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.

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.

She did, she acknowledged, ask Louis Porter of the Vermont Press Bureau  (The Times-Argus and the Rutland Herald) to leave the room one day the week before last while she and the other Democrats “consulted with legislative council.”

Two House members, Democrat Jason Lorber of Burlington and Republican Oliver Olsen of Jamaica, were also asked to leave.

The consultation, Bartlett said, was originally going to be held in the Legislative Council’s offices, but the space there was cramped, and she suggested they’d be more comfortable in the committee room.

“We can do that,” she said.

Obviously they can, because she did. Whether senators may, under their own rules, hold closed sessions inside their committee rooms is less certain. Because an official meeting had not been convened, holding a private session might not have violated those rules.

Or maybe it did. It seems to be a matter of interpretation.

The place to start looking, suggested State Archivist Gregory Sanford, is the Vermont Constitution,  specifically Chapter 2, Section 8, which states that, “(t)he doors of the House in which the General Assembly of this Commonwealth shall sit, shall be open for the admission of all persons who behave decently, except only when the welfare of the State may require them to be shut.”

According to Sanford and others, this section applies to committee rooms as well as the legislative chambers, the exception for “the welfare of the state” refers only to emergencies, and being a reporter is not proof of indecent behavior in and of itself.

That would seem to indicate that the session in the committee room –whether or not it was a “meeting” — should have been open. Bartlett acknowledged that five committee members – a quorum – were present.

Bartlett said the committee was also gong to discuss “personnel” matters, therefore it could meet “executive session.”

It can, but only after voting to do so in open session, by a two-thirds majority, and even then only for certain designated reasons, one of which is to discuss personnel. None of that happened the day Bartlett closed the meeting.

But Allen Gilbert of the Vermont American Civil Liberties Union, himself a strong advocate of open meetings, acknowledged that Senate rules might be unclear as to whether a gathering “is a meeting unless it’s convened.”

At any rate, Gilbert said, there is no remedy for this violation, if it was a violation. The only redress is to “complain to the (Senate) Committee on Rules” because the Senate is “not covered by the Open Meeting Law,” so there is no “statutory violation.”

There also appears to have been no harm done. Privately, some senators from both parties were unhappy about Bartlett clearing the room. But no one suggested she was trying to pull a fast one. She just wanted to meet in more comfortable surroundings.

But in the first place, it’s not certain that under Senate rules a reporter (or anyone not misbehaving) didn’t have the right to be at the meeting no matter where in the Statehouse it was held. Or maybe even if it was held out of the statehouse, though Sanford pointed out that lawmakers have sometimes held closed meetings elsewhere, apparently (though perhaps mistakenly) believing that as long as they were in a different buildings they could bar press and public.

Gilbert said the Open Meeting Law draws no distinction between meetings in official or unofficial venues. Should two members of a three-person school board or select board bump into each other at the grocery store, he said, they are forbidden from discussing board business.

It’s unclear whether the Senate rules are quite that strict, but it would seem that Bartlett at least violated the spirit of Vermont’s open government tradition.

To be sure, a case can be made that the tradition is too strict. Maybe people have to get together in private sometimes to hash matters out. Banning such sessions in public (or even in the grocery store) could just push officials into more clandestine locales, such as the back table of the local saloon. (No, come to think of it, that’s too public). But if the system should be changed, officials should argue for changing it, rather than simply breaking the rules.

If there is any price Bartlett will pay here, it’s political. She’s one of the five Democrats running for governor. Getting a reputation for acting surreptitiously (which in general she does not seem to deserve) is not likely to be a political plus.

But when it comes to tension between public officials and members of the Fourth Estate, Bartlett cannot compete with State Auditor Tom Salmon.

Salmon apparently dislikes Seven Days political reporter Shay Totten. Disliking Totten, an unusually pleasant and easy-going fellow, is not easy, but presumably if a reporter keeps catching a politician doing stuff he shouldn’t do, the pol might start taking it personally.

