Finally, thanks to the Vermont Press Association and St. Michael’s College, the “other” candidates for governor, the ones who had been “blocked out or blacked out,” as one of them said, got to participate in a debate Sunday, allowing them, as another put it, to “broaden the conversation beyond what the Republicans and the Democrats are telling us.”

When it was over, the two-party system never looked better.

It wasn’t that the four “minor” candidates had nothing at all to say. At the very least, a couple of them got off a good line. Asked about the unusually antagonistic tone of the campaign between frontrunners Brian Dubie and Peter Shumlin, Cris Ericson of the U.S. marijuana Party said, “when you put two bull studs in a small cow pen, what can you expect, folks?”

And at one point, independent candidate Dan Feliciano observed that, “people are like corn. You don’t really know them until you add a little heat to them and they pop.”

Some of their serious points were worth hearing, too. Ericson suggested that every state agency “post its budget on line,” a requirement she would also impose on non-profit organizations that receive state money. Responding to a question about crime,  independent Emily Peyton asked, “what about the crimes of the federal government” Dennis Steele, the candidate of the Vermont secessionist movement, argued that the two major candidates “are not willing to address Vermont’s pro rata share of the (national) defense budget,” which he put at $2 billion a year.

To some extent, then, the minor candidates did what minor candidates ought to do. They talked about issues the major party candidates won’t discuss and took positions that Republicans and Democrats don’t or won’t take.

Alas, they did not discuss the issues intelligently, knowledgably, or, in some cases, rationally. This is not an attack on their decency, character, or intelligence. It is, though, a criticism of the breadth (and the level-headedness) of their knowledge.  At least some of them seemed to be engaged in a quest to assuage some personal demons, rather than to engage in serious political discourse.

There is honor in being a rebel, in challenging convention and mainstream assumptions. Candidates who are daring and different really do, as Peyton said, “broaden the conversation.”

But there’s no reason a rebel shouldn’t know what he or she is talking about. There is a good case to be made for the belief that Vermont’s (and America’s) political discussion ought to be expanded to include options that have been ruled out of bounds by “respectable” officials and news organizations. But there’s a better case to be made that this expansion should stay connected to reality.

The expansion as attempted by four of Vermont’s independent candidates (a fifth, Ben Mitchell, did not appear) did not always meet this test. Ericson, for instance, used her opening statement not to argue for legalizing marijuana (an entirely rational position which might have more grass-roots support than usually thought), but to accuse Vermont doctors of illegally forcing disabled patients to sign a “pain contract,” and of sending “fraudulent medical bills.”

Who knows? There might even be something to this allegation.  On a Sunday evening, it was impossible to reach advocates for the disabled. But there are such advocates, and they are not shy about calling attention to injustices visited on blind, crippled, or mentally challenged Vermonters. They don’t seem to have called any attention to this one.

Candidate Feliciano didn’t say anything all that unreasonable because he didn’t say much of anything, except that he was a “strategy and change consultant,” whatever that may be, and that he knows “where the money is hidden in the budget.”

Emily Peyton often seemed confused. She kept losing track of her thought, and when she found it, she didn’t always make sense. At one point she complained that Vermont did not have complete control of “our monetary system (because) the Federal Reserve dictates to us.”

Actually, Vermont doesn’t have a monetary system. It’s part of the United States, where, as she noted, the Federal Reserve is in charge of (or perhaps “dictates”) the monetary system, a situation which will not change as long as Vermont remains part of the United States, a state of affairs Peyton does not propose to change.

Steele, of course, does. He started off calling the U.S.  “the most corrupt, most destructive empire of all time,” at least raising the possibility that he has never heard of Caligula, Hitler, Stalin, or Mao. Challenging American foreign policy is understandable – perhaps useful – even in the context of a campaign for governor. Demonizing the United States as history’s greatest villain is bad politics, and worse history. Possibly bold, but unmistakably ignorant.

The News Guy is treading gently here because he recently enraged the secessionists and is not interested in prolonging the conflict. They became angry when, on Vermont Public Television’s Vermont This Week last month, he noted that the secessionist hierarchy (though not, he made clear, Steele or the movement’s other candidates this year) was infected by the “tinge of racism.”

