(Good diary on a topic that is rightfully getting a lot of play, but will have to be delicately finessed, as its fraught with the danger of sounding as though we’re telling voters that everything’s great, when their own experience tells them differently. – promoted by odum)

Yesterday’s Times-Argus editorial page devotes a full column taking Jim Douglas to task for his habitual knocking of Vermont’s economic and jobs development climate.

See the full article at: http://mulishbehavior.blogspot…

Is the mainstream media finally catching on to the political agenda behind the “affordability agenda”? Or, are they just getting tired of his say-more, do-less attitude? Either way it’s high time the Governor was subjected to a little more scrutiny. Maybe his days of getting a free pass are finally over.

An excerpt:

“Don’t believe what the governor is going to tell you about our young people moving away. Declaring that the sky is falling because of Vermont’s status as the oldest state in the union has become as much a part of Jim Douglas’ routine as is his folksy demeanor and having a veto showdown with the Democrats come springtime.

Douglas has in fact built his “affordability agenda” on the idea that we are chasing young people out of the state with our high taxes.

But it’s not true.

…It’s time Douglas stopped doing a similar disservice to Vermont business. The perception is that Vermont is not business-friendly, in part because our state’s chief executive won’t stop telling people that’s the case.It’s easy to see why he’s doing it: It gets Jim Douglas re-elected…

So what can Douglas do? He has talked about finding a regional solution – emphasis on the “talk.” And he has put forward some positive initiatives around education, selling the state as a “green” destination and small business development. None of those things can hurt.

But playing Chicken Little over taxes is worse than useless because it encourages those people and businesses that want to be in the Northeast to look elsewhere.

Vermont can’t afford the “affordability agenda” if it’s being sold one knock on the state at a time.”

Kudos to the Times Argus editorial staff for this important work. Read the entire column here.

Three things this editorial makes clear:

1) “Don’t believe what the Governor is telling you…”; and

2) The Governor is doing our state and our business community “a disservice”; and

3) Vermont can’t afford Douglas’ so-called “affordability agenda.”

Sounds like a platform for Vermont Democrats to run on in 2008.

‘Nuff said.

I’m thinking that, being New Year’s Eve, it’s time to take a look back at some of the things that happened in 2007 and whack ourselves over the head repeatedly in order to avoid some prior mistakes.

So this post is simple: things I’m glad about for 2007, things I’m angry about for 2007, things I’m looking forward to in 2008, and things I dread about 2008.

But first, once again, I have done more  light drawings:

As usual, clicking on the images gives you a larger version with details about the photos.

So let’s start with the bad, from 2007.  Put simply, I am pissed off about:

FISA, S-Chip, Dems in Congress, Dems in the Senate, Harry Reid’s crap, Nancy Pelosi’s crap, Joe Lieberman’s sanctimony, Kent Jones getting canned, every single thing the Bush administration has ever done, thought about doing, or come close to doing, lead in toys, talk about a wall across the border, the fact that the only Republican candidate who’s willing to speak out against the occupation of Iraq seems to be getting support from white supremacists, rising costs of health insurance, rising costs of gasoline, rising costs of, well, everything, global warming, species of fish dying out, Blue America Democrats who turned out to be Bluedogs, big media, big media going after their writers, Vermont state police collecting personal medical data, corporate greed overriding common sense, the pardoning of Scooter Libby, and probably a whole hell of a lot more.

I’m also just sad that Terry Pratchett has Alzheimer’s.

I am, on the other hand, quite happy about:

Chris Dodd standing up to Harry Reid, Daily Kos, Green Mountain Daily, Keith Olbermann, Futurama’s return, the end of the Bush administration (in theory), pretty much the whole Republican field (for comic relief), The Daily Show, the Colbert Report, the fact that we caught the Vermont state police collecting personal medical data, that Gonzales was forced to resign, the outcry over the pardoning of Scooter Libby, the fact that even though we can’t change things quite yet, the country seems to finally be fully on board with the slogan for the occupation of Iraq I’ve wanted us to adopt (“Come on!  WTF?”).  Actually, that slogan can apply to the whole Bush administration.  I’m happy that John Kerry isn’t running and that John Edwards is.  I’m happy that I took many awesome pictures this year.

I’m happy that I’m a lot healthier than I was a month ago and I’m happy that my work, for the time being, is prosperous and I’m happy that even though some of my camera equipment got stolen this year, and some of it got broken, that I was able to recover quickly (though expensively) from both.  I’m glad that clear thinking about global warming has entered the mainstream.

I’m happy for Parker River.

As far as 2008 goes:

I have no idea what to expect.  I both dread and look forward to it.  I look forward to whomever the Republican nominee is, because I don’t think it will be that difficult to beat him (though I think McCain and Huckabee would be major challenges).  I dread Clinton being nominated (feel free to flame me) but I look forward to working for Edwards in New Hampshire this weekend, because I think he’ll do better than Clinton in Iowa and that will make NH really interesting.

I look forward to more music, more photography, better health.  I look forward to the last throes of the Bush administration and I look forward to seeing better people elected in 2008.

I look forward to more writing, more thoughts, a little peace and quiet, and a lot of damned fine music.

So how about the rest of you?  What are your best lessons from 2007?  What do you expect to do differently in 2008?

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In my opinion, there are a lot of reasons not to vote for Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic nominee for President. Most of them are obvious from a progressive standpoint (at least I think so), but one of the most significant is perhaps not so obvious.

When the dust clears, the Democratic nominee will become the functional head of the Democratic National Committee. Howard Dean will become largely marginalized and ultimately replaced by someone who is the candidate’s right-hand person, if that candidate actually wins the White House (and if he or she doesn’t, Dean will end up taking the blame anyway, and will likely be shown the door). It’s a pattern which is routine (although, IMO undesirable – and I’d like to see it broken). In the short term, though, the candidate will be largely calling the shots.

It’s been no secret that the usual suspect, political Washington insider crowd – personified by mega-consultants like James Carville and pundits like Paul Begala – viscerally despise Dean and his “50 State Strategy” as it was originally known. The ballots of the dramatic ’06 elections hadn’t even been cast before history was being rewritten by the likes of Rahm Emanuel and Chuck Schumer to take credit for the electoral gains and minimize or dismiss the effect of Dean’s radical reallocation of resources to the state level.

Simply put, Dean has never been out of this crowd’s sights, and Hillary Clinton is the candidate of this crowd. Once she  has the chair above Dean, Dean and his priorities will go the way of all things just as quickly as Carville and company can show up with the pink slips. Dean has already been preparing local party staff for the likelihood of some serious, even radical changes to the Party’s current modus operandi.

The question is how much of a change in mid-election year stream the Clinton crowd would dare to make, and whether their vindictive streak would overwhelm their sense of the practical.

As far as the other candidates go, it’s hard to say. Obama has famously turned over his campaign to many in the beltway insider set from the get-go as well, but not so much the crowd with the highly public axes to grind against Dean. In any event, those of us who feel that this devolution of resources and support to the local level is a good thing should have their eyes wide open if they choose to vote for Clinton.