It sounds for all the world like Symington is serious about running for Governor, which probably means that Galbraith is no longer serious (even though he too sounded for all the world like he was serious… so much seriousness). In fact, there seemed to be genuine enthusiasm in her voice at the prospect.

Symington has got to worry Douglas on one level – not because she’ll necessarily beat him outright (she wont with Pollina already campaigning hard), but because the number three scenario I referred to here would be in play:

A 3-Way Race With A Legislative Showdown. The plan here is to keep Douglas below 50%, forcing the final vote into the Legislature, where lawmakers give the nod to the number two vote getter. To make this work, the logic would have to be promoted ASAP and steadily, in order for it to gain exposure in the press and legitimacy among the public. The reasoning would be similar to the logic behind IRV, which the public has already been somewhat primed with. The winner should have a majority. If a majority rejects the Governor, the third place candidate agrees to essentially recuse themselves from the running and throw their support behind the second place winner – and by extension, their electoral support follows. The legislature then has a consistent rationale for picking the number two.  

You better believe her caucus would vote for her if this thing goes to the legislature, as they are super-loyal. But how would she do as a candidate? There’s certainly an appeal to further breaking up the statewide boys club. Both the GOP and the Progs are even more top-heavy with testosterone than the Dems.

Stepping back from the specifics, it may sound ironic, but she shares a fundamental shortcoming as a candidate with, of all people, Anthony Pollina… and the first one of them who can move beyond it may be able to reap the rewards.

It’s easy to see it in Symington, but Pollina has the same problem – it just manifests completely differently. Consider the recent kerfuffle over his attempt to address the State Committee. Pollina, was of course, turned down (or at least put off for a few months). His response?

“I like to sit down at the table and talk about things,” Pollina said. “That’s how I work. So, I just don’t understand why they don’t want to meet with me and hear about the campaign.”

Eh. Just kinda grumpy/whiny, and pretty much what you’d expect, right?

And therein lies the problem.

Both Pollina and Symington are very, very set in their ways – even if those ways are counterproductive. With Pollina its more than just an ideological rigidity – that’s manageable, and can even be an asset if spun carefully. It’s more stylistic. Imagine if Pollina had instead said something like this:

Look, I’m not surprised by the decision. There is a lot of mistrust here going way back, and there’s no doubt that people on both sides – myself included – have done plenty to create this divide that exists between the Democrats and myself.

But I am truly committed to this race, and truly committed to reaching out and working with Democrats towards common goals, as a team. And I have no doubt that most Democrats feel similarly. So while I’d like to have this conversation with the State Committee as soon as possible, I respect that I am really asking for a sea change in the way we’ve all done politics, and I know the Democrats will need to meet me halfway in their own way and at their own time. I remain confident that, come June, the decision may change, and in the meantime, I’ll be working even harder to build that trust and reach out to Democrats, as well as Independents and Republicans who share our vision of Vermont’s future.

Now, wouldn’t that have made you double take and go “wow”?

But it wasn’t to be, and is not likely to be.

Now Symington’s insistence on doing things her way and her way only is legendary. Even some in her caucus will admit privately that they wish she would stretch out a bit and work outside her comfort zone to greater effect.

Why does it matter?

Because electoral politics is about who can control the landscape. If you’re light on your feet, can adapt, grow and move outside your comfort zone, you are adaptable, and in a good position to control the variables.

If you are a constant – unchanging and given to inertia, you don’t control much of anything.

But it becomes very easy for your opponent to control you.

Douglas has spent the last few years pressing Symington’s buttons as though he has a remote control. She is particularly vulnerable to casting political attacks as personal, as she makes way too much use of the pronoun “I”.

Pollina, too, is so predictable as to become a political archetype, if not an outright stereotype at times. This also has the effect of handing a maneuvering pol like Douglas a remote control over your actions.

Whichever one – Pollina or Symington – that finds the perspective, the discipline and the humility to play against form when the situation demands it, and do it deftly, will find themselves not only in the driver’s seat, but may well find the remote control for pressing Jim Douglas’s buttons.

Another “only in Brattleboro” story.

Bob Audette, of the Brattleboro Reformer writes:

“Representatives from Vermont’s Department of Public Service were heckled by anti-nuclear activists during a public meeting in Brattleboro last night.

The meeting was the last of four around the state that the DPS hosted to discuss the future of Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.

DPS Spokesman Stephen Wark was interrupted several times as he attempted to explain to the crowd of more than 100 people gathered at the Red Roof Inn the process behind the state’s review of the power plant… the hearing in Brattleboro was meant to inform the Department of Public Service, the Public Service Board and the Legislature in its deliberations over Yankee’s future.”

It gets better.

“Off to the side, a pair of anti-nuclear activists performed a kind of street theater. A man wearing a placard reading “Public Service” and a woman wearing a placard reading “Nuclear Industry” mimicked a couple engaging in foreplay, bordering on sex.

