The Democratic governor’s race is no longer without form and void.

The auditor’s race is no longer boring.

OK, that wording used to describe the primary for governor is a tad grandiose, having more famously been applied to the entire cosmos, next to which the Vermont Democratic Party is an infinitesimal speck.

Still, the phrase is descriptive. The endorsements of Sen. Doug Racine by both the state’s AFL-CIO and the teachers union (Vermont NEA) do not make Racine the front-runner. No one can be considered the front-runner until someone releases an independent, credible poll (and, no, the one being taken by the campaign of Sen. Peter Shumlin, one of Racine’s four opponents, does not qualify).

But the endorsements do give the campaign some shape (form) and heft (voidlessness?). If nothing else, they provide a framework for thinking about the contest. Racine is at the very least having a good week and the other four are scrambling. It isn’t that the boost he got can’t be overcome. But the other candidates have to take steps to overcome it.

By no means do the endorsements mean that all 10,000 or so Vermont members of AFL-CIO affiliated unions or the 11,500 teachers who belong to the NEA are going to vote for Racine. If there was ever a time when rank and file union members automatically voted as their leaders recommended, that time is long gone.

On the other hand, there’s no reason why a union member – whether a teacher or a construction worker – shouldn’t pay some attention to the suggestion of an organization that helps improve his or her life. Especially when there’s not much difference among the candidates, five Democrats swimming straight in their party’s main stream.

Shumlin, who says he’s a “fiscal conservative,” and Sen. Susan Bartlett, who in her formal campaign kick-off Monday called herself a “centrist Democrat,” are trying to paint themselves as slightly less liberal on taxes and spending than the other three. They may be right, but “slightly” is the key word here. For many Democratic voters, any of the five contenders would be acceptable. So why not go with your union’s choice?

But the bigger boost for Racine might be that both the AFL-CIO and the NEA provide built-in GOTV operations. That stands for “Get Out the Vote,” and in what promises to be a low-turnout primary, the only more valuable asset than an existing organization that knows how to operate phone banks, identify supporters, and arrange car-pools to take voters to the polls is two of them. That’s what Racine now has.

The others can build their own, and no doubt are planning to do so. But it will cost a little time and money that he can spend elsewhere.

The candidate most hurt by the Racine endorsements was former Sen. Matt Dunne. He knew it, issuing a statement Monday congratulating Racine and pointing out that he it was his “understand(ing)  that the endorsement decision came down to Doug and me.”

It did. The endorsement would have been even a bigger boost for Dunne, who is less well-known, so losing it is a big blow. Dunne also hastily scheduled a press conference yesterday to announce the support of  seven House members and two Senators, including the fiscally centrist Hinda Miller of Burlington.

The AFL-CIO did not limit its endorsements to the governor’s race. It made choices in some of the other contests, too, and one of them could prove very interesting indeed. The labor organization’s preferred candidate for State Auditor is Burlington policy analyst Doug Hoffer who plans to run in the Democratic primary, and who also has Progressive Party support.

The reason this is interesting is that Hoffer could actually get elected. And if he does, the Auditor’s office might become a very lively spot.

Full disclosure: Hoffer, who knows how to find economic data and who analyses it astutely (if from his own point of view) has been an occasional source for this web site, which he obviously reads because he now and then comments on the posts. On the other hand, he and the News Guy have never met, and what follows is analysis, not an endorsement.

It’s not really a prediction, either. But here’s why he could win. So far, the only other Democrat running is former Auditor (and present state senator) Ed Flanagan. In the interests of both brevity and kindness, this account will skip the details abut Flanagan’s political problems (available on line for the curious). Suffice to say that thanks to some recent bizarre personal behavior Flanagan is all but unelectable.

Meaning Hoffer could win the Democratic Primary and also be on the Progressive line for the November election against incumbent Republican Tom Salmon.

Not quite unelectable, but decided beatable, also thanks to some of his own bizarre behavior, including a drunk driving episode and writing obscene emails to a reporter. Plus, he’s a party-switcher, elected and re-elected as a Democrat before becoming a Republican late last year. Party-switchers have a tough time getting re-elected.

Aside from one unsuccessful bid for town council in Massachusetts years ago, Hoffer said, he has never run for office. He could be a terrible candidate. Furthermore, another Democrat might jump into the race before next week’s filing deadline. Democratic Party Chair Judy Bevans said “a number of candidates have expressed interest” in running.

If Hoffer does win, he is likely to be, based on his work as an economics numbers-cruncher, both aggressive and independent. He’s an unabashed economic liberal who approves of raising taxes on the wealthy rather than cutting social services. But he’s also a dedicated data freak who does not go where the statistics do not lead. Should he get elected, the Sate Auditor’s office might become not just interesting, but also a word rarely associated with auditors of any stripe: fun.