Inspiring Vermont Commons, the movement’s (apparently illiterate) journal, to proclaim that the News Guy “falsely accuse(d) ten secessionists candidates of racism.”

And every other pro-secessionist Vermonter, too, although the spoken remarks had specifically referred only to some of the movement’s leaders.

How can we be racist, Vermont Commons said, when the slate of secessionist candidates includes an Abenaki (Steele), an African-American, an Italian-American, and  a Jew?

Here’s how. By being part of an organization whose leaders regularly consort with the neo-segregationist League of the South, which wants to reestablish “the cultural dominance of the Anglo-Celtic people and their institutions.”  By having a leader (Thomas Naylor) who is closely allied with League of the South member and Emory University philosopher Donald Livingston, who believes that “the North created segregation” and that Southerners fought during the Civil War “because they were invaded.”

(For documentation, see this 2008 report from the Southern Poverty Law Center)

At any rate, no one has suggested that Dennis Steele is any kind of a bigot. Except perhaps Dennis Steele, who said at the debate that  U.S. foreign policy is “orchestrated from Tel Aviv.” and has earlier said that the federal government is “owned, operated, and controlled by Wall Street, Corporate America, and the Israeli Lobby.”

Now, the suggestion that the policies of the White House and the State Department are “orchestrated from Tel Aviv,” can be dismissed as nothing but rampant ignorance. As to the “Israeli lobby,” well, there is no such monolithic entity, but there are pro-Israel organizations that do exert powerful influence in Washington. Criticizing this influence as often not in the best interests of the United States is quite reasonable. It is even quite common.

But singling out this lobby as uniquely more influential than, say, the gun lobby, or Big Pharma, or the health insurance lobby is…well, maybe it’s just more rampant ignorance.

But one has to wonder.

Democrats and Republicans may be too limited and too restrained. But there’s something to be said for restraint and limits.

He'll debate

No, Brian Dubie is not trying to wiggle his way out of debates with his Democratic opponent by arguing that the five independent candidates for governor deserve to join them.

Oh, he thinks they do deserve to join them. But he understands that it isn’t up to him to set the debate rules.

“In theory,” said Dubie campaign spokeswoman Kate Duffy, “Brian does think it’s fair for every candidate whose name is on the ballot to have a chance to…participate in the debate process. But we have not made that a condition to our participation in any debate. We are coming to the debates we have been invited to.”

So there will be two-man debates between Dubie and whoever ends up with the Democratic nomination.

(Concealed Editor: ‘You mean two-person debates, don’t you, because Deb Markowitz could still win that final count of last Tuesday’s primary?’ Response: ‘OK, OK, but it’s more likely to be Peter Shumlin or Doug Racine).

(And for your datebooks, the sponsors and dates of the debates to which Dubie has been invited, Duffy said, are: Vermont Public Radio September 15; AARP at the Doubletree Hotel in South Burlington September 26; Vermont Press Association at St. Michael’s College October 3; Vermont Public Television October 7; WPTZ-TV at Echo Center  October 19; WCAX-TV October 23).

This little flapette emerged because Dubie has a history of being, shall we say, less than enthusiastic about debating his opponents (as Shay Totten of Seven Days documented last year),  and because during a press conference the other day, Dubie indicated he looked favorably on the idea of inviting at least one of the independent candidates to a debate.

But even if Dubie doesn’t want to debate (and there is no evidence that this is the case), he wouldn’t dare try to use the five fringe candidates as his excuse. If he said he would only debate if one or more of the other five got to participate, no one would believe him. Voters would just assume that he was afraid to debate his Democratic opponent one-on-one. It would be politically foolish, and there is no reason to think Dubie a political fool.

In short, the narrow question – will there be debates between the major-party candidates for governor? – is a non-story. There will be. What remains is the broader question – should the five independent candidates who qualified for a spot on the ballot be invited to debates?

Dubie apparently thinks so. His view, Duffy said, is that “debates are a very important part of the campaign process, and he would like everyone to have a chance to have voices heard.”

