Big happenings at the Democratic State Committee meeting, as the beginnings of factionalizing around the appearance of favoritism in the nascent Governor’s race around the use of Party resources has bubbled into open frustration in the midst of the Party leadership vacuum.
At issue is whether or not Deb Markowitz is being “annointed” by players in the Party – specifically the camps of Senator Leahy and Congressman Welch – at the expense of other candidates and potential candidates, such as Doug Racine, Susan Bartlett (who announced that she is, indeed, contemplating a run), Peter Shumlin – and at the expense of Party rules and protocols, which seem to have been ignored on her behalf.
The concerns here? It’s not about who is or isn’t the best candidate, it’s about having a fair fight. About not setting a precedent that these decisions are taken out of voters’ hands by an elite group stacking the deck in favor of one person or another. It’s a deep concern for those of us who see a healthy primary as necessary in this election, and stand generally in favor of a robust primary process.
It’s also about having the strongest candidate possible, and if Markowitz is to be that candidate, she would come through any tainted primary seen as tainted herself, and that’s completely unnecessary.
Background: Issues center around the Markowitz campaign’s unfettered use of the VDP office and the Party’s coveted informational resource – the Voter File. Traditionally in a contested Primary, an agreement is made between the candidates before any such access is granted. Usually those candidates don’t work out of the Party offices either, but its not unheard of. What is unheard of, again, is doing so without reaching out to every possible contender and coming to an agreement. Access to Voter File – a database of every registered voter in the state with voter identification, demographic and polling information dating back into the 90s, the likes of which neither the Republicans or the Progressives have on their own – is especially strictly controlled. Every election cycle the rules for access are reviewed and tweaked but stay similar in character, accounting for the changing technology and technical nature of how the data is stored and maintained. It is also the compendium of local corrections and identification done by county and town committees, again stretching back over more than a decade. It is the Democrats most valuable common property.
Three things are clear. One: that Markowitz’s campaign manager, Jason Powell, has made use of both the VDP office and the Voter File freely. Two: that the other candidates only heard about this second hand and were not brought into the process (even though one of them, Doug Racine, is the only person to have unequivocally announced that he or she is a candidate). Three: that this entire situation has proceeded with the full knowledge of Party players directly linked to the offices of Peter Welch and Patrick Leahy.
If you still don’t think this is a big deal, consider that Senator Bartlett read from a letter that has circulated through the House and Senate caucuses, promoted not simply by candidates and potential candidates such as Racine, Bartlett and Shumlin, but also championed by House Majority Leader Floyd Nease. The letter explicitly calls for an end to the brazen preferential treatment and appearance of a pre-ordained favorite of the Democratic Party and some of its most influential members. Nease’s involvement is significant as it makes clear that the discontent runs broader and deeper than any mere sour grapes from candidates not so favored.
At the meeting, outgoing Chair Carleton responded that a) There is now a Voter File contract, and so far Markowitz is the only candidate who has signed it, but it’s open to others. b) Office access should be equal and conditioned on payment of rent.
Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as that. For one thing, there remains some question as to whether or not those candidates who haven’t yet “staffed up” can sign up for access, and at present, Markowitz is not only the single candidate who has, but its unlikely any of the others will do so soon. As to rent, it sounds as though an amount has not been worked out, and when it is, it will likely not be levied retroactively for the usage the Markowitz campaign has already made of the space.
Part of what’s frustrating here is that there is no need for Markowitz to be involved in this ill-advised nonsense. She’s a great candidate who understands how to run elections and may well have the best shot in a primary election already, depending on how things sugar out in the coming months. It seems likely that this fits into an overall strategy to “shock and awe” opponents out of the race and clear the primary field if at possible for a direct run at Douglas. In addition to the advantages steered her way from the Party, she has already hired a Campaign Manager, which speaks to the money she is raising and has already raised. Reportedly, Emily’s List – the national PAC that supports pro-choice Democratic women candidates – has committed to supporting her, even though Bartlett is also a potential candidate. Hubbub is that EL is hoping to power a $2 million campaign for Markowitz. The connections are being worked hard to give her the appearance of an electoral juggernaut only four months out from the previous election.