A couple of weeks ago Totten caught a member of  Salmon’s official staff  sending a political email from a state computer during business hours. The email “welcomed” as an opponent (perhaps prematurely) State Sen. Ed Flanagan into the Auditor’s race. Flanagan, who once served as auditor, is thinking about running for his old job against Salmon, who was elected as a Democrat but switched parties last year.

Responsibly, before writing a story, Totten emailed Salmon for response and comment.

Which arrived promptly and…well, let’s just say bluntly. No, on second thought, let’s say obscenely. This web site, determined to persist in its policy of (outward) respectability, will not quote Salmon’s reply (but here’s the link). Suffice to say that it was as far from respectability as one can get.

There is a term for a politician who not only talks this way to a journalists, but actually puts it in writing, meaning he can’t later claim to have been misquoted.

No, make that two alternative terms: (1) A person of dubious judgment; (2) a dope.

At least one Republican, sort of defending Salmon, suggested in a Statehouse corridor last week that Totten was “nitpicking” because sending the email on state time and state equipment was a minor infraction.

Maybe, but you know what? Reporters are supposed to be nitpickers. The Auditor’s office is about a five minute walk from Republican headquarters, and Salmon’s aide could have gone over there at lunch time or after the business day to send the email all legal and proper on a GOP computer. Campaign finance laws, like open meeting laws, exist for a reason.

For the Vermont voter, the political prospects for the Auditor’s race seem especially dismal. For reasons that will be dealt with another day, Flanagan’s judgment isn’t all that reliable, either. In fact, perhaps the most puzzling political question of the day is why Democratic leaders haven’t by now found an attractive accountant – or at least finance-savvy businessperson – to oppose Salmon, who would seem vulnerable if opposed by a minimally competent candidate.

It’s a little early to pronounce State Auditor Tom Salmon politically cooked and ready to have the loser’s fork stuck into his carcass.

But just a little.

Salmon, of course, is the elected Democrat who took the political risk earlier this year of becoming a Republican in a state where that is generally not considered a shrewd career move.

Last week he made the personal and political mistake of driving his car after he’d had too much to drink.

Monday he went on the radio to talk about it and botched things up totally.

Asked the obvious question by Jane Lindholm on Vermont Public Radio’s Vermont Edition, Salmon refused to say how much he’d had to drink before a Montpelier cop pulled him over Friday evening. The question, he said, was not “germane.”

This dictionary (American Heritage Second College Edition) defines “germane” as “having a significant bearing upon a point at hand; pertinent.”

Under that definition, what could possibly be more germane than asking an elected official who has had too much to drink just what he had been drinking, and how much?

Especially considering that he had earlier said he’d been drinking red wine.

Asserting that his goal was maximum “candor,” Salmon practiced maximum evasiveness. He wouldn’t say forthrightly that he planned to plead guilty when his case comes to court next month, leaving the impression that he was hoping for some other outcome.

To top it all off, before the brief (maybe five minute) interview ended, Salmon got potty-mouthed. If he thought the vulgarity would mark him as a regular guy, he was wrong. It marked him as vulgar. It also raised the question of…well, to come right to the point…of whether he’s something of a dope.

Maybe he’s the brightest guy around. But the context here is politics, in which appearance often outstrips reality. A candidate who comes across as kind of dense risks getting the reputation as a candidate who’s kind of dense. Once acquired, this reputation is hard to shake.

To be fair to Salmon, he does not appear to have been falling-down drunk. His breathalyzer test measured a blood alcohol content of .086, not far above the .08 legal limit.

Still, above the limit is above the limit. It doesn’t look good.

For two reasons, Salmon could still get re-elected next year. First, it’s early. Assuming there is no repeat performance, voters could forgive even if they don’t forget. A candidate who gets the vote of everyone who has ever driven after a drink too many would probably win in a landslide.

Second, one can never underestimate the facility of Vermont Democrats to nominate a turkey to run against Salmon. The Democratic leadership is no doubt trying to recruit a good candidate. But that leadership has limited power to control events. Anybody can enter the primary, meaning anybody can win it, including a turkey.

