Both Dunne and Shumlin were different people when they came to the Free Press than what I have seen in the forums. They opened up. They challenged us, me – more so than they challenge their colleagues in the campaign. They were direct, pugnacious, inspired. I liked that. They poked me in the eye, gently of course, but they came with backbone, with a touch of self-righteous indignation. They were personal, highly likable and they were convincing. Vtbuzz

In middle school shop class (called junior high industrial arts back then) I had a shop teacher who was suddenly fired.  Fired, the story went, for starting a fight between two kids in his class. Longtime instructor Mr. Pfitz (not his real name) had been at the school for several generations of wooden paper napkin holders and metal ash trays and must have grown quite bored.  

One year he began egging on a fight between two kids. It was easy all he had to do was tell kid Y that kid X was saying bad things about and then to kid Y… well you get it. Pfitz got his fight, which no doubt ended his boredom but it also ended his career, or so the local story went.    

Early on when Brian Dubie first put his co-pilot’s hat in the ring the Democrats in disarray meme was first of ten reasons Dubie could win in November put forward by political sage Chris Graff  #1 Democratic disarray: With five Democrats lined up and ready to battle for the gubernatorial battle – and I mean battle –

There is still plenty of time for a little Democratic primary dust-up but the chances of full scale Democratic disarray fade a little each week. Democrats hopefully may fail to live up to outside predictions of primary mayhem that might do nothing more than benefit Dubie.  

In the meantime the Vtbuzz editor seems to be doing a pretty good imitation of my old industrial arts teacher Mr.Pfitz:

My suggestion is, as Shumlin as done so often, is break the rules, have some fun doing what you do so well as a politician, thrill the crowd, and make history with the best conversation you can give on the issues — for the future of Vermont.