At one point, Wark threatened to call the police to remove at least one of the loudest protesters.

“Some people here tonight are more interested in grandstanding than in participating,” said Wark, after the crowd broke into five groups to discuss Vermont Yankee. “We’re here for a period of time with a serious mission and that’s to collect information for in-depth studies. We want to make sure we are hearing the people.”

Wark said previous meetings in Burlington, St. Johnsbury and Rutland were not disrupted by protesters.

“This doesn’t dissuade us from what we came here to do,” he said.””

To read more of the recap, Click here.

A few days ago, I posted this to Birding New England:

In today’s Rutland Herald there’s a very good piece with a very bad title: “VINS: Owl population on rise in Vermont.”

The article itself is good.  It talks about the details behind the barred owl population and how its in trouble due to poor food sources this year, and how people are spotting them a lot more due to this malnutrition, etc.  The problem is entirely with the headline, which suggests that just because more people are spotting a nocturnal bird means that the bird’s population is on the rise.

The reason we don’t often spot owls is because most of them sleep during the day; if you see one up and about during the day, it’s usually because it’s having trouble finding a good food source and needs to expand its hunting beyond its normal hours.  Implying that the population is on the rise as a result of this is like saying that lower income families are doing well because they’re working two jobs.  

The photo, by the way, is of a barred owl that showed up by our house a few months back.  It was right at dusk, so it might have been just getting ready to do its hunting, or it might have been one of the many owls in trouble.

I want to take a few minutes to discuss what the problem is here, and what I see as endemic in media representation: as I noted before, the content is mostly good.  It discusses barred owls, the problems they’re facing, etc., though it doesn’t focus on why some of those problems occur.  The fact that many of the owls are being hit by cars, for example, is not because there are more owls than normal.  It’s because there are owls which are venturing outside of wilderness to find prey.  

A common problem with raptors and vehicles stems from them being such good hunters.  They focus on prey and when they find the right prey, they are extremely good at just going for it as quickly as possible.  In the wild, this works extremely well for them.  When cars are in the mix, it’s easy for them to get hit by drivers who are going too fast because the bird is focusing on the prey and the driver isn’t expecting a large bird of prey to come flying across the windshield.  

It’s even worse, because many birds of prey are edge feeders, which means they do most of their hunting at dusk or dawn.  This works well, because prey animals are generally in transition from sleeping to waking (or vice versa), which distracts them from the hunters.  But it also means that it’s taking place when visibility is poorest for drivers.  

So… you get this article which is not a poor article by any stretch, but the headline here is completely misleading given the situation.  A one-year spike in population is not a population on the rise.  But for most media, writing about science is an afterthought.  They think it might be interesting, so they write something up that gets printed.  But it’s not thorough or detailed and, like any story of complexity, it misses key elements; and then you throw a headline like this into the mix and you get a royal mess where people get just informed enough to think they understand the picture, but not informed enough to have any real understanding about the story.

Can you tell that things like this frustrate me?

crossposted @ www.vermontbloggernaut.blogspot.com

So I talk a lot of crap about Pollina running for governor against Douglas. This will be my last swipe until November when I post a big I told you so. Yep, 6 months of no Pollina bashing from me. Why? I actually like the guy, I’d even go so far as to describe myself a fan. I love everything that Pollina stands for, his heart is in the right place. He’s the Bernie Sanders of Middlesex. However, because I like the guy, it makes me one of his biggest and most vocal critics.

Alot below the fold……

I voted for Pollina to help make a point in 2000, and again in 2002. Where did it get me? I feel like my vote was wasted. I’d even go so far as to say counterproductive in 2002. I feel like I was burned by Pollina, for giving me false hope. Hope that he would get elected. Hope that all the great things he talked about would really make a difference when he got into office. Hope that he would help make Vermont a better place.

Perceptions are everything in politics. Pollina is a great speaker, but he needs to up the energy and charisma. He has a great, and good natured personality, but he needs to share it more with people. Show his vulnerable side, his hobbies, what he does for fun. He needs to relate more to your average working Vermonter. He needs to relay the message that he is the best choice because he will affect positively Vermonter’s lives when they vote for him.

Going beyond that though, he needs to run an effective campaign. Progressives are good at running Chittenden County campaigns, but haven’t really grasped the concept of a Vermont campaign. The Republicans and Democrats are much better equipped, and entrenched. The heart of a Vermont campaign lies within the county caucuses and town committees. In the small towns of Vermont where everyone knows who’s voting which way and why. That’s where campaigns are really won and lost.

You can run all the TV ads and radio spots you want. But until neighbors begin talking to neighbors about Pollina and how good he’d be for Vermont, its all for nothing. Until people see their fellow townsfolk going door to door, knocking. Unless they’re convinced that Pollina is a safe person to entrust their hopes and dreams to, he’s a risk, a liability. He is as yet untested in statewide office.

