a history of trying to meet his opponents one-on-one as rarely as possible. Now the Democrats will have to wait.

Question 3: For how long?

Answer: At least until Friday, maybe until Tuesday, or maybe even for another week after that. Racine issued a statement Wednesday saying he would not concede until the “official results” are released, which he said could come as early as Friday or as late as next Tuesday

Those official results could differ from the unofficial count showing Shumlin ahead. Early counts are often bedeviled by transcription errors, typographical errors, failures to communicate. Over the next few days, town clerks and other election officials will edit themselves and do some recapitulating. Who knows what their final count will be?

Whatever it is, both the second and third place finishers will be close enough to the leader to demand a recount, which could take another week or so.

Question 4: Wait a minute. Didn’t the last statewide recount take closer to two weeks?

Answer: Yes, but that was a general election, for Auditor in 2006, in which the top two candidates got 223,438 between them. Tuesday, slightly more than 72,000 people voted in the Democratic primary, a good turnout, but fewer ballots to count.

Question 5: But won’t another week’s delay be really bad for the Democrats?

Answer: Yes. Or, then again, maybe no. It would cost the eventual winner more valuable time, and it would be a real impediment to fund-raising. On the other hand, the delay would also keep Dubie out of the news and off-stage, or at least away from the center of the stage.

That’s where the top Democrats would be, right in the spotlight, where they are still looking good, acting like grown-ups and treating one another with civility. Shumlin did release a victory statement of sorts yesterday, but it was restrained. So far, the Democrats are neither strutting nor whining.

Question 6: How does anyone know that a recount would be more accurate?

Answer: Because it’s overseen by the courts and operates under much more rigorous standards. Each candidate can have a representative on site (the Washington County courthouse in Montpelier) to challenge any ballot that seems unusual and to monitor the tally. A recount would remove all reasonable doubt that the winner really got more votes than any of his or her opponents.

Question 7: So why not just agree on a recount right now?

Answer: Not a bad question. In fact, unless the leader has a margin of at least 400 or 500 votes,  it might be good politics for whoever wins the official tally to be the one calling for a recount. There will be one anyway if either opponent demands it, the chances are that the leader will still be ahead when the recount is over, and both the candidate and the party will appear public-spirited and generous.

Question 8: Aren’t Democrats worried that all those (mostly) young volunteers who worked so hard for one of the top three will be even more disheartened if one of the others ends up with the nomination, and therefore might not work for the nominee in the fall campaign?

Answer: Yes, and that’s a reasonable worry. But first of all there’s nothing they can do about it, and second it doesn’t loom as a major problem. These candidates, bland if enlightened, did not arouse much emotion. Even most of those who learned to love Candidate A didn’t seem to work up much animosity for Candidates B and C. Most of those campaign volunteers are first and foremost Democrats who want the Democratic nominee to win. They may have to work through a week or so of petulance and grumbling. But most of them will be knocking on doors for (fill in the nominee’s name) by mid-September.

Question 9: How did the Democrats get themselves into this pickle to begin with? Couldn’t they have locked all five candidates in a room and read them the riot act until at least two of them dropped out to seek another office or wait for another day?

Answer: It doesn’t work that way any more, if it ever did. Not just in Vermont, either., It hardly works that way anywhere.

Chicago Democrats or Dallas Republicans? Maybe. But that’s about it. No state party committee, and certainly not Vermont’s, has anywhere near the kind of power over ambitious candidates, who increasingly select themselves. The threat, ‘drop out or else,’ to any candidate would be met by the question, ‘or else what?’

At which point the threatener would have nothing to say. So nobody threatens.

OK, that’s enough questions for now. But remember, this is a good show our pols are putting on for the next few days. Enjoy it.

Scroll down for the earlier version of today’s post.

And don’t forget: The News Guy will be on Vermont Public Television’s ‘Vermont This Week’ Friday.

A Democratic governor, that’s what kind.

Whatever their differences – and there are some – all the Democrats propose to govern the state as one would expect a Democrat would govern. Unlike Brian Dubie, the unopposed Republican one of them will run against after Tuesday’s primary, not one of them promises to cut taxes.

