Vermont’s Republican candidate for governor, Brian Dubie, was recently on WDEV’s Mark Johnson Show. If you’re even remotely into Vermont politics, you must listen to this interview. It is, at the very least, very fine entertainment.

You know, kind of like the Rocky Horror Picture Show and all.

Dubie’s just whacked. And I mean that in a good and bad way. Sure, he might be fun to “have a beer with,” but let’s face it, the man is just off when trying to play politics.

Listening or watching Brian Dubie is like being forced to endure a bad imitation of George W. Bush. It’s just awkward.

But Dubie – like Bush —  seems to just chuckle his way through life, stalling and bobbing his way around anything that feels “off script” for him. And “off script” for Dubie has quite an expansive definition, including (so far in this campaign): Engaging in debates, answering the media’s questions at length (Dubie gave them 11 minutes at his last news conference), and taking talk radio phone calls.

Hmm. What’s that about Dubie and talk radio? According to Gonzo Vermont’s sources, when Dubie was scheduled to appear on Johnson’s radio program, the campaign had two major concerns: 1.) The length of the interview, thus the amount of time to force Dubie to think and talk on his own, and 2.) The callers.

The Dubie campaign handled the “two issues” by implementing a strategy that even Brian could understand: Stall/evade and have your friends call in.

Cool, as Dubie would say.

Dubie implemented the stall with near perfection. The campaign arranged it so Dubie’s appearance on Johnson’s show would be “just before” the release of the campaign’s much-touted “economic plan for Vermont.” By having the release of the report scheduled in another part of the state at about the exact time the Johnson radio show was to end, Dubie got to say something like this about four dozen times in the course of the interview (read: stalling): “Our economic plan will be released later today, and the details are all in it.  And I don’t want to steal its thunder here with you on the radio.”

Listen for yourself. And count how many times Dubie uses the release time/date of the report to evade any specifics about his economic plan and/or to dodge most anything he found to be politically uncomfortable.

Dubie’s little game of dodge ball continued when he met the members of the Vermont media at the plan’s official release and gave them exactly 11 minutes to ask questions about what he called (over and over again) a “very detailed plan.”

Well, certainly worth every bit of the 11 minutes he gave to the Fourth Estate to ask about it.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet “The Dubie Dodge.”

And it’s government funded! At least for the last eight years that Dubie’s been doing something – no one’s quite sure what – as our Lt. Governor.

Unless you drink the Red-State-Kool-Aid, it’s just weird. I mean, does Brian Dubie think we’re stupid enough to NOT notice his constant Dubie Dodges? I guess so. Over and over again.

But, then again, Paul Beaudry won the Republican nomination for Congress in Vermont. That should tell us a sweet something about the Vermont Republican crowd: Wrong & Proud! And the wronger, the prouder and the louder, baby – as Beaudry might say.

So Dubie stalled and evaded through the interview, embarrassingly so, killing time with his breathless proclamations about the release – oh the mighty release! – of his soon-to-be-released – OMG he said release again! – report. Got it.

And then the always-perky Mark Johnson (unless, of course, you dare to broach the subject of media sloppiness in Vermont) declared that it was time for listener phone calls.

The first caller was something like this: “Brian, you are running against the devil. Do you think that will be hard?”

Okay, okay, I’m paraphrasing. But I did run it through my Red-State-Voter-Translator.

But then the second caller had a probing question that went something like this: “Brian, your opponent is the devil. Does that scare you?”

Again, paraphrasing.

They were, of course, calls planted as firmly, deeply, and happily as the begonias on your porch. Which is fine, I guess, given the level of absolute ninniness of modern mainstream politics. Par for the course, as they say.

I’m still the idiot who believes there are other people out there like me who can smell the skunk that has settled so comfortably upon our body politic. Probably because I’ve always had a crush on Pollyanna. I was once certain, for example, that everyone was laughing hysterically like I was while watching a Bush debate. Any Bush debate.

The need for the Dubie campaign’s Mark Johnson strategy became apparent when Dubie went “off script” with his comments about the mechanically and politically bedeviled Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.

“I’ve got two words for that,” Dubie said. “No, make that four words: Safety, trust, and jobs.”

Well, I guess if we let him count “and” as a word pertaining to Vermont Yankee, he got to four. Good luck with that.

And now we know why stalling and evading is important to the Dubie campaign when they let the Loose Cannon (aka: Dubie) roam into the scary waters of having to think on his feet.  

Brian Dubie will be the gift that keeps giving this campaign season. Or, as Brian would say, there are four words for why you should vote for him: Laughter, entertainment, and amusement.

Cool.

[Cross-posted at Broadsides.org]