(Cross posted at Broadsides.org)

It’s all the rage to talk about money and politics. But I think we’re focusing on the wrong end. Sure, we should keep track of the donors to political campaigns. But I think it’s just as important that we begin to ponder the wealth of those seeking our publicly-funded political offices.

Take Vermont’s campaign for governor, for example. Our sitting – and I do mean sitting – Governor, Jim Douglas, recently announced that he and his wife, a dental assistant, are worth more than $2 million and have no debt. The peculiar thing about this Republican’s amassing of wealth is that he’s spent his entire professional career as a “public servant,” working in various elected government jobs since he graduated from Middlebury College 30-some years ago. So you have to wonder how seriously we have to take Douglas when he spills forth with his “big, bad government” mantra. I guess what he really means is that government is “bad for thee, but not for me!” Two million dollars worth – and counting.

Douglas’ Democrat opponent, Gaye Symington, is also a millionaire many times over. She’s just trying to be coy by not including her husband’s wealth in the financial filings she recently handed over to the Vermont press. Her husband, Chuck Lacy, was one of the original honchos at Ben & Jerry’s back when the company’s stock was being handed out like candy and those at the top – like Lacy — walked away with more loot than they knew what to do with. So much loot, in fact, that folks like Lacy started their own charitable foundations (http://www.cdvca.org/about/funds/barred_rock.php)  to give gobs of it away. Nice work if you can get it.

Without her hubby’s millions, Symington declared a personal worth of close to $400,000. But you’ve got to be more than a hypocritical fool (or, for that matter, drinking way too much Dem Kool-Aid) to buy her argument against releasing their joint financial information.

“I’m running for office,” Symington declares, “not my family.”

Okay, Gaye, fan the flames of interest all you want but that kind of lameness isn’t going to make the issue – or the millions of dollars — go away. Besides, I’ll bet you won’t be distancing yourself from “the family” when the photo-ops, the door knocking, the advertisements, the advice, and the support come into play, huh? Of course not.

The simmering issue of Symington taking Vermonters for fools by refusing to release her joint financial picture should be dispensed with by two recent political examples: Hillary Clinton released joint financial statements in her run for president; and national Democrats made a huge issue of the McCains’ refusal to release joint financial statements. Checkmate, Gaye. Release them or prepare yourself for more questions.

Speaking of spousal wealth, the newly declared “Independent” in this campaign, Anthony Pollina, announced that he and his wife (emphasis on “wife”) are worth around $800,000. But if you look more closely at the filing you’ll see that there’s a pot of gold on his wife’s side that is just waiting to be handed over whenever it’s needed. Their joint income of around $90,000 last year included $30,000 in income derived from her family’s Maryland-based businesses. Hmm. Again, a nice job if you can get it. Or, in Anthony’s case, marry into it.

But the bigger issue here – for me, at least – is the wealth of these three media-appointed “leaders” in the campaign for governor. Compared to the average Vermont family, these folks are financial kings and queens. And the same is true when you take a gander at the financial pictures of our federally-elected threesome – Senators Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders and Congressman Peter Welch (all are millionaires).

When, exactly, will the comparatively extreme wealth of our elected officials and mainstream challengers become an issue? How long will we kid ourselves into thinking and believing that people with such wealth, and, as a result, a built-in disconnect with the economic pains that the rest of us are feeling, will do anything of substance to “change” the system? Hey, it’s worked for them.

None of the aforementioned politicians – or, in the case of Pollina, a wannabe politician – ever have to worry about that pit in their stomach when they go to the mailbox and are greeted by bills that they don’t have the money for. They don’t have to fret about health insurance or even trying to get an appointment to see a doctor (tried that lately?). They don’t sweat with the mental calculations that the rest of us sweat over as we shop for such extravagances as, say, food. They don’t stop filling their gas tank at half-full because that’s all they can afford. And they don’t worry about their retirement, unless, of course, you don’t count the worry of “which house?” or “which boat?”

But yet we continue to elect one wealthy person after another to help us deal with the issues that have made them wealthy and made the rest of us struggle. Nail, meet the hammer, and enjoy the pain.

Personally, I’ve had enough of the crocodile tears from the millionaire politicians. They can’t “feel” our pain. They’ve only been profiting from it.

Sure, let’s get money out of politics, as they say. And we can start by getting the moneyed-elite out of our political offices. Enough already.