MEDIA NOTE: The News Guy is by and large a fan of (and has written for) Seven Days, Burlington’s sprightly alternative newspaper. So it was discouraging to see, in its on-line version, a sophomoric swipe at the Roman Catholic Church and Bishop Salvatore Matano. Apparently some ex-Catholics who write for a blog called The Plaid Crew and who seem to harbor ill will toward the Church, saw a perfectly ordinary (actually, a rather touching) picture of the Bishop ordaining a new priest on the cover of the Vermont Diocese’s magazine, Vermont Catholic, and gave it the smuttiest possible interpretation.

For whatever reason, Seven Days writer Lauren Ober found it “sort of the most amazing photo I’ve ever seen…this week” (sort of the most?) and for whatever reason, the editors agreed to post the item on the paper’s Blurt blog.

The temptation to describe this as locker-room humor offends those of us who have spent some time in locker rooms and remember that the jokes there usually contained a modicum of wit.

Hidden amidst the stilted language of government budget-cutters in Montpelier Tuesday, along with the moaning and groaning—some of it legitimate—from people who will suffer from those cuts was some real news. But you won’t see it in the morning papers or on the evening TV shows.

Here it is: This liberal state—sometimes called the most leftward in all the land—is governed by two center-right parties.

This isn’t necessarily undesirable; center-right policies have their claim to wisdom.

But it’s a surprise, considering Vermont’s reputation as a hotbed of liberalism, sometimes even “the Peoples Republic of Vermont,” in semi-jest from both left and right.

In a real “peoples republic” (which does not mean China) the government does not raise the price of college for middle-income students or reduce the quality of mental health services for the poor without at least looking into the possibility of selectively raising taxes or fees.

Again, there is no suggestion here that the budget cuts are bad policy. Many of them are quite reasonable, even for liberals. Taken as a whole, however, they are not liberal policy. Not even center-left policy.

Raising this interesting question: What happened to the institution that supposedly supports and pursues center-left policies? You may have heard of it, especially because its adherents hold four of the six statewide offices and dominate the Legislature. Not only that, but its presidential candidate whumped his opponent but good in Vermont just a few weeks ago.

Yup, it’s the Democratic Party. The party of FDR, HST, JFK, LBJ, and HHH. Not one of whom would have stood by and allowed cuts in legal assistance for the poor, or weaker enforcement of human rights violations, or spending less on services for sick children without saying—no, without proclaiming—‘Wait a minute! There must be some way we can find some money here’

That Democratic Party lives, just not here. We know that because just next door, in New York, Gov. David Patterson is an actual Democrat with budget problems as severe as Vermont’s, with a $15 billion deficit looming for next year. Like Vermont’s Republican Gov. Jim Douglas, Patterson has proposed severe budget cuts. But he would deal with more than 25 percent of his projected shortfall with $4 billion worth of tax and fee increases.

Whether Vermont should follow that course is a subject over which reasonable people may differ. But if any of those reasonable people were Democrats, you’d think that a few of them would be taking that side of the debate.

Debate, however, seems to be something Vermont Democrats avoid, even when most of the evidence is on their side, or would be if they had a side.

For instance, in explaining why no tax hikes should be considered, Neale F. Lunderville, Douglas’s Secretary of Administration, asserted that “economists widely agree that tax increase during challenging economic times serve only to slow recovery.”

Well, sort of. What economists more “widely agree” on is that while tax increases are the second worse thing to do in a downturn, they are not as bad as cutting the budget and laying people off .

Just as Vermont is doing, without a peep from a leading Democrat.

There are economists who disagree with the general consensus, and who think raising taxes is worse than cutting spending. They could be right. But they are not Democrats. They are the most conservative Republicans. Even the center-right economists tend to agree with Democrats on this matter.

Among Democrats, only former State Rep. Paul Cillo, now head of Public Assets Institute, the liberal think tank he started after he left the Legislature, has dared to suggest that the state consider selective tax increases on upper-income earners. So have two writers on the Progressive Party’s “Prog Blog,” Burlington Mayor Bib Kiss and public policy analyst Doug Hoffer. But they aren’t Democrats.

(Well, OK, Treasurer Jeb Spaulding has proposed higher fuel taxes to finance road and bridge repairs. But that’s more of a user fee than a tax).

It’s true that on social issues Vermont effectively has two center-left parties, with few leading Republicans spending much time worrying about abortions or embryonic stem cell research or trying to roll back the state’s Civil Unions law. But when it comes to the fundamentals of governing—the role of the state in guiding the economy and providing basic social services, Vermont’s leading Democrats have converted; they are now Republicans.

Perhaps they are just being prudent. Any suggestion of tax hikes is politically risky. But nobody has taken a poll to see whether most Vermonters would consider some selective revenue hikes or borrowing to soften the impact of budget cuts. They accepted that path when Republican Gov. Richard Snelling chose it in 1991.

Even with the political risk, the behavior of the state’s Democrats leaves us with this question: If the Democratic Party will not stand up for poor, sick children, what’s the point of having a Democratic Party?—Jon Margolis