First, the announcement:  A final decision will not be made for another week or so, but this web site is probably in its final days.

The election is over, the year is coming to an end, and so, most likely, is the News Guy.

It has been fun. It may have done some good. But with the election over, the year coming to an end, perhaps it is time to go.

A few weeks ago, the proprietor of this site woke up and found himself 70. No problem. There is but one alternative to getting older, and as long as most systems are functioning adequately, getting older is the preferred option.

But it is a reminder that if one is going to do something different, one had best get to it. Being the News Guy isn’t all that different from previous activities.

It isn’t much less time-and-effort consuming, either, and at least in the old days, the time and effort was compensated for with…compensation. At best, this web site breaks even. Happily, under the present circumstances, profit is not necessary. But neither is expending all that time and effort, enhancing the appeal of either (a) spending the time and effort at something potentially remunerative; or (b) not spending the time and effort at all.

Because a few interesting subjects have been put on hold during the election campaign, the News Guy will continue for another couple of weeks. But that’s probably it.

Now to the analysis. Last Friday’s post (The Big Day Dawneth) pointed out that the “downside” of Brian Dubie being governor would have been the constant (and worse! Incorrect) repetition of the mantra about Vermont’s economy being in such bad shape.

But there would have been an upside to a Dubie governorship, too, and one that might have transcended Vermont. That’s because Dubie – his anti-abortion stance and some attacks from the hard-line left to the contrary notwithstanding – is a politician of the center-right.

For instance, he was one of the few candidates in either party, anywhere this year to praise the new health care law. No Tea Partier, he campaigned for tax cuts and budget restraint, but not for decimating or dismantling government. According to office-holders in both parties, he has sometimes shown more flexibility than Gov. Jim Douglas in negotiating with lawmakers and officials.

Some critics argue that political expediency forced Dubie to try to come across as more moderate than he really is, that if he were not running in (sort of) left-leaning Vermont, he would have shown his true, farther-right, colors.

Maybe, but it makes no difference. He was running in Vermont. Had he won, he would have been governor of Vermont, and whatever private agenda he might have had, his would have been a center-right governorship, which is by no means the worst kind of governorship to have.

Especially now, where the center-right is endangered in Vermont and all but extinct elsewhere. The most prominent center-right office-holder in the country, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, is leaving office in a few weeks. With a few exceptions, the Republicans of the impending 112^th Congress can not be described as center-right politicians.

In Vermont, it is not clear whether leading Republicans have quite grasped what the Dubie defeat means for their party. Political fortunes are (in the words of a great poet) “constantly fickle,” so the GOP could rebound quickly. But it’s hard to see how. The party holds fewer than a third of the seats in the Houses, barely over a third in the Senate, and could not find credible candidates to run for either the U.S. Senate or Congress.

‘Credible,’ in this context, means ‘center-right’, the only kind of Republican who can win statewide elections in Vermont. The fact that no center-right Republican made any effort to take on Sen. Patrick Leahy or Rep. Peter Welch – even knowingly playing the sacrificial lamb role to build up some party cred for a winnable race in the future – speaks volumes about the poor prospects for the GOP in the state.

Yes, there are Lt. Gov-elect Phil Scott and re-elected Auditor Tom Salmon. But Salmon has, so far, painted himself farther right as he apparently prepares to challenge Sen. Bernie Sanders in 2012, an uphill battle to say the least. Scott is center-right, and right now seems to be the Vermont Republican Party’s best hope.

But it isn’t easy being lieutenant governor when the top guy is from the other party. It will not be in Gov. Peter Shumlin’s interest to give Scott much opportunity to look good, and the lite gov really has no official duties.

Well, presiding over the Senate, but with the Senate 20-8 Democratic, the presiding of a Republican will be largely ceremonial.

Had Dubie won, he might have helped revive the moderate wing of the Vermont GOP. He might also have been one of only a handful of Republican center-right governors in America (there are a few Democrats who fit that description), along with Mitch Daniels of Indiana and Terry Branstad of Iowa.

And the country needs center-right office-holders. For at least two reasons, even liberals ought to be glad that center-right politicians survive, and sometimes win. First, even when they are wrong, center-right officials keep the center-left from getting carried away with itself, as it is wont to do. Second, center-right politicians are not always wrong.  Because there are so many genuine needs, governments do have an incentive to keep spending money, sometimes more than is wise. Here moderate conservatives, wary of spending but not hostile to government, help restrain excesses.

Alas, other excesses on the right have all but obliterated moderate conservatism. Explaining how and why is beyond the scope of this post, but two examples should encapsulate the problem. Nationally, the conservative mainstream refuses to accept two facts: (1) cutting taxes means governments will have less (not more; less) money to spend; (2) the world is getting warmer, in part because of human activity. A political movement that willfully blinds itself to reason can accomplish nothing more than winning some elections. Winning elections is indeed one purpose of a political movement, and an important one. But so is rational governing.

Those are two Kool-Aid cocktails Brian Dubie did not drink.

Actually, Vermont may have a center-right governor next year – Peter Shumlin. Either winner would have faced the same immediate dilemma: expected revenues next year will be some $110 million lower than anticipated revenue. Though not as ideologically – even viscerally – hostile to higher taxes as Dubie, Shumlin doesn’t want to raise taxes either. It would be bad politics, and bad economic policy (though not as bad as laying off more state workers).

Like a center-right politician, Shumlin is going to propose budget cuts, possibly deep cuts, possibly deeper than many Democratic legislators can accept. The next session could be a tough one for Democrats. Maybe Vermont Republicans will enjoy themselves after all.

The Governor-Elect

NOTE: The last two days being essentially a blended blur, consider this an update on the post published this morning (scroll down) which itself was an update of the post published last midnight (scroll down farther).

Tomorrow, a Friday post as usual, which will be either the last or the next-to-last look at the election and its consequences.

So what will governmental/political life be like in Vermont with Peter Shumlin occupying the second floor corner office of the Capitol?

Different.

But maybe not all that different.