Now, $2 million is a ludicrous number, frankly, and the fact that it’s in circulation is further testament to the theory that she is simply trying to scare off opponenets. It’s a legitimate strategy, and accumulating special favors from those with oversized influence over party resources… well, I suppose you could say its good work if you can get it. But she and those selfsame supporters should be deeply afraid of being responsible for creating a sense of an “establishment” candidate vs. more populist ones. In this day and age, such an impression could be poisonous, and it’s precisely the narrative they are flirting with.
It should be clear to all that the only honorable way forward is to follow the precedents of the past – precedents which candidates have had a right to expect would be in play this cycle. And going by that precedent, no candidate should have access to office space or Voter File until all the candidates have come to an agreement. Period.
For those of us who work hard to insure that the Democratic Party is an institution we can all hopefully be proud of, this cycle is off to a piss-poor start.
That’s a huge leap, JO, and I’m not sure who your sources are, other than Jack. But “The Party” has NOT to my knowledge “steered” any resources toward Markowitz. Has there been a perfect storm of absenteeism and a power vacuum? Yes. Has anyone called or overtly invited Markowitz or Jason Powell, her major domo, to use the office and loot the Voter File gratis? No and NO.
You want to blame somebody, blame the Obama campaign and the DNC who cut off all the funding for the staff people as of November 5. No staff, nobody but volunteers in the office, if that. Nobody knowledgeable enough to close accounts that were set up. As the Obama guy, Jason Powell had unfettered access to the Voter File, with no one to shut him off..
You want to cast blame, put it on Powell and Markowitz for seeking to take unfair advantage of party resources while no one was available to mind the store.
You want to blame a party person? Blame now-former Chair Ian Carleton for being ChINO (Chair in name only) for far too long.
There’s plenty of blame to go around.
Piling on to tar “The Party” as a whole with favoritism is not going to help resolve the situation. The Acting Chair, Judy Bevans, took several suggestions about what to do at this point. My read differs from yours about whether retroactive rent and other charges might be assessed.
Have you just delighted every Republican who reads this blog? Hell yeah.
NanuqFC
Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. – Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Don’t let the same old folks call the same old shots. Time for a new generation, that has been chosen by the new generation. God bless Patrick Leahy, but he hasn’t lived here for 30 years. Vermonters are way too loyal to incumbents, and have far too few primaries and contested elections. The only way for change and progress is to have a marketplace of ideas.
If the Ds want a candidate to follow in the footsteps of the last three, Markowitz is their candidate. Let us not forget that it is only Racine who has been close to Doesless. What the Dems need is a good primary fight that will tune-up the nominated candidate for the general election. Perhaps that candidate is still in the bushes?
happened in a party society I was part of in NYC. In the end, the headquarter volunteers (there were no paid staff) smeared the candidate. By the time of the primary, the party backed another candidate. Shame was, the candidate whose staff did this (unbidden by him) was the best in the bunch.
I don’t think there is any blatant favoritism.
I think wat we’re seeing is a pretty casual attitude to access and appearances. Definitely a problem, but I don’t see it at the level that you’re suggesting. Part of the problem is not only that the state Party has been defunded as of November 5 (bye-bye 50-State Strategy), but also that the DNC, which owns the VAN, has become somewhat hollowed out and doesn’t have staffing to manage the transitions, granting and terminating access, that need to be managed.
At today’s meeting there was no suggestion that a candidate without staff won’t have access to Voter File, once they sign the contract. (I don’t even know why that would be, assuming they weren’t asking for blanket access for legions of volunteers.)
I’m sure you have plenty of sources, and I don’t want to contradict what other people are telling you without hearing it or talking to them, but I don’t think it’s necessary to impute bad faith to say that we have identified certain issues, the State Committee has recognized them, and they need to be addressed, pronto.
*
Note to Shumlin, Bartlett, Racine and Nease: Poop or get off the pot.
John, I have to agree with Euan — this is inappropriate hearsay. Additionally, it just reinforces my opinion of a select group of whiny Dems. I don’t see a power broker deal going on here. I see a kick-butt candidate who is already more popular than Jim Douglas.
First: What “other candidates” are you talking about? How many have filed papers? No one is a candidate until they’ve done some of the basic filing. If a potential candidate hasn’t made a decision they have no reason to whine.
Second: Why is any candidate obliged to wait for another? This smacks of Vermont nicey-nice politics. Yes, we’re all on the same team, but candidates are expected to get in the game, take the gloves off and fight hard.