Right now, though, the Auditor’s re-election prospects seem bleak.

Oh, the other guy who wasn’t exactly impressive in handling this kerfuffle was Lt. Gov. and Republican gubernatorial candidate-designate Brian Dubie, who had nothing but praise for Salmon at Saturday’s Republican convention. Not a hint that he disapproved of what Salmon had done.

The appropriate response in the family, the fraternity house, maybe the Elks Club. Not in politics.

Enough of that. Now let’s turn to that other kerfuffle, the one about that letter to the editor of the Burlington Free Press, the existence of which the Freep is trying to deny.

The letter, by Ethan A. Sims (apparently the highly respected, much-honored professor of medicine emeritus at the University of Vermont, though the News Guy was unable to reach him for confirmation) which appeared to suggest that, while hunters were out trying to shoot a moose, anti-hunters might want to shoot the moose-hunters.

At least that’s how a great many hunters understood it. Preferring to be predators rather than prey, these hunters and their organizations not unreasonably became upset, deluging the newspaper with so many angry letters to the editor that the editors surrendered.

Abjectly. Not because they apologized, which was defensible if perhaps not necessary. But because they removed the letter from the newspaper’s web site archives.

It became, then, an un-letter, rather the way some one-time associates of Stalin who fell out of favor (and soon thereafter of sight) had their names and photographs purged from the history books, becoming un-persons.

Because no one here was killed, tortured, or exiled, the editors hardly sink to Stalinism, or other aspects of Bolshevism except in their obvious toadiness. Theirs is the spirit not of the independent journalist but of the ever-obsequious courtier.

Besides, this not being Soviet Russia, suppression doesn’t work. Anyone with a desire to see the letter and an Internet connection can find it. Here it is:

On this beautiful day we learn that about 1,251 hunters are taking to the woods with legal permits to “pursue prized quarry.” Certainly the members of various humane organizations do not approve. I suggest that before the next annual killing season, other residents be awarded legal permits to kill hunters who will be out to kill these beautiful, non-destructive animals. Or the government could just rule out all this primitive killing.
ETHAN A.H. SIMS
Shelburne

As another letter-writer noted last Sunday (a letter the Free Press editors, to their credit, printed), Sims obviously didn’t really want anyone to shoot a moose hunter. His letter was Swiftian satire, modeled on Jonathan Swift’s famous Modest Proposal (1729) suggesting Ireland’s poor ease their penury by selling their children to be eaten.

Not that hunters should be blamed for insufficient attention to Dr. Sims’ literary playfulness, which would have alerted them to his motivation. Hunters feel put upon these days because everybody does. It’s the American way to think everybody’s out to get us, whoever “us” may be. In fact, a very small percentage of the American people actively oppose hunting, and they have not been taken seriously by most of the rest of us (the News Guy is a very pro-hunting non-hunter) at least since the anti-hunting group PETA called for New Yorkers to change the name of the Fishkill River, apparently unaware that “kill” is Dutch for “river,” and so the name is not evidence of anti-piscatorialism (though perhaps of redundancy).

The editors could have explained that Sims was not in fact urging the murder of anyone, simply expressing his own anti-hunting views in a sardonic manner and with some literary flourish. Such a rational response, however, does not come easily to courtiers. Instead, the paper apologized for running a letter “advocating for violence against hunters,” which the letter does not do.

(OK, since this site is beating up on the Free Press again, this is a good place to note that Sunday’s package on the Lake Champlain Bridge, with stories by Terri Hallenbeck and Matt Sutkoski, was first class journalism.)

Back in 1945, when most of the real ball-players were off at war, the theretofore (and largely here to-aft) hapless Chicago Cubs met the slightly less hapless Detroit Tigers in the World Series.

Walking into the ball park for the first game, Chicago sportswriter Warren Brown was asked who would win.

“Nobody,” he said.

In the wake of Tom Salmon’s switch from the Democrats to the Republicans, it’s time to consider Vermont politics in the light of that story. Not because of what Salmon did, but because of the way he did it: not very well. He seemed pleasant and moderately articulate, but a bit wooden.