To understand how different, let’s start by assessing the Jim Douglas years, now coming to an end:

On the asset side: Eight years without scandal, and pretty much without turbulence. Douglas is not a rabble-rouser. Oh, he toyed with riling up the folks after that controversial sentencing of a sex offender, and then the awful murder of that young girl in Randolph. But he never felt comfortable doing it. Douglas is an even-keel kind of guy, a desirable quality in a governor. He kept the books balanced and the credit rating high. Unlike some current and recent governors of both parties, in states ranging from New York to Alaska, he did not embarrass his constituents.

On the debit side: For purposes of this discussion, we will glide over that little problem of coming down on the wrong side of the civil rights issue of the decade. Fortunately for Douglas, the Legislature overrode his veto of the marriage law. Otherwise, that’s how the world would have remembered him; this way, the veto will be only a footnote.

But that’s a one-of-a-kind issue, which does not help illustrate how things will be different under Shumlin. More to the point, under Douglas, Vermont spun its wheels for eight years. It isn’t that the governor did anything wrong; it’s that he didn’t do much.

Not the worst choice. Perhaps a governor who doesn’t try to do enough is better than one who tries to do too much. Meanwhile, though, opportunities are squandered, potentially productive paths never trod. Prudence is a virtue that can be overdone.

Judging from his campaign, Shumlin will be a far more adventuresome governor. He won’t just seize opportunities; he’ll try to create them, to explore new paths and try new plans in health care, energy, economic development, and more.

There is risk here, of course; politicians who plunge down paths never before trod are often forced to beat a hasty retreat with a face full of gorses. Shumlin is not a fool and probably knows this, but for now the point is not to assess the wisdom of his attitude, but simply to note it. For better and/or for worse, state government in Vermont will be more daring than it has been.

On most matters, of course, the new governor can only be as daring as the Legislature will allow. The big difference here will be that the new Governor is a Democrat, the party that will continue to dominate both houses of the Legislature.

Already Wednesday there were expressions of joy from Democrats and gloom from Republicans that the new governor could get the Legislature to accept whatever he proposed.

Maybe for a few weeks. The Legislature as a body has its own interests, ambitions, and fears. So do each of its members. Not a Republican, not a wise guy commentator, but a senior Democrat in the Legislature noted yesterday that at some point his branch of government would “begin to fight with the Governor.” It will almost surely happen, because it almost always does.

At that point, the otherwise irrelevant Republicans in the House and Senate might get some attention. Though a few races remain too close to call, the outlook as of Wednesday morning is that there might be two more Republicans in the House and one more in the Senate than there are now.

That will make the GOP delegation slightly more numerous but also more insignificant. For the last two years, the Republicans in the House comprised the nucleus of a possible veto-sustaining one third plus one. There weren’t quite 50 of them, but almost, and there was always the chance that they could attract an independent or even a maverick Democrat to uphold a Douglas veto.

On two celebrated occasions last year, they couldn’t manage that (though on one of them – the aforementioned marriage bill, several Republicans supported the override), but the possibility lent the GOP House minority a bit of oomph.

No longer. Even if Shumlin and the Democratic leaders of the Legislature have their differences, veto threats, much less actual vetoes, are most unlikely. Still, there will be enough Republicans (at least 48 in the House, seven or eight in the Senate) to engage in some deal-making under certain circumstances.

The weakness of the Republican Party in Vermont – in sharp contrast to its resurgence in so much of the country on Tuesday – deserves a closer look. Had Dubie won, his governorship might have offered some choice and opportunity to Republicans elsewhere. Not that Dubie was likely to be a presidential contender, but the election of a moderate Republican, even from a small state, might have provided a bit of ballast to an increasingly monochromatic party.

Tune in tomorrow for that closer look. But before leaving today, one more note:

Among the Democrats re-elected Tuesday was freshman Rep. Robert South of St. Johnsbury. Last year, when South voted to support the marriage bill override, the conventional wisdom in the Northeast Kingdom predicted he’d pay for the vote on election day.

He didn’t. In fact, the number of lawmakers defeated because they voted for same sex marriage, which was barely mentioned on the campaign trail, appears to be exactly zero. At least in this state, that argument is over.

It is midnight, as late as some…uhhh, shall we just say, ‘veteran’ observers are willing to stay awake.

Maybe as late as they are able to stay awake.

According to the unofficial tally from WCAX-TV (which had far and away the best election night coverage in the state), Peter Shumlin is now ahead of Brian Dubie by 1,003 votes with almost a quarter of the precincts yet to report.

Shumlin said he was going to win. Could be, but the prudent observer will wait for some more precincts to report.

At this point, then, there is nothing to say. And while it is not a policy universally practiced in the journalism dodge, the preference here has always been that if there is nothing to say…don’t say anything.

So for you early birds, check back later. Maybe 10 AM.

And for all of you, there will be an extra posting tomorrow, Thursday.

Whew, it’s almost over. Don’t forget to vote, and would you like to know who’s going to win?

So would we all.

There is a new poll. The survey by Rasmussen Reports shows Democrat Peter Shumlin ahead of Republican Brian Dubie by 50 to 45 percent, with three percent undecided and one percent supporting minor candidates.

The poll was taken of a randomly selected sample of 750 likely voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.

Do not despair, Dubie-ites. Just taking the poll at face value, it does not “prove” that Shumlin is going to win. Remember, another poll taken two weeks earlier, by anther firm, gave Dubie a one-point lead. Only the count of actual ballots tomorrow night will reveal the winner (and if the race is as close as was the Democratic Primary, more counting may be needed).

What is often forgotten is that a poll’s margin of error applies not to the “spread,” but to each candidate’s percentage of support. All this poll says is that had all 250,000 or so likely voters been polled, between 54 and 46 percent would have chosen Shumlin, between 49 and 41 percent would have opted for Dubie.

So if on Tuesday night Dubie ends up with 47 percent of the vote to Shumlin’s 46 percent, the poll would not have been wrong. The result would have been within the poll’s margin of error.

(And would require the State Legislature to elect a governor, a matter to be discussed here only if it happens, which it probably won’t).

But don’t be of too much good cheer, either, Dubie-ites. A poll’s reported results represent the midpoint of its findings, which is far more likely to reflect actual public opinion than either extreme. It’s as likely that Shumlin is really ahead 53-42 as that Dubie is ahead 47-46.