Third: What makes you think that “players” associated with any other elected official have or have not decided to get behind a candidate. Whether they have or not, it seems way off base to suggest that Markowitz is getting an endorsement from Leahy or Welch. Call their office and ask.
After four straight losses in the gubernatorial race, it seems incredible that members of the party are admonishing a proactive early contender. In my opinion, the only person who has a right to whine about this is Racine, because he is the only other candidate.
My question is, why hasn’t Racine gotten his ass to work as a candidate?
If Markowitz is favored by anyone, it’s because she’s been doing what every other candidate should have been doing all along: making phone calls, raising money and getting her organization together.
What the heck is wrong with that?
If other candidates want to use the Voter File, than why don’t they just get their butts in gear instead of whining?
Good for you JO for raising the flag on this issue. As you have said, there is clearly enough of a widespread feeling of discontent on display already to warrant putting some sunshine on this. Don’t fight the discussion, folks. If you have some observatioons or opinions to share, please do so, by all means. But we need more of these discussions, not less. There could be nothing more demoralizing to the democratic majority in VT than to find that the primary had been sabotaged by the same old back room forces again this cycle. I also say this not having decided on any candidate at this point.
I received this email on Feb 13th:
Then this on Feb 19th:
Notice the difference?
I think this diary sheds important light on a perception problem that needs to be addressed. I think that the fact that there’s a perception of favoritism (both inside and outside the party) is a problem.
Intent doesn’t matter – whether intent is good, bad, or entirely non-existent, the reality is that apparently a significant number of people see what appears to be an unfair provision/use of resources.
At the same time, I think MyDog has a point: the other candidates need to get their paperwork in order – though if they have not been informed of the process, and thus may not have not known they needed to sign a voter file contract or pay rent for facilities, we can’t necessarily blame them for not following the process.
The lack of paid staff is clearly a problem, and seems to have contributed to this perception issue. Short-timer volunteers with no authority are not to blame – they’re a symptom, not a cause. We need to find a way to stabilize funding for critical staff. The DNC’s 50-state strategy gave hope that this would happen from the national level, but the new leadership at the national level seems to have chosen a different direction.
At the same time, I’m guessing that someone must have complained (to no avail) to someone who was in a role to fix this problem before the legislature decided to send today’s shot across the bow. It’s not like the VT leg is known for taking this kind of action, unless they’re very deeply concerned.
It seems that this is a complex problem, with many contributing factors, but in the end, somehow an important element was not addressed leading the entire Democratic legislative caucus to call attention to it.
I don’t think I would blame any one person in particular, or even any specific group of people, but rather a lack of clearly defined processes, combined with an unfortunate change of direction by the DNC throwing a monkey wrench into the staffing.
This kind of issue might be avoided in the future if written process information is automatically provided to potential candidates as soon as they start a dialog with the VDP about running.
I have no dog (or cat) in this fight, but it seems to me that Markowitz has her campaign act together earlier than the others and she capitalized on it. Is that a bad thing?
I asked for comment on this situation from our county chair, Ann Raynolds, and she provided this to our listserve. She doesn’t do the blogs, but thought it would be a good idea if her comments were posted back on GMD to further the discussion.
I get that some people are pissed off about this. I don’t blame anyone for being pissed off. But if this piece doesn’t say what you think it should, or doesn’t focus on the same issues that you think it should, everyone here is free to write their own pieces with their interpretation of events or to write a rebuttal.
But I have no patience for the “republicans love it when we fight” meme. Seriously. Republicans are the party of the grand delusion these days. Let them think whatever the hell they want to think.
The party management doesn’t decide who the candidate will be: the voters of the party do.
We hear the opposite all the time, though, from calls that the party should decide to support a gubernatorial candidate, such as Anthony Pollina, without expecting him to go through the primary process, to attacks on the party leadership because “they” haven’t come up with a candidate, or a good enough candidate.
What is essential is to be fair and neutral, and to appear fair and neutral. I was in this position just last year because I had two contested primaries in my county. In both cases I reached out to the campaigns and offered to provide access to the Voter File so that nobody could claim that the Party had taken sides in a contested primary, which we’re not supposed to do.
The point is, that’s what the State Party is doing. I refer you again to Anne Raynolds’s comments.
