(Once again, in keeping with GMD's policy of promoting first-hand diaries by the candidates to our front page, here is the latest from Matt Dunne. - promoted by Sue Prent)
The campaign team was delighted to see a new analysis of the WCAX poll this week. As many of you on GMD recognized when the results were first released, the margin of error in the poll meant that the pure ranking of candidates was not necessarily a true picture of the field.
University of Vermont Political Science Professor Anthony Gierzynski shows that the Vermont Governor's race is still wide open, and that when the margin of error is taken into account, three of the Democratic candidates are statistically actually tied with Brian Dubie.
When I got into this race, everyone knew that it would be a challenge early on to compete with the other well known candidates who have been on the statewide stage for years. We were pleasantly surprised to have such strong numbers so early on in the race.
Those of you in the netroots have been a critical part of sharing candidate positions and visions across the state, demonstrating that elections do not have to be dependent on incumbency or spending large sums of money. We can have an election about who has the best experience and ideas to move our state into a new era. Regardless of who you support, thank you for bringing a refreshingly deep discussion to this important election.
As the campaign moves into the next phase, we will be building the kind of grass roots outreach efforts that Vermonters expect. Many of you helped with our quiet effort to engage thousands of Vermonters coming out of the polls on town meeting day. You can expect more of these volunteer driven efforts as Vermonters become increasingly ready to engage in a conversation about our state's future.
I hope you will join us in this exciting year by signing up on our newly revamped website: http://mattdunne.com/
Former City Councilor Andy Montroll and former Burlington Telecom boss Tim Nulty, along with Ron Cassel, Stanton Williams, Paul Guiliani, Rick Royer, Paul Millman, Richard Donnelly, and Don Mayer make up the so-dubbed "group of 9" - the cadre of technical professionals and investors who have offered to step in and cover the late payment on BT's debt in exchange for being given the reins of the whole operation (or in Nulty's case, re-given... is that a word?). Calling themselves "Reboot Burlington Telecom," the group has a website up detailing their proposal (ht CandleBill).
RebootBT has already done the impossible; carved out a growing space for those who think the whole endeavor is a hopeless disaster under the Kiss administration, but really don't want to see it abandoned. That's a space that hasn't existed for months - really, ever since Progressive Party leaders tried to make the whole thing into a partisan referendum, setting up a "you're with the mayor or you're against BT" dynamic.
They certainly succeeded in that, but the results of that now-polarized dynamic have hardly gone their way. Now, the only realistic hope for salvaging the situation - particularly in terms of public confidence - would seem to be in accepting Reboot BT's offer.
Thankfully, the City Council is filling the void and moving forward on their own as - naturally - the mayor and Jonathan Leopold have all but ignored the offer. After all, going with it would be a tacit admission that they screwed up.
But this switch to web-based government, just like the switch to web-based flight reservations and banking, means better service to clients at lower cost to the service provider. Not too good to be true. March 7,2010
Governor Jim Douglas’ resident smart tech man, Tom Evslin, is still threatening Vermont with an earlier promise of a government that will be run just like web-based flight reservations and banking services. He has expanded on this theme lately and now highlights the wonder of ATMs and computerized bank records as examples of efficiency for state government.
Another newly added folksy illustration of life after our technological revolution is how easy it will be to apply for a hunting/fishing license. (Currently Hunting /fishing licenses can easily be purchased at most general stores in Vermont.) Perhaps he’s keeping it simple out of consideration for those that don’t share his vision of Vermont bureaucracy “in the cloud.”
But once records become electronic, they're wherever you need them to be. It doesn't matter whether they're in a corporate data center, on a disk in a state office. or somewhere off in a huge computer center operated by Google or Amazon (technically this is called being "in the cloud"). When you need access to them, they're where you are. You can withdraw money from any ATM (at least if you don't mind fees); you can charge at any store; and you ought to be able to go into any government office to do whatever government business you need to do.
He never touches the potential problems with cloud storage of public records on systems accessible through Google or Amazon. Previously his performance at the Vermont State Recovery Office was rated 47th out of 50 at providing required public access to economic stimulus spending and contract bid information. Evslin is a smart fellow, yet he persists in making simple arguments for his brave new world, with only fleeting references to what he calls “current organizational constraints.” These constraints would surely involve “attendant discomforts, confusion, and fears,” but Evslin glosses over these specifics and proceeds speedily past. No reason to dwell on job and pay cuts.
Anyone with a minimum familiarity with web-based transactions knows the fur-balls that electronic data can cough up. I wish he trusted in his vision and Vermonters enough to raise the level of discussion above 1960’s Popular Science Magazine. Stop chatting up the wonder of a government as futuristic as ATMs and airline flight reservation systems.
