In truth, it’s hard to be sure.

The Vermont political calendar is in flux these days. Election season starts far, far earlier on the one hand, but most casual observers still don’t really check in until October. The Tarrant for Senate campaign has tried to break out of that cycle (and its obvious benefit to incumbents) through advertising, running more ads than any Senate campaign in the country, but that strategy seems to have largely backfired. Whether it’s because voters don’t want to think about these things before October, or simply because the ads are so distasteful is hard to say.

Despite this fact, the campaigns have to start early – to raise money, test messages, lay the institutional groundwork and ideally build a field campaign (although everyone still waits too long on that one, as a robust, proactive field operation is still considered lower priority to most insiders).

However, although candidates and insiders have expanded their election calendar, most Vermonters-at-large haven’t, at that makes the late season dynamics hard to read. Although structurally not significantly different than the Clavelle campaign (and at roughly the same point in the polls from this time two years ago), the Scudder Parker campaign has all of a sudden created quite a stir among the media and we political junkies. In fact, the stir was teed up by the strategically incomprehensible decision by the Douglas campaign to run insulting attack ads against Parker. This caused many folks to sit up and take notice (even if they were scratching their heads), and set up Parker perfectly for his superior debate performances. Parker more than made up for his shaky and often underwhelming vocal timbre with direct, specific surgical strikes in these forums that have been the most effective rhetorical jabs Douglas has ever had to grapple with – and Douglas’s reaction belied how unaccustomed he is to such treatment.

Nevertheless, it’s very hard for those of us who have been following this race for some time to discern whether or not Parker is scoring points with the greater populace. To us, this is the latest chapter of a months-long narrative that suddenly has the makings of an underdog story like “Rocky.” But most folks are only just checking in, and are only just now building their own narrative of the race. To them, Parker is likely appearing as a genuine challenger as a result of the attention, but there has not been an opportunity as yet to build real momentum. In other words, there’s likely buzz, but not necessarily progress.

With such a short window of opportunity against so popular an incumbent, there may simply not be the time to build any momentum. Still, thanks to his debating skills and with the help of the Governor himself, Parker does have a genuine opportunity to build that momentum that he didn’t have before. Whether six weeks is enough time is hard to say. Small states like Vermont can turn on a dime, but they usually don’t.

Still, against the changing character and schedule of Vermont elections, we are still to an extent in uncharted territory. We’ll have to see what the next weeks (and debates) bring. Played right, who is to say the buzz couldn’t snowball (please pardon the mixed metaphor, there…)?

( – promoted by Jack McCullough)

Ok, going to make that rare excursion into VT politics again. I’ve just returned from a ‘house party’ for Peter Welch, who is running to fill Bernie Sanders’ seat. Now, for those of you not in the know, in Vermont, due to our smallness factor, we have ‘house parties’ for candidates at the local and statewide level (I’m sure other states do this too, I just don’t know). Anyways, sometimes they’re publicly advertised, sometimes private invite. Since I’ve gotten more involved in VT politics working on the Osman senate campaign, and have gotten to know many more of the ‘movers and shakers’ (god, I hate that term), I seem to get invited to a lot of these house parties, or ‘coffees’ as they’re called. They are kinda cool, because they give one the opportunity to meet the candidate one-on-one, look them in the eye, and question them… and give them follow-ups if they give you the typical politician non-answer. Lots of schmoozing. And, of course, the opportunity to raise cash.

So, anyways, Jenni and I went to the coffee in Marshfield. There were lots of people I knew there. When Welch showed up, I approached him, and thanked him for acknowedging my Rainville bash letter to the Times Argus. He remembered it and thanked me again.

Anyways, after lots of good cheese, pastry and almost too much wine, I went into the big room to hear him speak. His speech was heavy on the Bush-bashing, but more importantly laying out some of the things he wants to do in Congress, such as bringing the troops home, fixing the Medicare D donut hole, protecting Social Security, and repealing the tax breaks for the wealthy and the oil companies. Welch is a very personable guy, not slick at all, and that was a plus in my book. He’s quite soft-spoken, not the Bernie firebrand type.