Perception is important, sure, but whose perceptions are we talking about? At this point, it’s a small slice of the small subset of the population who are even thinking about next year’s election. The Party has moved to address whatever perception problems existed. We shouldn’t blow this up to be bigger than it is.
This is my first time on greenmountaindaily. I’m a frequent visitor to this site and was at part of yesterday’s State Committee meeting and have a few thoughts.
What I see here is a continuation of the Kristina Althoff and Jason Powell’s disrespect for our Party and their superiors.
Kristina Althoff, being the last Executive Director, was probably the one who assigned access to the voter file throughout the campaign. Has anyone asked her if her access has been taken away? She probably still has it. Or if she didn’t assign access and Powell is using the access he had for the Obama campaign, how come that hasn’t been taken away? What was Kristina Althoff doing for her three months of employment after election day? Clearly not raising money, right? And clearly not doing necessary ‘clean-up’ work after the Election (taking voter file access away for people, for example).
Kristina Althoff and Jason Powell – who’ve been dating since the 2006 campaign when they pulled other manipulative moves, albeit not to this level – are probably reading our postings laughing. They don’t care. Who’s going to stop them?
I think the first mistake the Party made was hiring Kristina Althoff last spring. She did a piss poor job working for the House Caucus. She then did entry-level work for the Obama campaign, traveling state-to-state, organizing Colleges (real hard, right) and came back to VT because the Party as desperate when their best asset in Jill Krowinski left. The Party felt the need to hire Kristina Althoff and since then, she’s systematically tearing apart the Vermont Democratic Party. How on earth was she even qualified?
Think about that. She was at the helm of running every Democratic campaign last year. She had the ultimate say in which candidates got which resources. How is she remotely qualified? Because she helped out a few House candidates? Because she hung up posters of Obama at UNH?
Unbelievable. We need to make sure a qualified is hired for this job – we need someone even better than Jill Krowinski or Jon Copans, which will be hard.
One of the best traits of the left side is its ability to criticize our own. When we stop doing that, we’re corrupt. I applaud criticism and investigation of our own. It keeps us honest.
First, full disclosure: I, Nathan Freeman, support Deb Markowitz in her bid for governor.
Second: Some of the accusations being thrown around rise to the level of slander, specifically those comments referring to non-candidates. While GMD is not liable for anonymous comments, we should keep our debates from crossing this line. I am specifically referring to the comment by BBQSpareRibs.
Third: Your full disclosure? John, word has already gone around the block that you’re a Racine supporter, so it’s appropriate to acknowledge this when bashing out other candidates.
Fourth: Why the use of innuendo? Your references to the Welch and Leahy campaign are clearly pointed at one particular person. Why aren’t you naming that person? She knows you just as much as you know her.
Fifth: Did you ask for facts? Did you call Markowitz or anyone in her camp?
Sixth: Where the heck is Racine? Chris Healy shows us an accurate update to the upcoming Howard Dean reception. I am told that Racine’s name wasn’t on the first invitation because he hadn’t responded to the invitation yet.
Seventh: I have been told that Carleton offered Racine access to the Voter File. For some reason, he declined.
Eighth: Reiterating what I mentioned earlier, no one is a candidate until they have filed their papers. A Democratic Primary doesn’t wait for those who are “seriously considering” a bid. Bartlett and Shumlin have nothing to cry about. It looks like it’s an early year, thanks to Racine’s very early announcement. Bartlett and Shumlin need to file their papers and get to work.
Ninth: Early candidates don’t have to wait for anyone. Racine should be thinking about this, really. He announced before the inauguration, but it appears that he’s not taking his own announcement seriously until the end of the session. Markowitz is moving; Racine is resting on his laurels.
Tenth: What’s thus noise about insider annointment from the Leahy folks, anyway? If anyone has an insider advantage with Leahy, it would be one-time-staffer, Doug Racine. Do you really think Team Leahy would dump Racine in a ditch along an old back road? If you do, what does this say about Racine?
I think far too much attention — on the left, the right, and the MSM — is spent on the game of politics vs. the job of governing (after the election). Keep an eye on ’em, but we could sure use all this brainpower, at this point, focusing on the solving the current issues we face. The election cycle will come around soon enough. There seems to be no reporter in this entire state who can focus on something as deep as the work that needs to be done. They “get” an election, and love the gossip around the process. Following the issues and understanding the options takes too long, and seems to be too complicated.