Who can argue with that? Is this America, or what? No one has the right to silence anyone else or to prevent dissident voices from being heard. The people have the right to be exposed to all points of view.

On the other hand, this being America, anyone may argue with anything. This being America, no voice may be silenced by the state. But (this still being America) no one may be forced to provide a platform for a voice he or she judges unworthy of being heard.

Let’s understand at the outset that no voice is being silenced. The five independent candidates have web sites which any voter who has an Internet connection or a nearby public library (and that’s everyone) can click into and read to his/her heart’s content. Furthermore, all five may go into any town in this state, pass out leaflets, make a speech on the village square, visit the local radio station and weekly newspaper office, or shake hands in the coffee shop.

In other words, they may campaign. They have that right.

But there is no right to be invited by private entities that want to sponsor debates. They have rights, too, including the right to choose which candidates to invite. While there would be nothing wrong if one such entity wanted to sponsor a debate and invite all seven candidates, there are good reasons for inviting only Dubie and the Democrat.

Only one of those two will become governor. These debates are public services, and the public wants to see and hear those two so they can choose between them. Bringing another one, two, or five candidates who can’t possibly win only takes time away from the two viable contenders.

Which might be worthwhile if one of the fringe candidates had anything interesting to say. Campaigns are primarily political; their purpose is to choose the office-holder. But they are partly intellectual. If a candidate who can’t win can nevertheless inform or enlighten – such as, say, the eminent biologist Barry Commoner did when he ran for president in 1980 – that candidate ought to get a little more platform time than one merely mouthing ideological clichés or gratifying his/her ego.

Alas, this year’s five independent candidates for governor fall far short of the Commoner standard. This judgment has nothing to do with agreeing or disagreeing with their policies. Indeed, the News Guy finds a few of their proposals rather appealing, But they are all – based on their web sites and other statements – intellectually  unimpressive.

They are:

–Cris Ericson, a one-issue candidate whose issue is legalizing marijuana and whose “official campaign slogan is ‘Please! People Lovingly Educating and Saving Everyone.”

–Emily Peyton, whose platform combines some reasonable proposals (a state bank) with others such as a “Vermont Unit of exchange (VU) to protect our state from Federal Insolvency” which might politely be described as dreamy.

–Ben Mitchell also has no web site but has some connection to the Liberty Union Party, which does (and who is technically running as the candidate of the Socialist Party). In an interview with Seven Days, Mitchell conceded that he was “not running to win (but just) sitting around for office.” Mitchell calls himself a socialist, but goes into no detail.

–Dan Feliciano who wants to “cut waste…while improving productivity,” as does everyone.

–Dennis Steele, who wants Vermont to secede from the United States. Vermont is not going to do any such thing. On his web site, Steele proclaims that, “the biggest challenge facing Vermont is neither jobs, health care, energy, nor education but rather the American Empire.  The American Empire is the largest, most powerful, most materialistic, most environmentally destructive, most racist, most militaristic, most violent empire of all-time.  Not only is it owned, operated, and controlled by Wall Street, Corporate America, and the Israeli Lobby, but it is unsustainable, ungovernable, and, therefore, unfixable.”

And he expects to be taken seriously?

They all have a right to campaign. The rest of us have the right to refuse to pay them any mind.

But before we leave, a political-grammatical note on the race that’s shaping up as perhaps the state’s meanest, the one between incumbent Republican (though elected as a Democrat) Auditor Tom Salmon and Democrat Doug Hoffer.

On Salmon’s campaign web site, he said that during the Democratic primary campaign against Ed Flanagan, Hoffer “came across as self-righteous and nasty with his dramatic criticisms of Ed and I.”

Elected officials should set a better example for the young (and for that matter the not-so-young). That should have been “Ed and me,” Mr. Auditor.

As for Hoffer, perhaps he could use a proofreader. His web site talked about something happening “throughout sstate government.”

Note: The News Guy will NOT be on Vermont Public Television’s ‘Vermont This Week’ this evening after all. What with all the political turmoil, the station decided that instead of the usual mid-afternoon taping, it would air the show live at 7:30, which presented a scheduling conflict.