How about an open discussion about who wins and who loses in your bureaucratic cloud? Get out from the closed door meetings and explain to Vermont citizens, (or clients as you call them) how these changes will challenge them.
Call me old fashioned, but all the sweeping, absolutist ranting against "earmarks" as "pork" leaves me cold. Sure, we can all agree that gazillion dollar bridges to nowhere are a bad thing, but funding for projects at local universities? Support for renewable energy projects? Public works? Infrastructure projects?
Hell yes I think those are perfectly good uses of federal tax dollars. In fact, I'm of the school that thinks securing such assistance for worthy, meaningful home state projects is a fundamental part of a US Senator's or Representative's job. That's why I appreciated this from the Freeps today:
Vermont does better than any other state when it comes to qualifying for federal money distributed on the basis of census data, a new study has found.
[...] According to the Brookings data, Vermont received almost $1.79 billion in federal money in fiscal 2008 based on Census-related statistics, or $2,873.67 per capita. The per-capita average for the country was $1,469.
Heck, with all the inevitable "earmark" whining that's probably filling up the Freeps comment section by now, allow me to offer a hearty "damn fine job, gentlemen".
Looking forward to the day (not too far off, maybe?) when our senior Senator becomes Chair of Appropriations...
Doris Haddock, aka Granny D, died Tuesday afternoon, March 9, 2010. She had turned 100 years old in late January, and celebrated with a party at the NH State House. When she was 90, she walked across the entire country for campaign finance reform (there's an HBO documentary available free on Hulu, called "Run Granny Run").
In 2004, she ran a very grassroots campaign for Senate against Sen. Judd Gregg. She lost, yes, but not before showing up the GOP for the arrogant, elitist gang it was, and Gregg for the patronizing sexist he is.
There's a website dedicated to her speeches, many of which still pertain to how politics is done in 2010.
We elect our representatives to represent our values and our needs in shaping public policy and allocating community resources. In this work, the regular citizen doesn't stand a chance if elected representatives must first go to wealthy special interests to fund their campaigns. The representation game is over before it begins.
It is nothing particularly new. But in the past, the wealthy lived among us. We shopped in their stores on Main Street and their children went to grade school with ours. We shared the same community interests and values.
We are now talking about inhumane organizations of inhuman scale and international allegiance. They care not if our main streets or our families prosper or if they blow away. We must not have these monsters influencing our community decisions. We must not allow them to provide funds for our candidates, where those funds will deny us proper representation.
I like music.
Music makes me happy. It serves a major function in my life.
Music has a number of utilities. It can draw people in, bring them together, break the ice, release tensions, and make us forget about the dreariness of issues and answers for a time.
One thing I particularly enjoy is what some people like to call "guilty pleasures."
Only thing is... never could figure out why I should feel guilty about them.
I mean, it's not like they disable me from participation in a functioning democracy or anything.
Here's one:
...and I'll put a few more for those who enjoy biting tinfoil on the jump.
Add your own if you're so inclined.
Because it is near impossible, during plant operation, to get into the pipe tunnel where a leaking pipe is located, the repairs will have to wait until it is offline for refueling...
But it's all good, because they have a "conceptual plan" to take care of that.
Now, just a bit of history: this leak was discovered in January. Specifically, January 6th. And April is... let's see... too damned many months to be leaking radiation without shutting down the plant for repairs.
A small robot that was exploring the underground pipe tunnel believed to be the source of the radioactive tritium leak at the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor has fallen victim to one of the contributing factors of the leak - radioactive "mud" from deteriorating concrete and radioactive water.
NTodd of Dohiyi Mir is running for the State House as an independent. With Philip Baruth running for Senate, could that make for two bloggers hitting the Statehouse next session? If so, they'll find they aren't the first, as Republican/Vermont Tiger blogger Oliver Olsen beat them there after being appointed by the Governor to the late Rick Hube's seat.
In case you haven't already heard or read, gubernatorial candidate Matt Dunne is about to become a dad again. Congratulations Matt! Pretty challenging timing for campaigning though (kiddo is expected in June). Perhaps any lost time can be offset by the public "awwwwwwwww" factor.
Margolis dissects the gawd-awful House Bill that would allow high donors to the State Colleges or UVM to maintain anonymity, carving out another open records law exemption. What a terrible idea, terrible precedent. Dunno if it passed today.
Well, I have to say, it's a good thing that 
Oh, and we're not talking early April. We're talking April 24. That's 108 days later. But hey, at least 