After the speech, he took some Q&A, and I asked him that basically, time and time again, whether it be torture, war, wiretapping, 9-11, whatever, the Dems drop the ball and roll over, time and time again. I asked him what his thoughts were on that, and considering how unpopular Bush is in VT (the 20’s), it would be politically quite safe to take on Bush, and how agressive would he be in regards to holding Bush and co. accountable?At first he was treading dangerously close to being a bit evasive, repeating his plans to fix things. So I followed up, “Peter, that’s great, but what about accountability? What about investigations and such?” He brought up a good point that often investigations and such can derail other initiatives and be turned against the party (while they are important, they cannot be the only focus), but also talked about the power of committees, in that they can stop a lot of things from seeing the light of day in the first place. He agreed that the Dems have been too timid in taking on Bush and that he would not back down from agressively fighting the president. So he sounds like he would be an obstructionist to the Bush agenda, which is what I was looking for. Every other question from the audience was pretty in-depth and intelligent, and he answered everything straight on, not giving the stock answer. He’s not the pandering type.

Peter’s an intelligent, thoughtful down-to-earth kind of guy, with none of the slickness(such as Bernie), which is a plus in my book. Of course, he’s not as leftie as I would like but I can be quite far to the left of the spectrum, but he needs to get elected, and I don’t think statewide that kind of radical leftism will sell. I donated some to the campaign and also volunteered to drive him around if he needs it. I’ll vote for him, and won’t feel bad about it, unlike when I voted for Kerry. I encourage you to do the same. I think he’d make a great congressman.

Several people approached me afterwards and thanked me for ‘putting his feet to the fire’. Other conversations I had with some of them there agreed that we need to take the gloves off and start getting agressive. Many liberals, for some reason, find this hard to do, whether it be because of political correctness, or the idea that agressiveness is never good, it’s too masculine, whatever. Bullshit. I was having some beers on Friday with my longtime friend Wes and spent a lot of time talking about this liberal hypersensitivity, and how it’s crippling us. That, as well as an overreliance on magical thinking. Libs often offer up these silly, hippie-dippie answers, with no basis in reality and we get mocked by the right-wing even more, because we feed into the stereotypes. Or we offer answers that are hopelessly idealistic, and don’t take into account the political and social realities of America (like the Bible Belt). Enough. I’ve had it.

That is the big difference between the lib/progressives of today and the 60’s radicals. Backbone. For whatever reason, whether because of political correctness or whatever, it’s been lacking, and we get our asses kicked on the political stage constantly since Reagan.

These people fighting us don’t want to compromise; they want to destroy us, and that seems lost on many on our side. Whining and playing defense while worrying about offending people is not a winning strategy, it’s a recipe for disaster, and certainly not a way to win anything.

Wes and I half-joked about starting up a think-tank for rational, proactive liberalism, unburdened by magical thinking, naivite and hypersensitivity, and that plays offense as well as defense. We then realized how few people we knew that we could ask to join. But it’s time for a realignment in the liberal movement that is aggressive, fights back, and commands the dialogue. In some ways , yes, be more like the GOP, except tell the truth and not make shit up like they do. And no, I’m not talking about self-described ‘anarchists’ who go to rallies and throw trash cans through windows – they make themselves feel better about themselves and the futility of their movement, and alienate lots of people who might otherwise agree, but I fail to see how they’re helping the cause progress in any way. Now, I’m not saying the Black Panthers, Weathermen, SDS, or the Yippies did everything right. But dammit, at least they knew how to fight. It’s time we did , too.

You can read this and: other ‘Observations about culture, politics, secular humanism, Christofascist idiocy, Blaxploitation films, Spaghetti Westerns, music and other amusing things, from the Green Mountain state. Not for the ultra-PC or hypersensitive…’ at http://www.fivebefor…

Anyways, it’s time to take a look at the GOP stooge that is vying for Bernie’s old seat, Adj. General Martha Rainville. Now, the purpose of this is mostly to let you know that as much as the VT GOP would like you to believe Martha’s not some backwater Neanderthal Repub (like most of the ones now), a closer look at her shows she is really just another Bush Republican. See, it seems that the strategy the GOP tries time and time again is to avoid talking about issues unless absolutely necessary, because they know that they are nowhere near what traditional VT Repubs, such as the venerable George Aiken, were.

So, lets have a look, shall we? You can look at the bio stuff on her site, I’m going to look at where she stands on the issues, both from the material on her website, and through a Democratic press release graciously forwarded to me from Odum, over at Green Mountain Daily.