Not nearly as wooden as his prose, though. He actually said, “The Democratic Party left me,” which was a cliché 30 years ago.

But this is Vermont, which, with Howard Dean gone and Jim Douglas going, is bestridden by political mediocrities. Right now, most of the likely candidates to replace Douglas as governor have a history of either losing or most unimpressively winning. There’s not a fearsome face in the crowd.

Start with the Republicans. The front-runner to whom all will defer should he want the job is Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie.

Winner of four statewide elections. Strong record, no?

No. Dubie snuck into office in 2002 because Progressive candidate Anthony Pollina took enough votes from Democrat Peter Shumlin to allow Dubie to slip in with a plurality. Then he kept getting re-elected because: (a) He is by all evidence a nice guy; (b) His Democratic opponents were palookas; (c) Nobody cares who the lieutenant governor is.

Outside the Republican inner circle Dubie has only the tiniest personal following. If he runs, he will get the hard-core Republican vote and nothing more, unless, of course, the Democratic candidate is yet another palooka.

Or, considering how much more conservative Dubie is than the average Vermonter, maybe even if the Democratic candidate is yet another palooka. Meaning he’d probably lose.

(Digression: And doesn’t it seem that he’ll not run? The very fact that he’s taking time to think it over (assuming that’s not an act designed to make him appear modest) indicates his heart isn’t in it. After all, the only point to being lieutenant governor is to run for governor. Why hesitate?)

If Dubie doesn’t run, many Republicans will turn to State Sen. Randy Brock of Franklin County, the only Republican aside from Douglas and Dubie (and Jim Jeffords, who soon thereafter became an ex-Republican) to win statewide office since roughly the Pleistocene era. That’s a sign of strength, isn’t it?

Not really. Brock beat an incumbent Auditor of Accounts who had been caught fudging her educational credentials. Even if the evidence did not quite support the judgment “lying about” those credentials, it was close enough. Elmer Fudd could have beaten Elizabeth Ready in 2004.

Politically speaking, the Auditor of Accounts has one thing in common with the lieutenant governor: almost nobody cares who he or she is because almost nobody knows what he or she does. Substantively, there is a difference. The Auditor of Accounts actually does something. Brock apparently did it well enough.

But two years later he got beaten by Salmon, a challenger whose only credentials were having the same name as a popular former governor and being a Democrat.

Besides, Brock, who also seems to be a nice guy (based on one conversation) is even more conservative than Dubie. His conservatism does not make him completely unelectable in Vermont. But close.

Or what about Mark Snelling. Like Salmon, he’s the son of a popular former governor. But he’s a Republican, and people do care who the governor is, meaning the typical voter might examine his credentials beyond checking out his name.

His credentials are that he runs the family business and the Snelling Center, a think tank of sorts which…well, which does something having to do with looking into government and politics. Exactly what it does remains mysterious. Its impact, however, is clear: it has had none. Being the head of a think tank about which nobody thinks isn’t much of a credential.

There are a few other Republicans supposedly contemplating a run for governor, and for all anyone knows, Sens. Phil Scott , Vince Illuzzi, and Kevin Mullin might be good candidates. So might former Sen. John Bloomer. But none has ever run statewide. Only Illuzzi is widely known, and he might be too much of a maverick, and too much the economic populist, to win a Republican primary (though possibly the Republican most likely to beat a Democrat).

Oh, yes, the Democrats. Among whom we have one candidate (Sen. Doug Racine) who lost a statewide election he should have won; a potential candidate (Shumlin) who did the same, in the same year (2002); and another candidate (Sen. Susan Bartlett) who appears to have raised no money for her campaign and who is little known to the general public.

Granted, there is one undefeated champ—Deborah Markowitz, who has been elected six straight times as Secretary of State, a string of victories that would be more impressive had the elections been for, say, Homecoming Queen at Siwash U. or Treasurer of Local 252 of the International Tiremakers and Mechanics Union.