And I could win a prize for that ! Washington Post Style section features the news that McCain people are offering prizes for comments .Although the targeted sites are not noticing any surge in pro-McCain comments .As John McCain knows a good surge can take months to show any progress or maybe the prizes aren’t that good .The McCain site has helpful daily talking points and links to targeted blogs ,liberal,conservative ,moderate and other [?]

Win Points for McCain!

Rewards Program for Online Commenters

On McCain’s Web site, visitors are invited to “Spread the Word” about the presumptive Republican nominee by sending campaign-supplied comments to blogs and Web sites under the visitor’s screen name. The site offers sample comments (“John McCain has a comprehensive economic plan . . .”) and a list of dozens of suggested destinations, conveniently broken down into “conservative,” “liberal,” “moderate” and “other” categories. Just cut and paste.

People who sign up for McCain’s program receive reward points each time they place a favorable comment on one of the listed Web sites (subject to verification by McCain’s webmasters). The points can be traded for prizes, such as books autographed by McCain, preferred seating at campaign events, even a ride with the candidate on his bus, known as the Straight Talk Express, according to campaign spokesman Brian Rogers.

Cornfield (an executive with a company that markets political-organizing software) says McCain’s program has a couple of bugs.The first, he says, is the lack of disclosure instructions to participants. To rise above AstroTurf — a practice considered ethically dubious by many political operatives — Cornfield says participants should use their real names and identify themselves as part of a campaign participation program (as in, “I’m Mike Cornfield, and I’m part of the McCain Action Team”).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…  http://www.johnmccain.com/Acti…

There's often a little friction between the different lobes of the Democratic electoral effort, usually united under the “Coordinated Campaign.” A certain amount of that friction is always generated between whatever out-of-state staffers are brought onboard and the locals. It's never that big a deal, but it's a dynamic that does annoy some folks mightily – often the local county activists who bristle at being told what's what by the latest passing up-and-coming field organizer.

This year, that frustration seems to be more focused at the Presidential operation than usual. While the Gore and Kerry operations had very small footprints in Vermont, the Obama campaign has paid staff devoted to every state, and is directing their field operatives nationwide to meet specific field benchmarks. How these staffers have been interacting with the local Coordinated Campaigns has varied. In Iowa, there has been some eyebrow raising as the Obama campaign has seemingly taken over the Coordinated Campaign, lock stock and barrel, while in Colorado, there's talk that the Obama campaign is simply ignoring the CC.

Here in Vermont, the Coordinated Campaign hasn't come together as readily or as cleanly as it has in the past (a story for another diary, depending on how it goes…), but the Obama campaign is moving forward regardless, ruffling a few feathers in the process here and there. But the thing that's really got people pissed off? The schwag. The stuff. The campaign gear. Wanna show your support? That'll be a dollar for a bumper sticker, and a whopping five bucks for a lawn sign. The fees have got local Democrats pissed off enough, the Lamoille County Committee recently passed a resolution condemning them in light of the Obama campaign's stunning fundraising.

Now, this is not without precedent. The last two presidential campaigns initially attempted to charge for stickers and signs (presumably its an opportunity for in-the-bag Vermont to help subsidize the overall effort), but the pay-to-promote paradigm eventually fell by the wayside as the Election approached, and in light of activists who would drive across the border to battleground New Hampshire, stock up on freebies, and come back home to pass them out.

Still, if the state Democrats want to break the impasse, my neighbor – usual suspect Dem activist and eco-lobbyist Matt Levin – had a brilliant gordian-knot-cutting idea. The Vermont Party should just pay to print their own, and use the opportunity to make a slight modification, as demonstrated by the image to the right.

So, what's the Obama campaign gonna say? Stop it? Be serious. If the VDP were to hand out this particular free option to all the deprived Obamaphiles, Symington's profile would jump immediately, and in the most positive possible context… and it would have the added bonus of creating an implied “McCain-Douglas” image in the minds of passersby. So hey, VDP – what're you waiting for? I'll be by to pick mine up this weekend…

…who can make really crappy web ads:

I just have one response to this ad.

WHAT?

WHAT?

WHAT?

The Daysies are in, and once again our esteemed colleague Philip Baruth hauls in the big prize, Best Political Blog. In other words, once again our lame efforts at ballot-box-stuffing, underhanded bribe attempts, and ill-concealed blackmail schemes fell short, so GMD comes in as the runner-up.

