I don’t know anything more than any of you know about this:

http://politicalticker.blogs.c…

But, really, wtf!

This is part two of my series looking at the potential Democratic challengers to Jim Douglas. Part one involved a lot of charts, graphs, numbers, and nearly 4000 words. For part two, I have no such data to work from – only gut instinct and personal impressions. Thankfully that means this one will be a LOT shorter…

Previous entries: Anthony Pollina

Peter Galbraith does not have your typical resume for a pretender to the throne of Jim Douglas. Check out this bit from an online bio of the acclaimed author of The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End –

As U.S. Ambassador to Croatia, Galbraith was actively involved in the Croatia and Bosnia peace processes. He was co-mediator and principal architect of the 1995 Erdut Agreement that ended the war in Croatia by providing for peaceful reintegration of Serb-held Eastern Slavonia into Croatia.

During the war years, Ambassador Galbraith was responsible for U.S. humanitarian programs in the former Yugoslavia and for U.S. relations with the UNPROFOR mission headquartered in Zagreb. Ambassador Galbraith's diplomatic interventions facilitated the flow of humanitarian assistance to Bosnia and secured the 1993 release of more than 5,000 prisoners of war held in inhumane conditions by Bosnian Croat forces.

Galbraith helped devise and implement the strategy that ended the 1993-94 Muslim-Croat War and participated in the negotiation of the Washington Agreement that established the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina. He was co-chairman of the Croatia peace process ("the Z-4 process") that produced several agreements between the Croatian government and rebel Serbs. From 1996 to 1998, Ambassador Galbraith served as de facto Chairman of the international commission charged with monitoring implementation of the Erdut Agreement.

From January 2000 to August 2001, Ambassador Galbraith was Director for Political, Constitutional and Electoral Affairs for the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET). He also served as Cabinet Member for Political Affairs and Timor Sea in the First Transitional Government of East Timor. In these roles, he designed the territory's first interim government and the process to write East Timor's permanent constitution.

Ambassador Galbraith conducted successful negotiations with Australia to produce a new treaty governing the exploitation of oil and gas in the Timor Sea. The resulting Timor Sea Treaty will double the GNP of East Timor, and is believed to be the first time the United Nations has a negotiated a bilateral treaty on behalf of a state. He also led the UNTAET/East Timor negotiating team during eighteen months of negotiations with Indonesia aimed at normalizing relations and resolving issues arising from the end of the Indonesian occupation.

Now reading that resume for a potential Governor of Vermont either gets you scratching your head or thinking to yourself: "cool." I admit it, I'm part of the latter group, despite the fact that it doesn't take a genius to see the overwhelming roadblocks to a Galbraith ascendence: lack of name recognition and a dearth of electoral experience. In fact, as with Pollina, it's hard for me to see Galbraith winning this.

We'll spend a little time on those two drawbacks in more detail, but let's look first at the ways he might bring leveragable assets to a gubernatorial race…

Despite his lack of applicable political experience, Galbraith can certainly make the argument that he's a person who can get things done – and who can motivate others to work together towards common goals under the most extraordinary of circumstances. He can also argue that his international standing can translate well for Vermont business, working around the deficit in American image caused by the Bush administration.

The biggest thing he has going for him, though, is his outsider status. Despite the Party label, he can run more credibly as an outsider than Pollina, who is very much a part of the Vermont political landscape. It's the "outsider" label that has effectively minimized the impact of the "inexperienced" tag, and Galbraith is positioned in a way to take full advantage of that.

You'll hear me repeatedly refer to the need for candidates to look to the Dean New Hampshire field model, and there are varying degrees of doing so. Often, I only mean they should take the traditional dynamic of doing field work to support regional events (and ultimately GOTV) and bust it open – make field work not about what happens when the candidate is in the area, but what happens when the candidate is somewhere else. In Galbraith's case, though, he should adopt the Dean model hook, line and sinker – and surrender himself to it.