Now we come to the question of whether this poll should be taken at face value. The answer will offer no comfort to Dubie and the Republicans, but the question should be explored anyway.

Rasmussen polls have a slight Republican bias. This is not because proprietor Scott Rasmussen has a slight Republican bias. Rasmussen in fact has a colossal Republican bias. But he’s also, on the basis of the evidence at hand, a perceptive businessman (he helped found ESPN), and for the sake of his business,  a pollster tries to make his polls accurate so that people take them seriously and continue to hire his firm. A series of inaccurate polls can put a pollster out of business.

But when a voter answers his or her phone because the Rasmussen folks are calling, an actual folk is not at the other end of the line. Instead, a recorded voice asks the respondent a question to be answered by pushing ‘one’ for candidate A, ‘two’ for candidate B, etc.

This ‘robocall’ technique is frowned on by the polling establishment at the American Association of Public Opinion Research . and scorned by several quality news organizations including the Washington Post and the New York Times. In fact, Rutgers University political scientist Cliff Zukin, in a paper he wrote last year for the AAPOR, argued that “these types of surveys have little claim of scientific validity and probably should not be reported.”

One reason for doubts about robocall polls is that they can not include random sampling within the household. A person on the phone can ask to speak to a woman or a man, or the person with the most recent birthday, or use some other method to try to get a representative sample.

But as Zukin noted, “If interviewers simply spoke with whoever answered the phone, the resulting samples would be older and more female than the population as a whole.”

That could be why robocall polls have been found to tilt about two percentage points more Republican than other surveys, or than the final election results.

On the other hand, Rasmussen polls don’t have a bad track record for accuracy. In the Massachusetts Senate race won by Republican Scott Brown earlier this year, Rasmussen polls picked up Brown’s growing strength earlier than other surveys.

With all the caveats, then, it’s fairly likely that Shumlin is ahead.

Which is not the same thing as predicting he will win. It might rain (though right now the Weather Channel is predicting pretty nice weather for both Burlington and Rutland on election day) and bad weather usually keeps more Democrats than Republicans away from the polls. The Republicans might have a better get-out-the-vote operation this year (though they usually don’t). And the poll could just be wrong. Sometimes, a poll is simply wrong. Polls, after all, are based on the laws of probability, not the laws of certainty.

Rasmussen is not the only outfit polling the race. So are both campaigns. “The campaign has maintained a consistent lead in our internal polling and as the campaigns (sic) momentum grows with each day we expect to win on Tuesday night,” said Dubie campaign manager Corry Bliss after the Rasmussen poll came out.

In the same statement, Bliss tried to argue that the Rasmussen poll showing Dubie behind by five points actually predicted an eight-point victory, because polls in 2002 had understated Vermont Republican strength by 13 points.

As responses go, this one was more inventive than persuasive.

Neither Bliss nor the Shumlin campaign revealed any numbers from their internal polling, requiring the curious to engage in tea-leaf reading to try to figure out what the polls might show.

Until the weekend, there were some signs that Dubie might be ahead. Conventional political strategy is to shift, in the final week or two, from television advertisements attacking the opposition to more positive ads, often featuring the candidate talking directly to the camera.

Last week the Shumlin campaign and its allies were still running anti-Dubie ads, while the Dubie campaign was featuring a spot called, “I’m your man” in which a blue-shirted, smiling, Dubie looked directly at the camera and promised to focus on jobs.

It’s a very effective ad even though its main point – “Vermont’s economy is in crisis” – is wrong. By all the usual criteria – economic growth (or, these days, shrinkage), unemployment rate, poverty rate, foreclosure rate – Vermont’s  economy is less in crisis than that of most other states.

This would be the downside of a Dubie governorship—the constant (and, worse, inaccurate)  griping about Vermont’s economy (there would be upsides, to be discussed later regardless of the outcome).

By the weekend, however, the Dubie campaign was back on the attack, including one ad – falsely accusing Shumlin of wanting to let prisoners out of jail – that has been widely criticized for being not just inaccurate but dishonest.

Considering that even many Republicans have been speculating that it is ads like this that seem to have put Dubie behind in the race, the decision to keep running it could be a sign of some desparation.

Maybe the Dubie campaign’s internal polls weren’t that different from the Rasmussen numbers.

You probably know this, but just in case, the Internal Revenue Service does not communicate via emails. These emails are attempted scams. What the IRS would like you to do is forward them to: phishing@irs.gov.

Or just ignore them.

CLARIFICATION: It turns out that the fellow who read through the August 15 Rutland Herald on the News Guy’s behalf didn’t read it closely enough. He was, kindly,  on his own time and on request from here, trying to find evidence for Brian Dubie’s claim that an article in the paper on that date supported Dubie’ss contention that Peter Shumlin has proposed releasing some prisoners before their terms expire. The article, Dubie said, reported that Shumlin “wanted to empty the prisons of 780 nonviolent offenders.”

As reported Wednesday (scroll down) the volunteer reader from Rutland could find neither hide nor hair of any such statement, though he did find a profile of Shumlin in that day’s paper.

Actually, way down in the third from the last paragraph of that profile, there was such a hide and/or hair.

At least so says – and there’s no reason to doubt her – Dubie spokesperson Kate Duffy, who emails that the story contains the following: “Emptying the prisons of non-violent offenders, he says, will cover the nearly $50 million price tag attached to his early childhood education plan.”

So Dubie was not making something out of nothing.

Only something out of little. The words “Emptying the prisons of non-violent offenders” were not Shumlin’s, but the reporter’s, There remains not a scintilla of evidence that Shumlin ever proposed releasing a single convict before his or her sentence has run its course, and Dubie’s continued efforts to argue that his opponent has made that proposal is pitiful at best.

(Though perhaps here it should be noted that Shumlin’s office still has not replied to an email asking how and why he misstated the numbers about the decline in the number of Vermont dairy farms).

NON-WARNING: If anyone is really concerned about either voter fraud or voter intimidation in Vermont next Tuesday: stop. By all discernible evidence and all rational analysis, neither will occur. That the subject is even under discussion seems to be the result of various confusions plus perhaps a little opportunism.

