UPDATE: I stand corrected: The Democratic State Committee couldn’t make an endorsement before March, according to the bylaws. My bad. Correction made below.
Some serious (and comical) newsbending going on at – where else? – Fox News, which reported that legendary Bill Clinton campaign staffer and current annoyingly self-important pundit Paul Begala was getting back into the political ring and going to work for Hillary’s campaign. Here’s Begala via HuffPo:
Fox News never even tried to contact me to verify their story, and when I contacted Fox, I felt like a character in a Kafka novel…. After I told Fox it wasn’t true — and this is the surreal part — they kept reporting it anyway. In fact, Fox’s Garrett told me he’d “take it under advisement.” Take it under advisement? I realize I’m generally seen as just another liberal with an opinion, but this was not a matter of opinion, it was a matter of fact. Fox now knew their story was flatly, factually wrong, and they took it “under advisement.”
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Begala reprints his email exchange with Fox reporter Major Garrett, which includes this plea:
I’d sure appreciate you checking with me before you go with a story about me.
Which reminds me, what’s the latest on local newsbender extraordinairre, Peter Freyne? Freyne, as you recall was caught claiming that Doug Racine was “not interested” in running for Governor, and that Peter Galbraith had “ruled it out.” Both statements were made without checking with Racine or Galbraith, both turned out to be demonstrably untrue, and both were written in the context of enthusiastic narratives about the rise of an Anthony Pollina campaign. Freyne has take a pretty serious hit from that among his peers and in the political community, and has responded by rather brazenly trying to rewrite history here and here to claim that what he really said was that Racine wouldn’t run, not that he wasn’t “interested” (of course, the idea that Racine won’t run has always been the “safe” bet with Pollina on the horizon, and its what every other pundit had been saying for weeks – Freyne took it quite a bit further, though. Still no word on a rewrite of the Galbraith statement, which was equally untrue).
More ridiculous is Freyne’s repeated mocking of Racine for calling other reporters to refute the false statement, but not calling Freyne himself, as if this somehow reflects badly on Racine.
Which is funny when you think about it. If Freyne pulled his “not interested” claim out of thin air, Racine hardly needs to call him to inform him of that, right? I mean, Freyne already knows that – its the other reporters that don’t… besides, if Freyne’s gonna write whatever he wants the news to be anyway, what’s the point?
But the buzz looks increasingly to be that Freyne may get his preferred arrangement after all.
Pollina has announced, for all intents and purposes, cranking his game of chicken with Racine up to the max. Racine who has been reportedly talking with potential supporters and funders for weeks – both in Vermont and in Washington – has made little secret of the fact that he does not want to get into a three-way race.
The Pollina crowd has for months claimed that they would back off if a “top tier” Dem showed interest. The Racine story has, if nothing else, demonstrated that this was always spin. My guess is that they looked at the field of potential candidates and felt comfortable making that claim, confident that no one in the “top tier” would go anywhere near it. Racine essentially called their bluff, and the Pollina machine put the pedal to the metal – immediately opening a campaign account, absurdly suggesting that former Senate president Pro-Tem, Lieutenant Governor, and highest-electorally performing sitting Chittenden Senator Racine wasn’t “top tier,” and finally following up with an ad in Seven Days.
In addition, the Pollina team spread the word – which was repeated by Stewart Ledbetter on Vermont this Week, that Pollina had spoken to most of the Democratic County Chairs, and that they had been supportive. Coincidentally, when I heard that, I had just been in touch via email with the Democratic County Chairs, asking about rumors to that effect. What I found was that a small minority had been contacted, and that the responses had been generally none too encouraging.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not faulting them for all this. A good solid game of chicken is what I would’ve done (I don’t know that I would’ve spread that word about the County Chairs, given that it was easily refutable, but whatever…). Heck, it’s what I urged Racine to do. Politics is about staying in control of as many of the variables as possible, and Racine’s interest definitely threatened to put the game very much out of their control.
But the last few weeks have unfolded the way they have, and the game of chicken will likely work. The buzz is that Racine is keeping his ears and options open, but with Pollina on the ground, his enthusiasm has waned dramatically (and who can blame him, frankly)?
Do I think that Freyne was somehow colluding with Pollina? No – but his newsbending sure made for a helpful boost.
Congratulations, Peter. Odds are, you’ve managed to help make the news, rather than simply report or opine on it.
What happens next could be the real clusterfuck.
Obviously, somebody is taking that D ballot slot – probably more of a Jack Long type than a Larry Drown, but who knows? With many Dems likely to blame Pollina for scaring off the only real shot at taking down Douglas, that ballot-squatter may actually pull a fair percentage, too.
But on the other hand, there are Democrats who are determined to have somebody –anybody to endorse at the next March State Committee meeting – if for no other reason, then to put up some kind of firewall between Pollina supporters among the Democrats and the resources of the Party – most notably the Party’s new, improved (and truly impressive) voter file. And they have some reason to fear, as most believe that there are plenty of Progressives who wouldn’t hesitate for a moment in screwing over one half of the “Corporate Party” given a chance.
So my guess is that there is no big name D in the race, and Pollina gets the closest thing to a free shot that the quantum nature of Democracy and humanity will allow him.
And still he will lose. And still they will find some way to blame it on the big, bad Democrats.
But there is one lingering question:
What of Peter Galbraith?
Galbraith is reportedly still interested, could raise a ton of money very quickly, and has absolutely nothing to lose politically. In fact, in the words of another political insider I was just chatting with, a longshot run would be a great way to reintroduce himself to Vermonters, and set himself up for a more serious follow-up run in 2010.
Just when it looked like the mind might stop boggling, it boggles up all over again…