Hurricane Ike from the International Space Station:

( – promoted by odum)

is out there if anyone bothers to look (say perhaps reporters or candidates)

I posted this comment on the Rutland Herald web site in response to today’s article about the “debate” at the Tunbridge Fair.

Jim Douglas is reported to have said he had “overseen economic growth that resulted in 10,000 more Vermonters having jobs now than when he took office.”

This is both inaccurate and misleading.

First, according to the VT Dept. of Labor, there are 8,600 more non-farm payroll jobs today than in January 2003 — not 10,000. But 2,300 are government jobs (federal, state, and local). Is Douglas really suggesting his economic development policies are responsible for these government jobs? And isn’t it ironic and hypocritical for him to brag about government jobs as he’s cutting state jobs?

Second, the real measure should be private sector jobs. We have 6,300 more today than when Jim Douglas took office. And we’ve lost 2,000 since November 2006.

Third, context matters (but he won’t provide any). Vermont’s rate of private sector job growth used to track with the U.S. But since Douglas took office we’ve lost ground and are not keeping pace with national job growth.

Fourth, what kind of new jobs? Over one third of all net new private sector jobs are in “social assistance” which has an average wage under $18,000 per year.

Fifth, after recovering the jobs lost in the last recession (the normal bounce back), we’ve gained only 1,100 net new private sector jobs in three years.

Whatever happened to fact checking? Can candidates just say anything at all and have it printed or broadcast without reporters verifying the accuracy?

Jim Douglas’ jobs record is terrible. The facts cannot be denied.

BTW – In his 2008 State of the State address, Jim Douglas said “we’ve created 12,000 new jobs”. Now he says 10,000. I guess he figures no one is really paying attention. He may be right.

What’s with the qualifications with yes and no? Wouldn’t “No, she sucked ass! We’re moving to Sweden!” have been a better answer for question one?  Gibson “trying” to be the smartest person in the interview? I suspect that the guy that gets Gibson his coffee is smarter than Palin.

Let's face it:  No Vermonter serves America better than Brian Dubie does.

As you may recall, Vermont's Lieutenant Governor has been called to duty three times in the last four years.  Each time he has been called up it has been an important moment in American history.  Hurricane Katrina.  The Iraq War.  And now, Hurricane Ike.  Interestingly, each time he's been called up it's also been at a critical moment in the cycle of Vermont's campaign season.

This time he's being called up to coordinate personnel and supplies in response to Hurricane Ike.  He'll be serving from the pretty safe distance of Florida's gulf-side Big Bend region.  In the NOAA weather map above, you can see that Dubie isn't exactly going to be on the front lines of the battle against water, wind and power outages. 

No matter.  Brian Dubie gets to play hero.  Again.  The hero thing is pretty cool the first time and even the second.  But let's just say, maybe it's about time Brian Dubie stops hogging all the glory work.  I know, I know, it's so much more exciting than being Vermont's Lieutenant Governor or flying back-and-forth, back-and-forth all week long on an American Airlines schedule.  Hero work can be really fun in an adrenaline-rush sort of way.

It's an unthinkable taboo to question any soldier's commitment to service.  As a fellow Vermonter, I believe that Brian Dubie is a patriot and serves our country selflessly.  You can't question the guy's love for mom and apple pie.  But Brian Dubie isn't just a soldier; he's also a politician.  And as we all know, politicians love to be the hero and claim all of the glory.  Brian Dubie is not immune to the politician's easy acceptance of unearned credit.

This is why we should think a little more critically about Brian Dubie's very short stints of service.  This is also why we should even ask what truly outstanding achievement Colonel Dubie accomplished during his two weeks coordinating relief for Hurricane Katrina victims in Septermber 2005 such that he was awarded his second Meritorious Service Medal. This is no small honor, and in fact, it usually represents prolonged or extraordinary acheivement in a non-combat situation.  Some soldiers have earned the Meritorious Service Medal for three years commanding a squadron, or three years serving as a nurse at Walter Reed, or three years of service PLUS work during the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan.  At least one soldier has earned the medal in a single event, during a rescue of American hostages.

What was Brian Dubie's extraordinary achievement while he was “coordinating” relief in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina?  After all, it's not like “coordinators” get that much respect these days from the likes of Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who Dubie happily endorses.  The Republican governor from Alaska mocked Presidential candidate Barack Obama's work as a community coordinator in the rough streets of Chicago just two weeks ago.

Maybe there was a swell of heroism during Dubie's two weeks in Mississippi, and maybe all of Vermont's good soldiers came home to receive the Meritorious Service Medal award for their efforts, too.  If this was the case, it seems to have been overlooked by Vermont's leading newspapers at the time.  Instead, the honor and the glory seemed to belong exclusively to the Lieutenant Governor and upon his return  Dubie announced he was creating an exploratory committee for a possible U.S. Senate campaign.  

There's something politically predictable about Dubie's pattern of election-cycle September deployments as we saw in 2005 with Hurricane Katrina, in 2006 with his tidy Tour of Glory to Baghdad, and today's news about his deployment to Florida.  Each call-up lasted only two weeks, and each one took place just in time for a campaign or a possible campaign.  

The lines become a little gray when a soldier also happens to be a leading politician.  We can't ask rank and file soldiers to weigh politics against honor.

But we can ask Brian Dubie why he flies off like a cowboy pilot during the last three September campaign seasons, and then returns home as an American hero with war stories from the rooftops of Baghdad or the airpads of Tyndall Air Force Base near Panama City, Florida.

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Today was the deadline to file independent ballot petitions, so it’s worth checking to see if there’s any fallout from this week’s primary upsets:



UPDATED 9/13/08 9:00 A.M.

Washington-Chittenden 1: Gordon Miller, defeated in the primary by Sue Minter and Tom Stevens, has filed as an independent.

No other filings of note.

Franklin 2–“Moose” Christie defeated Ron Allard in the Democratic primary. Now, as expected, Allard has filed to run as an Independent, setting up a five-way race for two seats.

Washington 5–Longtime Montpelier City Councilman Jim Sheridan has filed as an Independent. This was expected, as he had already announced he would do so to give the voters a choice, but he is not expected to be a significant impediment to the election of the two Democrats, Warren Kitzmiller and Mary Hooper.

Possibly more interesting is the fact that so far Jon Anderson has not filed Independent petitions. He has not made any public statements about his intentions since his defeat Tuesday, and his signs are still up, so observers are wondering if he will give it another shot. The smart money is against it, but we don’t know for sure.

Chittenden 3-5: Longtime Representative and Burlington City Councilman Bill Keogh was defeated Tuesday by Suzi Wizowaty, and there was speculation that he might file as an Independent. No sign of that yet (As per vtbuzz, Keogh has indicated he is not running as an I  -odum).

Windham 5–Steve Darrow lost in a write-in campaign, but no sign of petitions for the general.

The Elections Division will be posting a final report around noon tomorrow, so there is still time for some surprises. As of 3:00 this afternoon, however, this is pretty much the story.