Here’s what happened: A small item in Monday’s Burlington Free Press reported that  members of Vermont’s “Tea Party” movement (also known as the Green Mountain Patriots) would hold a “poll watching training session” in Rutland Wednesday evening.\

The next day, Democratic Secretary of State candidate Jim Condos pounced, suggesting that the Tea Partiers were planning voter “intimidation,” and claiming that his Republican opponent, Jason Gibbs, was associated with the Tea Partiers “and other national groups that are planning to interfere with the voting process.”

In reply, Vermont Tea Party coordinator Jon Wallace of West Rutland, in a telephone interview Thursday, called Condos “shameless” and “disgusting,” as he insisted that “poll watching is part of the responsibility we have as citizens,” and that the Tea Party “wants every eligible voter to cast a ballot.”

Maybe everybody should calm down. First of all, in Vermont, the Tea Party represents a small if not quite insignificant minority which couldn’t intimidate more than a handful of voters if it wanted to. Second, there is no reason to suspect that it wants to. Condos may have been making much out of little as he saw an opportunity to link Gibbs with the Tea Partiers.

But considering the national context (to which he referred) Condos didn’t make much out of nothing. This is all part of the continuing debate between Republicans who suspect voter fraud and Democrats who claim Republicans are using “ballot security” concerns to try to scare minority (meaning mostly Democratic) voters away from the polls.

The Democrats have by far the better case. There is almost no voter fraud in America, and more than a tinge of racism in the allegations of it, most of which focus on minority polling places. Most of the few federal convictions over the last decade or so have been technical or individual (somebody voting in another town to vote for his brother-in-law; or maybe to vote against his brother-in-law). Large-scale voting fraud would make no sense. It would too complicated, too expensive, too easy to get caught. In fact, today’s only credible vote fraud accusations – fake absentee ballots cast in a Troy, N.Y., city election – make the case. There were – if the allegations are true – all of 36 fraudulent ballots cast.

(Even history’s most celebrated voter fraud, Richard J. Daley’s Democratic organization supposedly stealing votes for John F. Kennedy in Chicago in1960, may never have happened. It’s the stuff of legend, but there’s no convincing evidence demonstrating that any votes were stolen).

On the other hand, there is real evidence of attempted – and sometimes successful – intimidation of black and Hispanic voters at the polls. Armed private guards at polling places in Newark; leaflets falsely warning prospective voters that they’d be checked for unpaid traffic tickets or utility bills at the polls in Baltimore; false information about when and where to vote in Cleveland.

But that’s never happened in Vermont, where Democrats are neither as identifiable nor as easily intimidated.  Besides, Wallace is so open about what the Tea Partiers intend that he emailed a copy of the instruction sheet passed out to the potential Tea Party poll watchers. It essentially tells them to obey the law and not be disruptive.

Not that Wallace has any evidence of voter fraud in Vermont. He said he had heard from “college kids that some students they know boast that they vote several times.” That doesn’t really qualify as evidence.

Vigilance is always in order, and there’s nothing wrong with politically involved folks being on the lookout for intimidation or fraud. In this state, neither is likely, and whoever wins Tuesday will almost surely win fair and square.

UPDATE: The News Guy did not get to Woodstock yesterday for the evidentiary hearing in the case of Galloway versus Town of Hartford (scroll down to Wednesday’s post). Allen Gilbert of the Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union reported that Judge Katherine Hayes indicated she would rule in a week or two in journalist Anne Galloway’s request for official records relating to the seizure of a man in his own home last May. The ACLU is supporting Galloway,

Cicero at court

With a week to go, one question dominates the Vermont campaign for governor: Can it get any pettier?

Don’t bet against.

Conventional political wisdom holds that in the final two weeks of a campaign, the candidate should “go positive,” start telling voters why they should vote for him, leave off telling them why they should not vote for the other guy.

If that’s going to happen here, it has not happened yet. As late as Saturday evening’s final debate on WCAX-TV (Channel 3), Brian Dubie and Peter Shumlin, each claiming to be waging a “positive campaign on the issues,” spent more time squabbling over trivia.

An interesting question here is whether the two candidates are equally guilty, and it’s interesting not because there is any real doubt about the answer, but because there is some problem with the very notion of “unequally guilty.” Neither side being innocent, are there gradations of guilt? Or does even one transgression justify (if not require) a “plague on both their houses” judgment?

In the non-political realm, when assessing journalists or scholars, the outlook here is the second one, derived from the old Roman legal principle of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus. The witness who deliberately falsifies anything surrenders credibility for everything.

But in elections, at some point the voter has to choose between two contenders, both guilty. In that case, comparative guilt may be necessary. To the extent (and it should only be some extent) that the voter’s decision is based on how the candidates campaign, it makes sense for the voter to judge which candidate hypes and distorts more than the other, even while deploring such behavior in both.

In this case, it’s an easy call. Peter Shumlin has spun his own record on tax legislation to emphasize the times he helped cut taxes, which he did, while ignoring the occasions he helped raise them, which he also did.

And arguably should have. A really forthright candidate would stand his ground and point out that sometimes taxes have to go up. That may be too much to ask of any politician these days.

By and large, though, Dubie is both quantitatively and qualitatively the guiltier. More of the what he and his campaign commercials have said has been out-and-out false. It’s also been falser, not to mention more personal and more petty.

The Shumlin campaign commercial that aroused the most condemnation was accurate, if perhaps childish. That was the “Pinocchio” spot in which Dubie’s nose grew after each of three misstatements.

Misstatements they surely were. At least one may have been an error rather than a falsehood, and in the Pinocchio story his nose does not grew when he makes mistakes, only when he lies. So the ad went farther than scrupulous intellectual honesty would allow. But it was not baseless.

Neither was another Shumlin allegation criticized earlier here, and repeated by Shumlin in Saturday’s debate, that Dubie favored a $100 million property tax increase. Actually, Dubie favored a 2009 plan by Gov. Jim Douglas that, had it been enacted, would almost surely have resulted in some increase in property taxes, possibly even $100 million.

But from the way Shumlin and his campaign put it, one would think that Dubie had just come out and suggested that kind of property tax hike. He did not.