Like Sate Treasurer, Secretary of State should be an appointed position, and isn’t only because it gives politicians an office to run for so they can run for something else. Somehow, her predecessor (the one she knocked off in 1998) managed to do the job poorly, an extraordinary feat suggesting a level of incompetence so extreme as to be almost admirable.

Having knocked off an incompetent, being competent herself, not to mention rather charming, and a Democrat, Markowitz kept getting re-elected. Elmer Fudd would have done the same.

At this point, a certain generosity would be both compassionate and (more important) accurate. Political losers –Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama — have returned as better candidates and won big victories. Shumlin and Racine seem to be sharper, more aggressive, candidates than they were in 2002. Bartlett, an accomplished legislator, could emerge as the sleeper candidate of 2010. And who knows? Even Tom Salmon, if he could hire himself a better writer, might become formidable.

Right now, though, the 2010 campaign here looms as a clash of…well, not quite of midgets. But certainly not of giants.

Still, someone will win. Someone won the 1945 World Series, too. The Tigers in seven. Hank Greenberg, home from serving in the Army, hit two home runs.

But that didn’t mean they were any good.

On the surface, and for at least a level or two below it, Tom Salmon’s party switch is good news for the Vermont Republicans, bad news for the Democrats.

Three or four levels below? There’s where things get more complicated. However they turn out, though, the state should be glad that Salmon provides a handy opportunity to recognize some political realities that have been ignored.

Back to that in a minute. For now, let’s let Vermont Republicans, who so far have not had a very good year, enjoy their good day.

If nothing else, today there is one more Republican and one less Democrat in this state than there was yesterday.

But that’s the least of it. Sitting in front of their television sets or at their breakfast table with coffee and the morning paper, Mr. and Mrs. Swing Voter likely said to each other Tuesday eve and Wednesday morn: “Why that nice young man has gone from the Democrats to the Republicans. He must have a good reason.”

Better yet, the Tuesday evening/Wednesday morning local news cycle was dominated by Salmon proclaiming the message Republicans want the hear proclaimed: Beware them Demycrats; They gonna tax yo’ pants off.

OK, those were not the exact words the second-term Auditor of Accounts used, either in his announcement nor in answer to questions. But that was the gist of it, and it’s what the Republicans love to hear.

That’s why Republican State chairman Rob Roper quickly issued a statement arguing that, “the message is that we are the fiscally responsible party, and it’s really gratifying, with Auditor Salmon’s coming to the party, that that message has gotten through,”

Actually, all we know so far is that the message has gotten out. The ‘through’ part remains to be seen. But surely it doesn’t hurt to have a man elected as a Democrat, not to mention the son of a former Democratic governor, say he believes “the Vermont Republican Party is closest to accepting the reality of our times and is therefore the best equipped to manage the very real and troubled economic and social conditions which confront us, not only today, but in the coming decade.”

Yeah, he could use a better writer, but for now it’s the sentiment that counts. Seeking to keep the momentum going, Gov., Jim Douglas said that the Salmon switch proved that “the taxing and spending plans of legislative Democrats are out of touch,” and that the Democratic “supermajority has moved further to left.”

Just the point the Republicans have been trying to make all summer. This was just about the first time they’ve gotten it onto the front page.

Where it won’t stay for long, whereupon we come to the question of whether Salmon bought himself a day’s publicity in exchange for a lot of political trouble.

Consider. Until Tuesday, he was all but assured of re-election as auditor. He was the incumbent and a Democrat, pretty close to invincible in this state these days. Now he’s the incumbent and a Republican, who could get beat.

Who, one might even say, is likely to get beat if the Democrats can come up with a good candidate to oppose him. And do not doubt that Democratic State Chair Judy Bevan is lining up some likely contenders—men and women with business credentials, perhaps enough money to help finance the campaign, and political skills, maybe even a touch of charisma.

Under Bevans, who took over earlier this year, the Democrats are more aggressive.. For years, the Democratic leadership was very issue-oriented. It isn’t that Bevans doesn’t care about issues. But she cares a great deal about winning. Gone are the days when the Democrats would just sit back and let some ambitious, well-meaning, shlub enter their primaries unopposed. Salmon can expect a tough race for re-election.