Which does not mean any would raise taxes. Only one even dares to mention the possibility, and the possibilities he mentions are either temporary or selective or both.

So to say that the Democrats would govern like Democrats is not to say that they would govern as Republican caricatures of Democrats, the kind who would make the rich pay higher taxes to finance more generous services for the poor.

These are five center-left Democrats. One or two are a tad lefter and one or two a tad centerer than the others. But as is often the case, Candidate A might be slightly to the left of Candidate B on one issue, but slightly to the right of him/her on another. So where one puts them along the ideological spectrum (assuming that the ideological spectrum is important) depends on which issues any voter finds most important.

From one perspective, for instance, Doug Racine might be considered the most liberal of the contenders. He’s the one who’s open to tapping into the “Rainy Day Fund” or even imposing a temporary tax hike (though he doesn’t think it’s needed now) to avoid budget cuts harmful to the poor. He’s even suggested making sure Internet sales are subject to the state sales tax, and perhaps a special tax on sugar-heavy processed snacks and sodas.

But Racine’s overall policy outlook is relatively restrained. He proposes no big spending programs. Instead he wants to “get back to basics” by being a governor who is “directly involved in every phase of our economic development strategy,” starting with the selection of “the right Secretary of Commerce and Community Development.”

Racine, then, seems to be pledging to improve the state’s economy less by a specific economic program than by his own forceful leadership, with which he hopes to energize state government.

By contrast, Matt Dunne’s rhetoric is unabashedly pro-business. His economic policy paper is titled, “The Innovation State: a Business Plan for Vermont,” and he even accepts the Republican complaint that the state’s economy is held back by “complicated regulations and taxes (and) burdensome costs.”

But Dunne’s specific policy proposals are possibly the most audacious of the bunch (if not always the most comprehensible, at least to those to whom power point presentations remain exotic). He’s calling on the state to issue two separate revenue bonds, each for roughly $400 million, one to finance renewable energy production, the other to bring high-speed Internet service “to the last mile” of every road in the state.

Similarly, Susan Bartlett, the self-described “moderate” in the race, has one of the more novel ideas. Arguing that “innovation and entrepreneurs have always been a part of Vermont,” and could be “true job creators,” Bartlett would establish an ”Office of Innovation and Intellectual Property” to “coordinate the various pieces of our business support organizations (and) educate regional economic development groups about the potential of intellectual property.”

The other two candidates, arguably the most establishment as well as (by the conventional political wisdom) the front-runners, exhibit a comparable mix of caution and daring. Deb Markowitz’s “Jump Start VT” (she does not use spaces between the words; there are depths of degradation to which this web site will not descend) isn’t just an economic policy document. It’s an all-purpose laundry list of positions on issues ranging from ethnic diversity to education.

No sweeping, big-spending programs, but a few bold moves. Markowitz would emulate New Hampshire and require young Vermonters to stay in school until they are 18 unless they have graduated and she would take state money out of big banks that don’t grant adequate credit to Vermont businesses.

Peter Shumlin does have one big-spending plan, $33 million to provide “universal pre-kindergarten education” statewide. But he would pay for it, according to his economic policy (“Vision for Vermont,” spaces in the original) by releasing the state’s imprisoned “non-violent offenders back into society,” which he claims would save $40 million.

Shumlin’s numbers seem to be accurate. His confidence that the Legislature will agree to such a large-scale release of convicted criminals may be misplaced.

As any Vermonter who has been watching television in recent weeks knows, Shumlin also wants to bring a single-payer health care financing system to the state. So does Dunne. Racine favors a similar approach, though he doesn’t say so on his campaign web site, calling only for “universal” coverage. That’s what Bartlett and Markowitz want, too.

Does this mean that if one of these candidates gets elected, Vermonters can expect a universal health insurance system?

No, at least not for a while. The single-payer option is especially iffy, being, for the moment, illegal until 2017 under the new national health law. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the U.S. Senate champion of a “Medicare for all” plan, has said he will try next year to get Congress to move that date up to 2014. Congress seems unlikely to comply, and at any rate, 2014 is two years beyond the term of the governor to be elected this November.