Rich Tarrant tried to run a vanity campaign against Bernie Sanders, and in doing so had the problem of defining himself to the electorate. His solution? Lots of money and a cheesy, relentless ad campaign. It was a disaster.

When Howard Dean had to define himself to a nationwide audience, he created a house-event powered, person-to-person strategy – punctuated by volunteer regional events that didn't even include the candidate – that did the candidate-defining for him, often completely out of his own control (this was coupled, obviously with the revolutionary online campaign). This Amway-esque model allowed people to project all kinds of wondrous things into Dean's persona very quickly, propelling him to national significance (and changing him as a political figure in the process).

It's this kind of wildfire, feelgood-projection that Galbraith would need to encourage. There isn't another effective means to close such an absolute and complete name-recognition gap in this time frame. He needs to start in January, using as many paid staff as he can, but figuring that his resources will be limited (but maybe not THAT limited…see below).

Like any challenger to Douglas, Galbraith needs to have a head of steam going into the Summer – which is when the traditional media usually take notice. Anybody running needs to have evidence that they are a credible challenger or the media will sink them, as they do to all of Douglas's opponents.

This approach butts him right up against his other weakness: lack of campaign experience. Galbraith is a smart guy, and smart guys who are interested in politics tend to have years of armchair quarterbacking under their belts. When they decide to make the plunge, they are often reluctant to surrender control to people who know what they're doing, and can run their own campaigns into the ground. Galbraith needs to find good, creative, talented staffers who he trusts, and then turn himself largely over to them.

What he should do:

Raise some money. Galbraith may have enough out of state connections who can exploit the lack of meaningful campaign finance limits to jump start a campaign when the in-state money people are dubious about him. Bring someone on board to set up a bunch of big out of state parties. Get a good website up and going to tap into his crdibility with the netroots anti-Iraq crowd to try to gin up some smaller donations. Use this out of state money to jumpstart an in-state field heavy operation.

Let's face it, everybody always makes noise about their opponent when he or she raises a bunch of out-of-state money, but nobody really cares. 

Field, field, field (and earned media):

As I said before, Galbraith has to do this up, Dean-style. Turn what money he can get straight into that sort of house-event-driven operation and surrender much of his image and message to that machine. Go with the flow by letting the field operation somewhat define you, read that flow, and then grab onto the key emerging themes and pump them up with as much local earned media as you can. You're a well-respected intellectual sort, so most of the reporters will want to impress you. Exploit that goodwill.

The only hope here, is to get a head of steam – if not on points, at least on the novelty of a movement-style campaign to get some positive coverage and press interest after the session.

Message:

Run against the governor, but also against the legislature, who aren't gonna do squat to help you anyway. Be the stern, mature parent who will come in and get the squabbling kids to grow up and get things done.

Use that international cred. Galbraith can position himself as a conduit around all the anti-US sentiment in the rest of the world who will be able to pitch Vermont directly, credibly and positively to the rest of the world in the interests of commerce and tourism.

Be careful not to alienate yourself from voters with the intellectual thing. Again, nurture a more parental image rather than one of a teacher – but an approachable parent. Stern, serious – but in a primal sort of way, also comforting and reassuring.

Rapid Response:

Everybody needs rapid response, but Douglas will try and define Galbraith right out of the gate, since he's such a blank slate. Rapid response will be more important, and it should be rapid response that showcases Douglas's penchant towards petulance. This gives an opportunity to draw maturity contrasts.

Big Economic Announcements:

A few populist oriented, cut-through-the-crap economic policies, designed to make people double-take, and thereby sit up and take notice they otherwise wouldn't have. Populist stuff is generally about doing away with things or stopping things, rather than starting new things. FInd some things to do away with that people would like to see done away with.

How about the statewide property tax? Hint, hint…

Too much to blog about yet, too little time. Thought I’d experiment with getting caught up this way (decided to just use the blogging meta-topic that was on my mind).

Speaking of sustainability, take a look at this diary about creating sustainable holiday observances.

Green Christmas

Let's make it happen people.

"Share traditions rather than gifts."