The irony here is that there’s a harsher attack Democrats could make on this Douglas-Dubie proposal. Not that it would raise property taxes, but that it was not serious governing, and perhaps was never intended to be.

The problem being addressed was that the cost of education was rising, too fast in the view of the Republicans. Serious governing would have started in at least mid-2008 by getting together with the various constituencies – teachers, school boards, superintendents, town officials – and trying to come up with a cost control plan.

Instead, in January, after most school budgets had been finalized, Douglas proposed shifting some costs (mostly the state contribution to the teachers retirement program) from the General Fund, largely financed by sales and income taxes, to the Education Fund, which gets most of its money from property taxes. The Governor and his allies, including Dubie, didn’t want property taxes to go up. They wanted to raise the threat of property tax increases to pressure schools to make big cuts in their budgets rather than face the wrath of property tax-payers.

That’s not serious governing. It is a cynical political ploy.

(And, as it happened, one that didn’t work. The Legislature didn’t adopt the Douglas plan, the school boards did not change their budget recommendations, the voters did not defeat many school budgets. It all came to naught).

But that critique is hard to express in a 60-second TV ad, and too complicated for a political speech. Easier just to say that Dubie wanted to raise property taxes.

Dubie’s transgressions can be dealt with more briefly. He continues to make statements that are simply false, and that he must know are false unless he is willfully refusing to acknowledge what is obviously true.

First, he continues to insist that Shumlin has proposed freeing non-violent convicts before their terms expire. As noted earlier here, Shumlin’s account of his corrections policy in his official campaign document is a touch vague, and might have led people to infer that he did mean to release prisoners early.

But neither in that document nor elsewhere did Shumlin ever say that this was what he planned to do, and plainly it is not. That earlier account suggested that it was “not dishonesty as much as stubbornness” that kept Dubie from acknowledging the facts.

Maybe that’s not an either/or situation.

Even less defensible is Dubie’s insistence on citing the obviously flawed Seven Days “survey” (closer to a poor effort to conduct a survey) finding Shumlin “ethically challenged.”

This matter was dealt with here adequately on October 11 (Ethical Quandary) and need not be repeated, or elaborated on except to wonder at what point political stubbornness morphs into complete shamelessness.

Political/Media Note 1—Usually, a candidate who gets endorsed by a newspaper can take that endorsement to New York City and get on the subway, assuming said candidate also has a farecard.

But the Burlington Free Press endorsement of Shumlin could help him. Whatever else it may be, the Freep is the voice of Vermont’s – or at least northern Vermont’s – establishment. That has to include the business establishment, and even though Dubie will probably win more business votes, the endorsement at least sends the signal that Shumlin is OK with the movers and shakers.

Political/Media Note 2—Great Job Saturday by Channel 3 co-anchors Darren Perron and Kristin Kelly as they firmly but politely interrupted both Dubie and Shumlin in an effort to get them to answer the questions they’d been asked.

It didn’t work, of course. Both candidates just regurgitated their talking points, and the anchors didn’t try to push it. They didn’t have to. They’d made their point.

A nice refutation of the assumption that TV news anchors are just readers. This was first class journalism by both of them.

You mean after all that pulling and tugging, yelling and screaming, wailing and moaning, insults and accusations, this thing is tied?

So says the poll conducted for Vermont Public Radio, and so it seems.

In this case a tie looks better for…

–Brian Dubie because it comes after a couple of bad weeks in which even Republican office-holders were privately warning him his campaign ads were doing him more harm than good?

–Or Peter Shumlin, because eight percent of the respondents said they remained undecided. Undecideds usually break two-to-one against the incumbent, and Lieutenant Gov. Dubie is more of an incumbent than Shumlin.

One or the other, that’s for sure.

The poll was commissioned by VPR and conducted by Mason Dixon Polling and Research, headquartered in Washington. It shows Dubie ahead 44-to-43 percent. With a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points, (and remember, that margin is on each candidate’s total, not on the one-point spread) that’s a tie.

Mason-Dixon is a legit polling firm, and the sample (625 registered voters who indicated they were likely to vote) is big enough, so the survey’s basic numbers should not be doubted or disputed. Democrats who want to convince themselves that Shumlin is really ahead because this poll, like most, does not contact the land-line-less, who are more likely to vote Democratic, are welcome to their delusions. It’s true that a recent poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press  indicated that with perhaps a quarter of U.S. households having only cell-phone service, “election polls that rely only on landline samples may be biased” toward Republicans.

But in Vermont, where cell phone service is spotty at best in many places, there are fewer ‘cell-phone-onliers,’ and while more of them are probably on the young side, and therefore more likely to vote Democratic, they are also less likely to vote at all. Small solace for Democrats here.

There is, however, one unusual feature of the VPR poll. More than 60 percent of the respondents were 50 years old or older. One hundred eighty four, or 29 percent, were between 60 and 64 years old, while 191, or 31 percent, were over 65. Only 73 respondents, 12 percent, were under 35, and 176, or 28 percent, were between 35 and 49 (and one refused to divulge his or her age).

That’s out of synch with Vermont’s adult population. According to the most recent estimates from the State Health Department, there were 484,996 Vermonters of voting age in 2004, of whom 204,411 were over 50. That’s just a touch more than 42 percent, a long way from 60 percent.

(Yes, the Health Department was estimating everybody, citizen and non-citizen alike., But Vermont is home to so few non-citizens that their presence would seem to be statistically insignificant in this context. And, yes, that percentage of geezers has probably inched up a bit since 2004, but not enough to erase the demographic disconnect between the poll sample and the entire population).

This  apparent discrepancy does not render the poll inaccurate. The pollsters tried to screen out respondents not likely to vote, and as just mentioned, older folks are more likely to go to the polls in non-presidential years than are the whipper-snappers. It’s quite likely that more people in their twenties, thirties, and forties told the pollsters they weren’t sure they’d bother to vote, while the older folks (some of whom don’t have that much else to do) were certain they’d cast a ballot.

At least as reported by VPR, the poll did not break out the candidate preferences by age category. They might not be meaningful, anyway; with such small sub-samples, the margins of error would be too big to allow responsible analysis. Still, even in Vermont, where the typical 60-year-old is likely to vote Democratic, the typical 30-year-old is more likely to vote Democratic. So the age gap between the sample and the whole electorate might mean that there could a simple path to victory for the Shumlin campaign: just get more young people to the polls.