Health care is not the only area of near-unanimity among the Democrats. They all want to bring high-speed Internet to everyone.  They all want to provide small businesses with more credit options. They all want Vermonters to produce and consume more “sustainable” energy, created neither from fossil fuels nor from the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, which they all think should shut down when its license expires in 2012. They all want to use the state’s higher education institutions to help spark a knowledge-based “green” economy.

All five also clutter their position papers with stale bromides. “I want every family to know that if they encourage their children to do well in school and to work hard, they will be better off,” proclaims Racine. “To move together as a state we will need to work together,” intones Markowitz. “Build a Vermont future that is a global leader in the innovation economy, based on a foundation of authentic communities, strategic location, and our premium Vermont brand,” says Dunne.

If pressed, all five would probably endorse motherhood and apple pie, too.

Another commonality is that, like most candidates these days, the Democrats (Shumlin’s pre-kindergarten plan being the exception) make little effort to provide the nitty-gritty details of how much their proposals will cost and how they would pay for them.

In fairness, most of their plans wouldn’t cost much, and they all suggest trimming some state programs. But, just to take one example, Dunne does not seem to have asked an economist to run the numbers on how (or whether) the revenues from Internet and energy users would pay off those $400 million bonds. The other contenders are comparably vague about how they would pay for everything they suggest.

It may be too early to condemn the candidates for this fuzziness. At this point, only Democratic primary voters care what the candidates say, and they are saying enough to give those voters an idea of how each of them would try to govern the state. Each is presenting a vision. Whether the numbers add up isn’t all that important yet.

After all, they are running for governor, not emperor. Governors do not promulgate programs. They suggest them to the Legislature, which will create nothing it can’t pay for. Almost certainly, that means pay for without raising taxes, which the candidates (Racine’s limited exceptions noted above) don’t want to do, either. Like presidents, governors not only don’t get everything they want, they end up not even asking for everything they really want.

It’s still helpful for the voters to know what the governor-to-be really wants.

This generosity of spirit will not last long. Whoever wins the Democratic primary and Brian Dubie will both be pressed harder to tell the voters how they will pay for new programs or for tax cuts. But that’s for next week.

Note One: An Apology– Thanks to the storms of Tuesday evening, the News Guy kept getting disconnected from the Internet. In the rush to finish writing, and to get the post into the system before the connection broke again, confusion prevailed more than it usually does. As some readers noticed, the post got posted twice. As at least one reader noticed, the first reference to the town of Hartford called it “Hartland,” another town entirely, if not that far away. Apologies to all readers and to the residents of both towns.

Note Two: The Next Two Weeks–As previously announced, the News Guy is going to take some time off. Admittedly, not the best timing, what with the primary on August 24, only a little more than two weeks away. But even primaries have to take a back seat to family events and school vacation periods.

So there will be no posts next Monday or Wednesday. There will be one on Friday, and it will be an in-depth analysis of the economic policy proposals of the five Democratic candidates for governor, one of which is not scheduled to be released until next week. (Republican candidate Brian Dubie has said he will release his after the primary).

There will also be no posts the following Monday and Wednesday (August 16 and 18), but there will be one on Friday, the 20^th, after which the regular Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule will resume.

Note Three: A Clarification– Chris Roy, one of the two Republican candidates for Secretary of State, took issue with the News Guy’s assessment in last Friday’s post, Getting Tetchy, that he “seems to be losing” the primary race to Jason Gibbs.

Roy may have a point. He agreed that Gibbs has more money in the bank,(though Roy who has been running far longer, has raised more overall), has the support of Gov. Jim Douglas, and has been more successful in getting his name into the news.

But, Roy said, in what is likely to be a very low turnout, his “targeted” campaign, based on “a very focused mailing program and very focused phone call program” could propel him to victory.