Naturally, we'd like to win one, but we also enjoy and admire PB's writing, so congrats!

 On the non-political listing, Bill Simmon of Candleblog gets the readers' choice award. Bill also tops our non-political blogroll, so if you don't usually venture out of the political realm, hop on over there. We think you'll like it.

 Congratulations to both Philip and Bill. Keep up the good work. 

Some of you may have caught Art Woolf’s “solution” to  the question of how we are to keep warm this winter – – electric storage heaters.

In his post on the “vermonttiger” blog reported in the Times-Argus he suggests that using off-peak electricity to heat your home is the way to go.

I know something about those critters and thought I’d discuss the pros and cons.

But first let’s start at the beginning – – there is smart energy and dumb energy.  The dumbest is perhaps cord wood.  It costs the least because its hard to handle and can’t do much but burn, somewhat inefficiently.  Next in order of dumbest to smartest is wood chips, then wood pellets, then fossil fuels, then at the top of the heap, the smartest energy – – electricity.

That’s why around these parts, electricity has always been (except for short-lived price spikes) much more expensive than the other fuel choices.

Electric storage heaters, of the type that Art is talking about, store heat in ceramic bricks during the night time when electricity is cheapest and release the heat as needed. These heaters are expensive and very heavy.  They include the necessary controls to allow them to heat in this fashion.  There is nothing new about them.  Many buildings put them in during the various other energy crises that we’ve had.

However, they are much despised little units and are typically removed when fuel prices stabilize.  Why?  Well there are a few problems with them.  A primary one is that they absorb the heat during night-time and give it off 24/7.  When heat isn’t needed during the day, they are still very hot and give off heat anyway (not as much as with the fan going, but overheating the space nonetheless).

And installing them isn’t cheap like Art suggests.  First you need an adequate electrical entrance to the building.  You need to remember that you need adequate capacity for two to three times what a electrically heated building would need because you can only accumulate the heat during the eight hour off peak period.  This generally means upgrading the service entrance to the building as well as running wires to all the storage heaters.

Then there is the concern of what happens after a power outage at night.  You won’t have any heat so you may then go and turn on the heaters during the daytime peak hours.  If there was substantial use of storage heaters this would create new utility peaks and increase power rates.

And, of course, if oil continues its downward trend, the investment in the storage heaters would be wasted.

Personally, I think we should save the smart energy for smart purposes and burn the dumb renewables like cordwood, chips and pellets.  Eventually the off-peak electricity will power a good number of automobiles.

Anyone driven down Route 7 from South Burlington to Shelburne lately? Not quite the thriving business district it once was, to say the very least. At least a half dozen empty buildings that haven’t been reoccupied. Noted businesses that have left include the Tuscan Sun, Sirloin Saloon, Vermont Country Kitchen, and Climb High. Roche’s Casual Furniture/Kasazza Kids made the move across the street to the old Climb High building, leaving their old venue vacant.

Is competition from the box stores in Williston leaving Shelburne Road in the dust? Does Route 7 just not have the draw to bring people like it once did? Tough saying really, but every rush hour Shelburne Road is literally clogged with cars. The people are there, they’re just not stopping to buy or eat. Why is that?

Hate to point the finger, but it didn’t seem like things were this bad before the Route 7 redo a couple years back. Maybe all those businesses were right and their worst case scenario’s have been realized? Could it be that all those traffic medians in the middle of the road did hurt business? Could it just be that the area is so known for it’s traffic that it’s just avoided in general? Or is it simply that the State of Vermont played with the traffic patterns and was too successful? After all, they were looking to lower the amount of time it took to get from one end of Shelburne road to the other, kudos to Agency of Transportation for this success.

But the vacant businesses? I think a couple factors are at play here. While it is easier to get from one end to the other, it certainly is harder to cross the road and get from one business to the next. Not having people crossing the road constantly does allow for better thru flow, but makes it trickier to visit the places you want. You have to consciously plan out where you’re going to start and end, and how best to navigate the flow of traffic. That’s a feat for seasoned Shelburne Road shoppers, let alone the visitors in town for the first time.

Looks like only time will tell. Will Shelburne Road become a ghost town, or return the profitable business district it once was?