“Simple,” in this case, does not mean “easy.” It’s a little late to start a major get-out-the-vote operation on, say, the University of Vermont and the State College campuses. But perhaps not too late to intensify them if they’re already underway. There are other ways to reach young voters, but it is not the mission of this web site to provide political tactical advice to either party (especially not for free; in the most unlikely event of a career path switch to political consulting, such advice will cost a pretty penny).

So if the score is tied midway through the fourth quarter, which side has the momentum, or at least the ball? And (honest, the football metaphor will stop soon) which side will not simply come up with the right plays, but will have the resources to execute those plays?

Nobody knows, and whoever claims to know is fooling either his/her listener(s) or him/her-self. As any good coach can tell you, intangibles can be decisive.

But so can one great big tangible: money.

The latest reports filed with the Secretary of State’s office show that Shumlin has actually raised more than Dubie in the last month ($490,000 to $172,000), and has almost as much ($207,000 to $231,000) cash on hand.

But the important thing here is not the official candidate money. It’s the other money, most of it originating with each national party’s Governors Association but filtered through other entities.

Raising a few questions: What are these entities and why were they created?

And why is money so important?

It’s that last question that rarely gets asked, much less answered. Perhaps that’s because the answer could be construed as an insult to the one faction which may not be insulted in polite company. Tune in later for answers.

So they are and so it is. But Vermont is not alone. In the other 49 states, millions are struggling to find jobs and the unemployment rate is higher than it’s been in 30 years.

In fact, the unemployment rate is lower in Vermont than it is nationally or in most other states. In August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only four states had lower unemployment rate’s than Vermont’s 6.0 percent, which was more than a third less than the national rate.

Brian Dubie agrees that job creation is vital, and he says jobs are scarce because “it’s harder to start a small business here, harder to earn a good living here, harder for a small business to hire and grow…than in almost any other state in America.”

Dubie has some evidence to support his assertion, a 2009 survey by Forbes Magazine finding that Vermont had one of the least “business-friendly environments” in the country. As evidence goes, though, this survey was decidedly unimpressive, and there are no actual data supporting the claim that small businesses are less likely to succeed in Vermont than elsewhere. Until the Recession began, business start-ups outnumbered business failures in the state, and the success rate was comparable to the rate in other states.

Different though their outlooks may be, Dubie and Shumlin are both acting in accordance with what seems to be Vermont’s real – if unofficial – motto: “Woe is Us.”

Speaking of no data, there are none to prove that Vermonters tend to complain any more than Tennesseans, Kansans, or Oregonians. In recent years, whining has emerged as the national pastime as various regions, generations, and subcultures claim to be more put-upon than everyone else.

To be fair, there is plenty to…well, whining never did any good, but there is plenty to complain about and rail against these days. In many ways, the country is in bad shape. The current Recession is the worst since the Great Depression (unemployment went slightly higher in 1982, but it was a far more manageable downturn). In real money terms, many people earn no more than they did a decade or so ago even as the cost of necessities such as health care and education keep rising. Life in America is not easy these days.

But all these are national (and some cases global) troubles. There is nothing particularly Vermont-ish about them. In fact, for the most part, Vermont is getting through these troubled times better than most states. Depending on who is doing the counting and when, the home foreclosure rate in Vermont is either the lowest or the second lowest in the country. As mentioned, the jobless rate, while higher than before the Recession, is relatively low, as is the poverty rate, and even the much-discussed pending state government budget deficit pales in comparison with many other states.

One reason to suspect that Vermont is whinier than most other states is that Vermonters were kvetching well before the Recession. To some extent, this is one consequence of being a generally liberal state. Complaining – sometimes with good cause, sometimes not – is built into a liberal’s DNA.

But if anything, it has been the state’s conservatives who have voiced the loudest gripes. Led by Gov. Jim Douglas, Republicans and their allies have kept up a steady chorus caterwauling that Vermont’s tax structure and environmental regulations are stifling economic growth.

It’s not impossible that there is some basis to this critique. But it faces one problem at the outset: there really isn’t much evidence that Vermont’s economic growth has been stifled at all.

For the last half century, this state has gotten steadily bigger and richer. In 1960, the Census counted 389,881 Vermonters. That rose to about 445,000 in 1970, some 511,000 ten years later, almost 563,000 in 1990, almost 609,000 ten years ago, and an estimated 638,000 this year. Experts project the population to reach 678,000 by 2025.

As it has grown larger, Vermont has grown richer. One of the poorest states in the middle of the last century, it now has the 21^st highest median household income. According to official federal figures from 2007 to 2008 (the latest figures available) Vermont’s Gross Domestic Product grew by 1.7, more than twice the nationwide rate of 0.7 percent.

Vermont does have economic problems, but the evidence suggests that these problems stem less from what Vermonters do (government policies) than with where they do it (on farms and in small towns) and who they are (white, Anglo, educated, relatively affluent).

Vermont is one of the most rural states in the country, with only one official metropolitan area (Burlington and environs). In today’s economy, the advantages go to concentration and consolidation. With rare exceptions, economic opportunity is found in the big cities and metro areas. That’s home to the big economic drivers – the big universities, the health care and research centers, high finance, the arts. That explains why Chittenden County is the most affluent part of the state. It has at least some of all of the above. Considering that the rest of the state has very little, its prosperity is impressive. Somebody is doing something right.

One thing Vermonters are not doing much is having children, so one real concern is that the average age of the state’s residents will progressively rise. But there’s not much that can be done about that. Educated, white, Anglos aren’t having children anywhere in America, all of which is getting older. Nationwide, the share of the population over age 65 is projected to rise from 12.9 percent this year to 17.8 percent in 2025.

Vermont does have challenges. Like the rest of the country – but more than most states in the Northeast – income inequality is growing. The immigrants tend to be affluent retirees or educated folks who come to work at Fletcher-Allen, IBM, or the University of Vermont. The emigrants tend to be the less educated who can not find the jobs in factories, farms, or forests that supported their parents and grandparents.