So it could. At any rate, he provides a worthwhile reminder. Much attention has been paid to the likely Democratic primary turnout, with estimates ranging as low as 40,000. But at least the Democrats have a real race for governor, the highest-profile position. On the GOP side, though, nobody is challenging Dubie or U.S. Senate candidate Len Britton (whose prospects against Sen. Patrick Leahy are bleak anyway). Yes, there is a three-way contest for the U.S. House seat. But it is among three little-known long shots against Rep. Peter Welch, and therefore not likely to arouse much enthusiasm among rank and file Republicans. The Republican primary turnout could be really anemic.

Note Four: An Assessment– Speaking of the Democratic primary, has anyone noticed that it is one of the weirdest political campaigns in recent years, and not just in Vermont?

That’s because of what has happened in the race: nothing. Usually, in political campaigns, the process creates its own dynamic. Either Candidate A makes a fool of him/her-self, or Candidate B gets accused of some misdeed or peccadillo, or Candidate C makes a magnificent speech that captivates 5,000 cheering supporters in an arena, or some bizarre event not directly connected to the campaign plays to some candidate’s strength, or….well, or something.

If nothing else, in a close race the candidates start attacking each other. Or at least the candidates who are behind in the polls start attacking the front-runner. Rarely do these attacks enlighten, but they often get folks more interested.

Not here, at least not yet, and there’s not much time left. This race is about where it was when it began. It pits five honorable, responsible and not very exciting mainstream Democrats battling each other for the biggest share of the primary pie. Not one of them has stumbled. Not one of them has really caught on.

As to attacking, it isn’t certain that any of them knows how. Or, perhaps more likely, all are reluctant to start attacks because they know the attacker would be hurt as much as the attackee.

Just from the political perspective, the major recent development was Peter Shumlin’s decision to start television ads last month. The ads are pretty good, but as far as can be determined (not very far, there being no public polls) they haven’t much changed the structure of the race. Maybe, it being midsummer, voter are simply not paying enough attention.

All this is good news for Deb Markowitz, who started as the best-known, best-liked of the contenders, and seems not to have lost a step. True, as a candidate Markowitz is not exciting. But she’s likeable, and the other four haven’t inspired the voters to mobilize behind their banners, either.

Note Five: A Critique—The good news that came out of the Associated Press’s interviews with all six candidates about how, if elected, they would deal with next year’s likely budget shortfall, is that one candidate had a very specific idea which would clearly save money, and the candidate knew how much money the idea would save.

The bad news is that it would save only $16,000.

The idea was Markowitz’s pledge not to accept the $61 per diem allotment for the governor’s meals. She said the governor of Vermont earns enough to pay for her own meals.

From other candidates, the responses ranged between imprecise and arguably inaccurate. Bartlett said Vermont could save money by bringing home some of the prisoners it now sends to out-of-state facilities, though one reason the state sends prisoners elsewhere is that it’s cheaper. Shumlin said the state could save as much as $50 million by more closely policing some $250 million of outside consulting work, which might cut costs as much as 15 percent.

But 15 percent of $250 million is $37.5 million, not $50 million.

Then there was the candidate who, asked how he would reduce the budget gap, proposed increasing it.

That was Dubie, who told the AP he would make the budget easier to balance by cutting taxes.

“A gradual reduction in taxes will put more money in the hands of hardworking Vermonters,” Dubie said.

Yes, it will. And with more money in their hands, Vermonters (including the ones who don’t work all that hard) will pay more in taxes. But not enough more to offset the revenue loss the tax cuts will create. Whether cutting taxes is a good idea is debatable. That it will reduce revenue and therefore make the budget gap bigger, not smaller, is not. It will.

Not-so-petty squabbling

The original plan for today was a post dealing with a substantive, significant, and complex policy matter.

Too complex, as it turned out, to deal with in the time available. So in the interest of both precision and fairness, it will have to wait until next week.

Meanwhile, let’s have some fun with politics, because, with less than a month to go until Primary Day, a few of the candidates are starting to get a little tetchy.

Or at least to pretend to be getting a little tetchy. As a campaign reaches its final days, candidates have to find some way to distinguish themselves from their opponents. Often, that means finding some reason – or ostensible  reason—to criticize said opponents, or at least to make some news.

Perhaps surprisingly, this testiness has not really been evident in the race that dominates the scene right now – the Democratic primary for governor, in which the five candidates so far are being gentle with one another.