Or in a Republican primary for governor should Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie opt not to run. With a lively Democratic primary for governor likely, only devoted Republicans will vote in the GOP primary. Devoted Republicans generally prefer…devoted Republicans, meaning Republicans who have been devoted to the party for years, not months.

But that’s not the only political lesson to be found in the penumbra of the Salmon switch, nor the only one that does not bode well for the newest Republican, who explained his action by saying, “the majority of Vermonters do not want to see tax increases as a response to poor planning.”

Assuredly they do not. But that isn’t what happened. In response to the Recession, the Democrats who control the Legislature did raise taxes, minimally. But they also cut spending, even spending on programs for the sick, the elderly, and the poor.

In doing so, they enraged some of their staunchest supporters, who wanted them to raise more taxes and cut little or nothing. just as the tax hikes enraged the staunchest Republicans, who wanted more spending cuts and no tax increases.

Nobody’s taken a poll recently, but a good bet would be that each of those “staunch” constituencies accounts for roughly 20 percent of the Vermont electorate (with the left fringe probably a bit larger than the right). As to the 60 percent in the middle, every indication so far is that they don’t have any problem with the budget the Legislature passed over Douglas’s veto last spring. In fact, what Vermont seems to have engaged in this year is a successful exercise in democracy, with the lawmakers ending up roughly where a majority of the people wanted to be: budget cuts but not too many; small tax increase on only a few.

How does anybody know that? Nobody does, not for sure. But so far, signs of a backlash against the budget (or, for that matter, same-sex marriage) have been all but non-existent. A few letters to the editor. An occasional op-ed page screed. There were those “tea party” demonstrations, but they were small, and directed mostly at Washington, not Montpelier.

Actually, it would be surprising if there were much of a backlash, because there has been no calamity. Predictions by Republicans (and Salmon) that the new budget would hurt the state’s economy have not come true. In fact, in this Recession, Vermont’s economy has done somewhat better than most other states. For political instability, the Republicans need economic instability.

They may yet get it, and it is possible that mass subterranean resentments smolder way down deep. Right now though, way down deep, maybe all the Vermont Republican Party got this week was one more voter.

A foolish attack, for at least two reasons, neither of which is that his offer is not a political ploy. Of course it is. The two reasons are: (1) There’s nothing wrong with political ploys; (2) As political ploy, this one seems just as likely to backfire as to do him any good.

Say this for Salmon, though. At least he put his views about the state budget on the State Auditor’s web site for all the world to see. Contrast this with Douglas, whose 25-page “budget alternative” released last week is nowhere to be found on any official state web site. Oh, if you Google around enough, you’ll be able to find it, so it’s not exactly being hidden. But the Douglas policy seems to be ‘Openness ‘R’ Not Us.’

(The sites of the Legislative leaders aren’t very informative, either, but legislative schemes end up as…believe it or not! Legislation. As in, an actual bill, officially introduced into either the House or Senate, and available word-for-word verbatim, as lawmakers like to say in that redundant way they have, via the Legislature’s web site.)

OK, back to Salmon’s offer, which is easy to describe because it’s vague, and which is not necessary to describe in detail because nothing is going to come of it. It isn’t that his proposal has no substance. It’s that the little bit of substance it has is substantively incomprehensible.

Asked during an interview on WCAX-TV (Channel 3) why he thought his intervention could help, Salmon said , “I think I’m optimistic that in the most difficult environments , when people finally get to a level of simplicity, honesty, and urgency they can fix a problem.”

Everybody got that?

In some ways, Salmon really is neutral. Thus he opposes the one tax increase idea supported by both the Legislature and the Governor. In the statement he posted on his web site May 13, Salmon comes out squarely against “sin taxes” on alcohol (and presumably, by extension, tobacco), citing an un-named  business owner who told him “The last time Vermont added a tax to beer my sales went down 17 percent, we all know where they went; across the river to New Hampshire.”