Pollina is not just the underdog, he has three strikes already against him in the eyes of Vermonters. He lost the bid for congress as a Democrat to Jim Jeffords in 1984. In 2000 he was the candidate that was neither for or against civil unions, a safe place to be. In 2002 his last bid for statewide office, he was the spoiler candidate that gave us Dubie as Lt. Governor. That’s a tough history to overcome, three times a loser doesn’t inspire confidence the fourth time around.

So when I criticize Anthony Pollina, it’s not because I don’t think he’d be good for Vermont. It’s not because I don’t like him or his politics. It’s because I’m afraid to build up hope again. I’m afraid that he won’t run a Vermont campaign, and bring his message to the “you can’t get there from here” villages and hamlets scattered throughout the Green Mountains.

There has finally started to be some real coverage of how the MSM are constantly sucking up to McCain.

We have this story from the New Yorker about how he strokes reporters on his bus.

The Times just ran an op-ed piece exploring why they are so enamored of McCain, and what it means for press coverage.

There was also a diavlog between Glenn Greenwald and Ana Marie Cox (I had no idea how insufferable she was until I watched this) in which Glenn attempts to debate the issue and Ana Marie spends the entire time trying to either evade the question or dismiss it without arguing it; while she attacks the Neil Gabler piece for assuming it's true, she finds it inconceivable without attempting to rebut any of the claims made either in the op-ed piece or by Glenn Greenwald.

Finally, we have another clue to what's going on: a video posted on YouTube by McCain's daughter that shows the whole gang of reporters laughing it up with McCain at his house in Sedona, barbecuing some kind of meat with him, and otherwise acting like courtiers instead of journalists.

Of course they're in the tank for him: he's friendly, jovial, and he makes them feel like the close friends of this admitted war hero. I'm guessing they don't spend much time around war heroes, and after they do they get to think about themselves as his friends, and they get to congratulate themselves, or to tell their families and friends the things he confides in them on the bus that he doesn't say to the voters.

It's time to start calling the press on it when they do this.

(Amen! – promoted by JulieWaters)

Of all the stupid bone-headed ideas I’ve seen carbon-neutral takes the cake. No need to create a new process by which carbon credits are created and exchanged to offset pollution. It’s unnecessary. Growing plants capture and sequester the excess CO2 in the air, we all just need to grow more plants.

What better way to clean the air than fields of industrial hemp. It is probably the worlds fasted growing annual plant, and an acre of hemp yields 4 times more biomass than an acre of forest. We don’t need pesticides to grow it, or fertilizers. The products are many, varied, and can lead to even more sustainable practices/products.

Using Du Pont’s patented paper making process from trees, all sorts of chlorines, dioxins, and emissions are used or created in the paper-pulp making process. It also uses trees of which only 30% is roughly available to be made into paper. That compares to 80% of a hemp plant, and no nasty chemical or by-products are needed/created.

So we’ve got fields of industrial hemp growing, acting like big scrubbers for the atmosphere. They take in all sorts of CO2 the number 1 greenhouse gas, so why aren’t we growing it by the hectare? Oh, that’s right, it’s not legal here in the US. Everyone confuses industrial hemp with the drug Marijuana because of a very long misinfomation campaign by corporations and the US government. The sad truth of the matter it Marijuana advocates aren’t hemp advocates because industrial hemp lacks the Tetra-Hydro-Cannibinol to get one “high”. People who grow Marijuana are against hemp, because the two would cross pollenate, and their drugs wouldn’t get them high anymore.

But it’s not just the Marijuana growers against industrial hemp. It’s the cotton industry who is the number one user of pesticides, it’s the US Department of Justice who needed something to do after they lost the fight against prohibition. They actually brought back hemp during WWII to win the war, and the USDA produced a bulletin about it.

In Canada the farmers currently clear, after costs are figured in $200 and acre for the industrial hemp they grow. They make $200 an acre, without using any pesticides, or chemical fertilizers! No wonder the US government fears the plant so, it undoes everything they tell the farmers to use!!

Here's part of a longer post by my son Adam over at Welcome Campground:

“Good thing I've got this shovel!

And what a shovel it is!

It shines as bright as acorn shells and glistens in the sun,

I got it cause I wanted holes,

it hasn't dug me one!”

“Good thing we've got democracy!

And what a system, oh boy!

We got it for to garner peace and bring self determination,

ol' democracy just sits there, though, I thought it ran the nation?”

Asking a Shovel to dig a hole for you is like asking Democracy to represent you. The government only asks you what you think a couple of times a year. I believe that voting is necessary, but it is possibly the weakest form of democracy there is.

Anybody here guilty of sitting around waiting for democracy to do something for you?