So far.

Oh, there was that little dustup between Peter Shumlin and Matt Dunne. After Shumlin bragged that he was “the only candidate in this race who has sponsored a single payer health care bill,” Dunne noted that  “in the 1993-1994 Legislative Session, House Bill 0763 titled, ‘Vermont Health Security Plan/Single-Payer Health Plan’ was co-sponsored by several House Members including Matt Dunne.”

Shumlin conceded defeat (well, he conceded error), and the two shook hands in front of the State House and they all lived happily ever after, at least until they can find something else about which to quarrel.

As squabbles go, this was both bland and minor. Perhaps more significantly, it was also irrelevant to the actual world and the actual state both men want to govern. According to Pubic Law 111-152, officially the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, commonly known as the Health Care Law, states may not adopt significantly different health care financing systems until at least 2017.

Some Vermont Democrats insist that Congress might change this provision earlier. Congress will do no such thing, and a politician who refuses to acknowledge this reality risks disserving the voters.

Will one of the Democratic contenders be so bold as to publically acknowledge this?

Don’t bet on it.

But the real tetchiness has come in the two primaries for secretary of state, an office which may not be worth getting angry about. On the Democratic side, the flappette began when candidate Charles Merriman of Middlesex went on Mark Johnson’s WDEV-FM radio show and said, “I should have run as an independent… I thought about it and frankly I ran as a Democrat because I figured I had a better chance of winning than if I ran as an independent. If I get in, I’ll run as an independent next time.”

Horrors!

So, at least, proclaimed a few Democrats. Merriman’s opponent, former Chittenden County Senator Jim Condos, the apparent front-runner in the race, told Vermont Public Radio that the comment might reflect on Merriman’s “character, if you’re…using the party to benefit yourself.”

Merriman tried to wriggle out of the hole he’d dug by proclaiming himself a good, loyal, liberal, Democrat, but one who thinks the Secretary of State’s office ought to be non-partisan.

Not a bad point. Perhaps the Secretary of State’s office ought not even be elected. It is, after all, an administrative (as opposed to policy-setting) position. In neighboring New York, the Secretary of State has been an appointed position for decades, and it works just fine.

But if the Democratic candidates are having a little tiff, the Republicans are engaged in a cat-fight. The first blow was struck by the candidate who seems to be losing, attorney Chris Roy, who accused Jason Gibbs of exaggerating his accomplishments both in the private sector and as Commissioner of Forests and Parks.

“Inaccurate and misleading accusations,” shot back Gibbs, who has the endorsement of Gov. Jim Douglas, whose spokesman he was for several years. Gibbs also appears to have more money and a better-organized campaign.

Indeed, so confident does Gibbs seem to be that he has poked his snoot into the governor’s race, trying to help Republican Brian Dubie by attacking the incumbent Secretary of State, Deb Markowitz, one of the Democratic candidates for governor.

In a letter to Markowitz, Gibbs claimed that “insufficient effort has been made (by her office) to ensure that all (Vermont troops in Iraq and Afghanistan) are adequately notified” that the primary date has been moved up to August 24.

As evidence, Gibbs cited a tape of Gov. Douglas, on his recent trip to the war zone, discovering “that the Primary Election date being provided to troops there was still September 14.”

Yes, but while that is evidence of a mistake, the mistake was not made by Markowitz. It was made by the United States Armed Forces, which are, as those of us who have served in them are well aware, so mistake-prone that their employees over the years have created several inventive expressions for mistake-making which are too colorful to be repeated here.

Gibbs also criticized Markowitz because some of the ballots for early voting in the primary, which started July 12, were printed on paper that was the wrong size. The error, which was made by the paper company, was discovered and rectified (at the company’s expense) that day, and there have been no reports of anyone who wanted to vote being unable to do so on time.

Markowitz has been Secretary of State since 1998. Being mortal, she has no doubt made a few mistakes in that time. But if her opponents can’t come up with more troubling examples than these, she must have done quite a good job indeed.

There are 25 days to go. Prepare for more of the same, only pettier and tetchier.

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.