Well, if this is Salmon the public policy analyst, perhaps we’d all be better off just sticking to the politics of the matter, even though he assured the Channel 3 interviewer that,” I’m not that concerned about my political career. I’m really not”

He should be, and without shame. Politicians perform a service when they engage in political ploys. They send signals about what they think is important. They provide some insight into their intellect and their attitudes. Besides, Americans like a person who grabs an opportunity when it presents itself. Nothing ventured…

Salmon’s problem here is not that he comes across as an opportunist. It’s that he comes across as very platitudinous and slightly Republican. The former is rarely a political liability. Neither is the latter unless the politician who sounds slightly Republican is a Democrat who will one day have to win a primary in his own party.

Salmon’s problem is that the only way anyone can mediate between Douglas and the Democrats is to convince the Democrats to move closer to the Douglas position. That explains why Douglas immediately took advantage of Salmon’s move to tell the Democratic leaders, “Auditor Salmon’s offer provides a great opportunity to come together and get the job done for the people we serve.  As an independently elected statewide official responsible for monitoring state finances, I believe his insight could be very helpful in moving our discussion forward.”

Forget for a moment that this statement proves that our Governor needs an English teacher. Check that second sentence again. In it, Douglas is calling himself the Auditor (“As in independently elected statewide official…I…”). He didn’t mean that, of course. Salmon is the auditor. Douglas is the (semi-literate?) governor.

But for now we’re just looking at the politics. In a stalemate between Democrats and a Republican, a Democratic official has made a proposal which undercuts his fellow-Democrats and is embraced by the Republican.

What the Democrats want to do is override Douglas’s promised veto of the budget bill. Asked by Channel 3’s Kristin Carlson why he doesn’t support his party here, Salmon said, “a budget override may be a short term victory , but we’ve got many, many challenges and you can call them battles. But the sooner we line up as a team on some of this, the better.”

Assuming that means anything at all, it’s a plausible policy outlook. What it is not is a good strategy for winning a primary. In Vermont as elsewhere, the primary voters in both parties tend to be the truest believers. With a few exceptions, that means the most conservative Republicans and the most liberal Democrats. Right now, those liberal Democrats are solidly behind their party’s legislative leaders and solidly opposed to Douglas on the budget fight. Actually, so are the mildly liberal Democrats. Salmon has made no friends among them.

But isn’t Salmon being a careful moderate, and therefore appealing to the middle-of-the-road voters – the ones who decide elections – the ones who really want Democrats and Republicans to work together and to avid partisan bickering?

Maybe. But first of all a candidate doesn’t get to try to appeal to those moderate middle-of-the-roaders until he’s won his party’s primary. Besides, those folks may simply not be paying very much attention to what’s going on right now. Even in relatively sophisticated Vermont, state government and politics is an insiders game. The politicians, the lobbyists, the interest groups, the reporters and a devoted but rather small band of political junkies pay attention.

Everyone else? Probably most of them do not know who Tom Salmon is. Or House Speaker Shap Smith, either. Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin might be a bit more recognizable because he’s been in office longer and once ran for lieutenant governor. But he’s hardly a household name, either. Most of those middle-of-the-road voters are probably paying more attention to the recession, the President, the North Korean nuclear test, even the NBA playoffs and the Red Sox than they are to the state budget impasse.

It isn’t that people are entirely indifferent. Almost nobody wants to pay higher taxes. But by now they might have figured out that under either the Douglas or the Democratic plan, most of them won’t. Besides, according to national polls (and there’s no reason to think Vermonters differ on this point), most people are about as opposed to budget cuts in most social programs as they are to tax increases.

If the Democrats succeed in overriding Douglas’s veto, Salmon’s offer to mediate will be irrelevant. If they fail, Salmon’s offer will almost surely be…just as irrelevant. Neither Smith nor Shumlin nor any rank-and-file Democratic lawmaker has shown any interest in taking the Auditor up on his offer.

As befits an auditor, Salmon is a CPA. Perhaps, for his own sake, he should have kept that green eyeshade on and stuck to his ledger books.