A cursory glance on her issues page shows 16 issues, from the Iraq war to No Child Left Behind. Conspicuously absent are two that seem to be quite important to Vermonters, the environment, and gender equality issues. Her energy policy has me quite confused. She mentions often about conservation and weaning us off of fossil fuels numerous times, but still is pushing the ‘increasing domestic production’ option, which to me, is no longer a viable option. There are many people in this country that simply think the answer to our energy problems is drilling our way out of it. Rainville is enabling this short-sighted thinking, and that mentality is also what is pushing for drilling in ANWR and other pristine, formerly-off-limits places. Granted, there are some good points to her energy plan, such as increased conservation, and the use of flex-fuel or hybrid government vehicles. There’s nothing about ending oil subsidies, nothing about increasing fuel mileage standards, nothing about increasing subsidies for solar, biomass and wind technologies.

On other things such as abortion, she supports parental-notification, and is opposed to the Republican buzzword ‘partial-birth abortion’. She supports line-item veto, which, considering we have a president that just ignores parts of the law he doesn’t agree with, seems kind of unnecesary(anything that gives an already power-obsessed executive branch more power is not a good thing).

On tax cuts, she’s taken the words right form the Bush book:
“As a fiscal conservative, I believe that taxpayers spend their hard earned money better than the government. Tax cuts stimulate the economy, promote strong economic growth and create new jobs.”
No surprises there, still playing the thoroughly discredited trickle-down theory.

Same on jobs, more form the tired old Repub playbook that’s running this country into the ground: “cut taxes, reduce regulatory burdens and reform our legal system”. Yep, damn trial lawyers and regulations… She offers nothing new on healthcare reform either, and I suspect that she believes the ‘market’, you know the one that has done such a great job so far with it, just needs a few reforms here and there and it will be ok. Screw universal healthcare.

Now to be fair, she supports a raise in the federal minimum wage, has called for diplomacy when dealing with Iran, is against the Federal Livestock ID system (a big issue in VT), and is in support of some sort of ethics reform. So basically, she’s not a far right lunatic. But, ultimately, what I find so discomforting about her is her position on Iraq. Like all of the assholes pushing the ‘stay the course’ vibe, she ties Iraq into the GOP ‘war on terror’ talking point, and what’s worse, she sees the failure in Iraq as primarily a failure of our government to communicate:
“A very important element has been missing, and that is good communication on what’s going on there… It’s very difficult for citizens to have an accurate perspective of the war of our successes… Part of that is, I believe, the fault of all of those involved for not communicating more openly with Americans, or not telling the story of what’s going on in Iraq.”
So basically, we’re losing the war because we’re not getting the right spin on those 30 or 40 Iraqis killed every day due to sectarian violence and the 2600+ Americans who have died for the lie. Ok. Feel better?

Apparently, Rainville uses this same illogic to explain away the miserable failure known as the Bush Administration:
“I think his weakness all along has been communicating with people. I wish so much that he would tell more of the good news that’s there. There are some positive things happening… We tend to hear the bad news which is a function of how we cover news. I think the help to the Iraqi people that the war has given – I think that needs to be better understood. Those stories get lost, and I think it’s important for our nation as a whole to understand all that’s going in so that we can judge the strengths and weaknesses better of our president or our congress or our foreign policy.”

So what does that mean, Bush needs to lie better? Needs to hide his imbicilic IQ better? Sorry, Martha, that dog won’t hunt. Blame the liberal media? That is soooooo 2002.

So where am I getting at with all this? Well, in case you haven’t noticed, one-party GOP rule has been an unmitigated disaster for this country. It’s been polarizing, and morally bankrupt. It needs to end, now. Bush needs his power checked, in a serious way. And the thing you need to remember, no matter how much Martha Rainville (or Rich Tarrant, whom I’ll get to shortly) wants you to think they are ‘independent’ and ‘moderate’, they are still members of, and will be contributing to the numbers and power of the party responsible for screwing this country up so royally. A vote for a Repub on the national ticket means a continuace of bad foreign policy. Of no accountability. Of divisive domestic agendas that do nothing to make the average person’s life better, nor us better as a society as a whole. Party really does matter in this election, folks. Now I know there is a lot of talk about the lackluster candidacy of Peter Welch, and it is increasingly getting harder to hold our noses and vote for the lesser of two evils, as we had to for Kerry. But you know damn well Welch is not going to be another rubber stamp for Bushco. Rainville and Tarrant will, no matter how hard they try to convince you otherwise. Rainville: wrong for Vermont. So there.