That’s a real problem. But – again – hardly unique to Vermont. It is a problem that stems from great progress. Oversimplifying just a bit, the prosperous half of the world has solved the production-of-goods problem. People can produce more machinery, food, and fiber with a fraction of the workers needed a few decades ago. Among the functions that need fewer workers are forestry and dairy farming. Milk, wood pulp, and saw logs will continue to be produced here, but by many fewer people. To live decent lives, the rest will either have to get the kind of education needed in the new economy, or go somewhere else (though pretty soon, going somewhere else won’t do much good, either).

For the most part, then, Vermont’s problems are the country’s (and even the world’s). Sure, there are a few things this state could do better, or different. It’s even possible – though hardly proven – that cutting taxes and easing the regulatory process might be among them. Meanwhile, it could be a good idea for both Democrats and Republicans to see if they can avoid grating Vermont the distinction of being the whiniest state in the union.

No, we cannot. As Louisiana’s Earl Long once told his segregationist opponent Leander Perez, “Da Feds got da A-bomb.” More formally, dey got da Supreme Law of da Land Clause, which leaves no doubt that when federal law conflicts with “any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary, ” federal law prevails.

You wouldn’t know this from reading the papers or watching the news accounts about the debate. Reporters such as Terri Hallenbeck in this account in the Burlington Free Press simply quoted the candidates.

Don’t take this as criticism of Hallenbeck (a good reporter) or the other journalists. First of all, the Constitutional explanation might have taken more minutes or column inches than they could afford (and certainly more than Steele’s candidacy is worth). More pertinently, though, the reporters were following the current journalistic ethic: We just write down what people say. Not only do we express no opinion, we possess no knowledge, or at least none we will convey.

Thus, if candidate Smith says the world is flat and candidate Jones differs, today’s mainstream reporter will quote Jones’s dissent, but leave it to the reader to decide which candidate is right.

Not a service to the reader. Reporters should not express opinion, or even allow it to influence what they report and how they report it (not as difficult a task as ideologues think, the typical mainstream journalist being indifferent to ideology, and sometimes even to policy). But readers depend on news outlets to inform them about reality, not simply to recite conflicting assertions. The assertions that the world is flat or that Vermont could order its National Guard troops home are false, and should be so described in news accounts.

Even when an assertion is not provably false, it is often quite unlikely. The reader/viewer/listener is entitled to know how unlikely, and why. Democrat Peter Shumlin did get a bit of pushback from the press over his insistence that he could bring a single-payer health care system to Vermont even though federal law now forbids it. But that was mostly after Republican Brian Dubie had challenged Shumlin over the issue.

Then there’s Dubie’s claim that an IBM official told him the company might move its Essex semiconductor production facility out of the state if the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant is not relicensed.

Dubie’s statement was widely reported, as were those from IBM public relations officials to the effect that the company was making no threats to go anywhere and had no plans to do so.

Well, what else are public relations officials to say? Even though Dubie refuses to name his source, it’s not unlikely that an IBM official did tell him that the possibility of leaving Vermont had been discussed. That plant uses a whole lot of electricity. If utility rates are going up, IBM has to consider every option. (Meaning that in his ‘Pinocchio’ ad, Shumlin was unjustified in using Dubie’s statement as evidence of dishonesty).

But a little reality, if you will. With or without Vermont Yankee, the price of power will rise. More without VY than with it? Could be, but probably not by much. Note the restraint over the issue shown earlier this year by the actual electric utilities (Central Vermont Public Service, Green Mountain Power, etc.), the guys who buy power from the producers and sell it to us. Not that they were against extending Yankee’s license another 20 years. But in the meanwhile, they had assured themselves of an adequate – and affordable – supply of power. Vermont’s economic prosperity may benefit from, but it does not appear to depend on, Vermont Yankee. The same can be said for the IBM plant.

Besides, where would it go? Assuming that it chose Vermont to begin with because of proximity to materials and markets and (probably most of all) a reliable, skilled work force, it can’t go anywhere else nearby with lower electricity rates. The closest state where power is cheaper is Pennsylvania. And the savings would have to be huge to offset the cost of abandoning the plant in Essex and building a new one elsewhere. All this information could have been part of the coverage.

There’s one other category of analysis that should be part of news stories about the campaign, but rarely is. It occurs when candidates make claims or put forth arguments that are neither factually incorrect nor even highly unlikely. They’re just pointless.

Dubie regularly quotes one or another businessperson who has told him that if only taxes were lower, the business would spend more money and hire more workers. It’s right in Dubie’s official campaign statement, where a typical quote is from “a small cheese maker in Bennington (who said) ‘If my taxes were lower, I could hire more employees… buy more Vermont milk from Vermont farmers, and I could make more cheese… But with taxes so high, I can’t afford to invest in my business and grow more jobs.’”

Dubie doesn’t identify this person either. But on the campaign trail, he often names the businesspeople who’ve made a similar argument, so there’s no reason to doubt that he’s telling the truth.

So are the businesspeople. If any of their costs were cut –  utilities, wages, insurance, and certainly taxes – they would have more money to spend. Then they might be able to expand, maybe even hire more workers. It’s true. It’s reasonable. It’s totally meaningless.

Because the same applies to everyone. If your taxes were lower, you’d have more money to spend, too. The problem is that taxes can’t be lower just for you any more than they can be lowered just for that cheese-maker. Your neighbors would get the same reduction, as would all the other cheese-makers. But then the state government wouldn’t have enough money, which would be very bad for the state’s economy – you, your neighbors, and all the cheese-makers.

Just take the example to its logical conclusion: eliminate taxes entirely. Then everybody would have more money to spend. But soon there would be no roads to carry the cheese to market. For all sorts of reasons – including maintaining a strong economy – a certain level of public services is required. So, by definition, is a certain level of taxation.

A case can be made that those levels are too high, and that the state would benefit from less spending and lower taxes. But quoting someone saying, “if my taxes were lower, I’d have more money to spend,” does not contribute to that case. It’s both a tautology and a nullity, which should be part of the campaign news coverage.

There’s at least one more area where reporters – including this one – have fallen down on the job in not refuting (or at least questioning) another campaign constant, this one regularly recited by both leading candidates, and indeed by almost everyone else who comments on what’s going on in Vermont. It has almost become part of the culture. It may be wrong.

