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.

So state Auditor Thomas M. Salmon offers to play referee in the budget impasse between Republican Gov. Jim Douglas and Salmon’s fellow-Democrats who run the Legislature, and what does he get for his troubles? A lot of grief about engaging in a political ploy.

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.