1. Write a letter to the editor and send it to every newspaper in the state. Object to the tactic, report the truth, support Peter Shumlin.
2. Log on to their online comment blogs and voice your objection there.
3. Make a donation to your local county Democratic Committee, the VDP, and/or the Shumlin campaign.
4. Volunteer with the Shumlin campaign or your local Democratic county committee.
5. Make a YouTube video about the robocalls and their distortions of reality – hey, have fun with it! Then post or tweet the link to all your Facebook friends and online pals. If it’s really good, post it here – who knows, maybe you’ll make the front page!
6. Go to every Dubie appearance you can: video it if you have a camera. Post videos to YouTube with appropriate commentary and fact-checking.
7. Strike up a conversation with Dubie’s paid green-shirts who follow him all over the state to wave his signs and take up turf in debate venues. Get names and addresses. Get them on camera if possible. Ask them where they’re from and how long they’ve lived in Vermont. Ask them what he stands for. Ask them why he’s lying about Shumlin’s plans.
8. Talk to your friends, acquaintances, and neighbors about Dubie’s distortions and why you’re voting for Shumlin.
9. Write another letter to the editor and send it. Write another check, then go volunteer a few more hours.
10. VOTE early (helps when candidates can “bank” early votes, and gets the determined Dem vounteers off your phone line).
available, here (just something I compiled earlier in the year for when it might be needed for various advocacy efforts no matter what the need).
for those who use social media such as Facebook and Twitter, Peter Shumlin’s campaign put out a call today for people to join his Social Media Rapid Response Team by filling out the online recruitment form, here.
While I never doubted your partisan position favoring Brian Dubie, Monday’s editorial might have flowed directly from the pen of “Friends of Brian Dubie” who quite coincidentally were double-timing robo-calls to Franklin County voters just as your paper landed on doorsteps throughout the county. Nice coordination, fellas.
The contents of those robo-calls finally strips away any facade of “nice guy” that might have formerly polished Mr. Dubie’s ham-handed appeal; because those robo calls were profoundly misleading acts of scare-mongering that should be beneath any candidate for the office of governor. Despite concerns expressed by some that Peter Shumlin, with his quick mind and powerful legislative experience, might be too hard on the bland Mr. Dubie, it turns out that Peter Shumlin is actually the nice guy here, and Brian Dubie is the back-alley brawler. Lacking any substance in his 26-page “plan” on which to make his case to the voters, Mr. Dubie has descended into a pattern of daily attacks and distortions that are progressively becoming more and more unsavory.
If he had actually put in the time he had committed to as Lt. Governor instead of missing fully one-third of the Legislative session this past year, Mr. Dubie might have more practical knowledge of the affairs of state and better ideas than simply cutting taxes on the rich and underfunding the poor.
Steve Howard has already responded to the misrepresentations in the robo-calls that took his name in vain, so I have no need to repeat all of that here. What we are now seeing in Vermont is a shameful replay of the kind of lies and dirty politics that have come to characterize Republican candidates country-wide. I really thought we were better than this.
…but for what it’s worth, I know a lot of the paid green shirts and many went to high school here. They may import just about everything on that campaign, but I know too many people working on that campaign to be okay with going after them personally. Maybe that’s just me though.
Keep reminding people that Brian Dubie thinks the sexual abuse of children is NON-violent.
Keep reminding people that Brian Dubie is running a campaign that aggressively advertises those who abusively use children in sexual acts and record then record that abuse, as mere “non-violent” wards of the State. That’s his definition of “non-violent.” Seriously what does a criminal have to actually do to a child before Brian Dubie considers it to be “violent.”
Perhaps we should be reminding the smear merchants Brian Dubie is employing, or those who might believe them, this fact: Brian Dubie is devoting tens (hundreds) of thousands of dollars or resources, and untold time during the Great Recession campaign of 2010, for the grand purpose of selling Vermonters on the view that the commercially abusive sexual exploitation of children is “non-violent” behavior, you know, like growing pot or passing bad checks.
Unlike the people Brian Dubie trusts to educate Vermonters about what type a person Brian Dubie is, I.DO.NOT.KNOW.ANYONE whose definition of “violence” excludes “the use of a child in sexual activity” for commercial, pornographic exploitation. In fact, that behavior goes way over my “violence” threshold. Maybe we need to remind people that Brian Dubie has one brazenly sick definition of “non-violent” when it comes to Vermont’s children.
The bottom line for me is really this:
Invoking child pornography as a campaign attention grabber, then falsely representing its legal significance, tells me that someone has a twisted thought process – at best. It certainly tells me NOTHING about a candidate’s view on how he will address the overall welfare of Vermont’s children.
The Dubie campaign’s obvious search for an excuse to invoke sexual/pornographic exploitation of children shows an obsession with that topic. Lying about the legal significance of child pornography shows zero actual interest in the realities of dealing with the exploitation of children. In fact, by raising this topic, in the most non-germane and inappropriate manner, the Dubie campaign is saying that the exploitation of children is – as a matter of priority – a politically exploitable opportunity.
Bumper sticker on car- check (Received in mail yesterday, thanks Shumlin campaign.)
Sign in yard (I don’t usually put them up this far out from election day- but out it goes today, I am worked up).-check
Donate online (After donating to help Pakistan floods. Note to self-less eating out this month, also, keep wearing old sneakers awhile longer.)- check
Making phone calls starting Thursday (from home in spare time, while wearing old sneakers. Well, no spare time, but making calls 1-2 hours each week) -check
Realizing that more people might be tuning in to GMD these days, so let’s stay focused on the task at hand—priceless.
3 done 7 to go…..
“Keep reminding people that Brian Dubie is running a campaign that aggressively advertises those who abusively use children in sexual acts and record then record that abuse, as mere “non-violent” wards of the State.”
I forgot about that. Good wedge issue to drive between Dubie and his hench team. Keep pounding that point home in letters to editors, everything. Also, that Dubie never showed up for at least a third of the senate sessions. Maybe we can switch this around and go on the offensive instead of the defensive.