Tune in Friday.

Four times in the last 17 years, Peter Shumlin’s fellow Democrats in the Senate have elected him as their leader.

Common sense indicates that they must have thought highly of him. They must have found him capable and energetic. It also follows that most of them trusted him. The party leader is the guy who negotiates with other members of his caucus, as well as with the opposition and the administration. No senator would choose a leader he or she found deceitful.

So why does Brian Dubie keep saying that a survey rated Shumlin the “most ethically challenged” member of the legislature, an allegation now included in a pro-Dubie television commercial?

Because it’s true.

Which is not to say that it’s true that Shumlin is more “ethically challenged” than other lawmakers. It’s just true there was such a survey, and that Shumlin got more votes than any of his colleagues to the “most ethically challenged” question.

Twelve votes to be exact. Twelve of the 30 cast, of the 400 questionnaires that Seven Days sent out to legislators, legislative staff, and journalists. On Vermont Public Radio the other day, broadcaster Mitch Wertlieb called the Shumlin designation “a dubious distinction from a small sampling.” Wertlieb was being much too kind. A better description would have been “total garbage.”

This was not a general public sample, sent to 400 randomly selected voters. The distribution was targeted to 400 insiders, by name. The small minority who bothered to answer the questions knew how to manipulate the results. Even with more participation, the conclusions would have been…well, inconclusive. With 28 real responses (two were apparently thrown out for being absurd), the conclusions are meaningless.

From which it does not follow that Dubie and his supporters should be condemned for using the information, or that Seven Days, by and large a positive voice in Vermont’s public discussion, should be condemned for shoddy journalism. In some paradise to come, a political strategist might look at such a survey, conclude that its results are statistically and intellectually indefensible, and ignore it. We do not live in that paradise. No politician of any party – Republican, Democratic, Progressive, Prohibitionist, Free Soil, or Whig – would look at this information as anything but a fat pitch right across the middle of the plate. You don’t let those go by.

As to the editors at Seven Days, they did not commit bad journalism here because these surveys are not journalism at all. They are promotion.

And what, prithee, is wrong with that?

Nothing. All news outlets, including this one, try to promote themselves. (If you don’t notice it about this one, it’s because the proprietor is no good at it, not that he finds it beneath his dignity). Lots of news organizations, especially alternative weeklies such as Seven Days, use contests and surveys as promotion devices. They’re kind of fun. On occasion, they even produce some useful information. This was not one of those occasions.

(Perhaps because we all knew it was promotion, not journalism, all 17 reporters who got the questionnaire ,including this one, did not fill it out and return it.)

In that same paradise mentioned above, editors might look at their meager results and decide not to publish them, or at least not the ones that can be distorted by political operatives. But it’s unreasonable to expect that the folks at Seven Days would have done that. It was their project, and they were probably gung ho about it.

Besides, almost all of them are likely to vote for Shumlin. They might have reasonably feared that holding back the results of that question could have exposed them to the allegation of political bias. All the folks who did fill out the questionnaire, including 18 legislators, knew the question was on the list. Among the 18 were probably several Republicans who’d named Shumlin the “most ethically challenged. So of course, the paper just published it all.

If Seven Days is to be criticized it is less for running the story than for its effort to explain away what it acknowledged was a meager response.  The 7.5 percent of respondents who replied made the rate “ better than direct mail…and not too much worse than the turnout for a Burlington election, which was 23 percent on Town Meeting Day,” the paper wrote.

But the direct mail comparison is not apt (see above for difference between random sample survey and targeted mailing), and according to arithmetic, 23 percent is more than thrice 7.5 percent, which is, indeed, “too much worse.”

None of which deals with the essential question: Is Shumlin “ethically challenged”?

Of course he is. So are we all, almost every day. “Ethically challenged” isn’t even the right term. It’s pop-psych jargon. The English translation would be “unethical.” The real question then becomes whether Shumlin is unethical, or, more precisely, whether he is more unethical (or unethical more often) than the average person, other members of the Legislature, other politicians in general, Brian Dubie in particular.

And the answer of course is that no one has the slightest idea. The Seven Days survey, even had enough respondents answered to make the results statistically respectable, does not constitute evidence.

What would constitute evidence would be something like a credible account that Shumlin had broken his word to another lawmaker, or promised the same committee chairmanship to more than one senator, or voted for legislation he really found abhorrent to please a big contributor. Were there such credible accounts, the Dubie campaign, thus far showing no sign of subtlety or restraint, would be shouting the news to the mountaintops. The lack of such shouting indicates that the evidence is not there.

Come to think of it, though, it would be surprising if there were no grumblings about Shumlin’s ethics, even if the grumbling has remained private. Shumlin has been the Senate leader, which in a way puts him at a disadvantage vis a vis Dubie, whose only real leadership position in public office was as chairman of the Essex Junction School Board years ago. A lieutenant governor is not a leader; he doesn’t have to displease anybody.

Leaders do. They have to make decisions their followers don’t like, and some of those followers then conclude that the leader has acted unethically. The athlete taken off the starting squad, the actor who doesn’t get the part, the applicant who doesn’t get the job is tempted to accuse the coach, the director, the boss of favoritism or some other unethical behavior.

Legislative leaders are constantly negotiating, with their own members, the opposition, the administration. Often, these negotiations conclude with compromise agreements. On both the political left and right – but more these days on the left – some true believers consider compromise unethical. It wouldn’t be surprising if a few of those 12 votes were from Democratic lawmakers who are to Shumlin’s left, and who resent the compromises he made with Gov.  Jim Douglas’s administration earlier this year.

In addition, negotiators sometimes hear what they want to hear rather than what has been said. When the leader says, “I’ll try to get your pet bill to the floor,” the member might hear, “I promise I’ll get your pet bill to the floor.” When it doesn’t get to the floor, the member thinks the leader lied.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that now and then Shumlin did promise to get a bill to the floor, and then not do it, either because he couldn’t or because he didn’t care. But “entirely possible” is not evidence, either, and with no evidence, there is only one word to describe accusing any individual of being unethical, That word is: unethical.