In an excellent piece from Hallenbeck at the Freeps yesterday, Senator Anthony Pollina, a nominal Democrat who maintains his status as Progressive Party leader had words for Governor Shumlin as he enters his first re-election year:
“We’re still balancing the budget on the backs of average families,” Pollina said, noting Shumlin oversaw $37 million in budget cuts to human services, raised fees on health care providers and opposed efforts by Pollina and others to raise taxes on wealthy Vermonters instead.
“I think he looks like Jim Douglas,” Pollina said, referring to Shumlin’s Republican predecessor.
This is the second time Anthony Pollina has made such noises, but Shumlin may not be listening given the content elsewhere in the piece:
A little more than a year ago, Frank Cioffi hosted a news conference in his St. Albans barn where he and several other Democrats announced their support for Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Dubie.
[…] Halfway into Shumlin’s two-year term as governor, Cioffi has changed his tune.
“I think he’s doing really well,” Cioffi, president of the Greater Burlington Industrial Corp., said of Shumlin. Cioffi said he’ll be backing Shumlin in the 2012 election.
Shumlin – who has clearly made a calculated position to push hard on a couple marquee progressive priorities and tack rightward on tax and fiscal policy, as well as some social services issues – has to be looking at that story and saying “mission accomplished.”
In any event, it means a major shift for the sidebar oddsmaker…
and Peter Shumlin would do well to remember how much he implied about his commitment to his progressive base.
We are not a small number in the state of Vermont, being large enough to comprise not just a left flank in the Democratic party itself, but also a separate party of growing numbers.
But Randy Brock? Please...
One well might paraphrase this statement to say:
“Randy Brock’s policies belong to the long-tried and proven failed model of “trickle-down” economics. On the environment he turns a blind eye to everything but the short-term balance sheet. And for sheer wishful thinking, his idea of social responsibility is to deny that there is any real need.”
Talk about ‘rosy assumptions over a foundation of quicksand!’
How about the prospects of getting a different outcome from the same failed approaches?
Having Republican, forget what he says otherwise, Frank Choffi’s, endorsement for reelection is not going to win many Democratic votes. If Shumlin wins another two years it will be only because he is the lesser of two evils. Where is the Democratic wing of the Democratic party?
Heard Governor Shumlin twice on VPR yesterday and he skillfully and cheerfully handled most questions from easy to less easy. He can verbally shoot forward, sideways and almost in several directions all at once and land at an answer that is often plausible. But all he seems able to ever muster on his refusal to raise taxes on the wealthy is to almost mumble the over-worn excuse that they are taxed enough already. I think it’s downright undignified for him as a mature politician not to be able to come up with a better excuse if he’s going to run with this fig leaf.
Shumlin is following the Dems general tack —throwing a few bones to certain constituencies that are highly active like the LGBT marriage community and otherwise playing to the Wall Street masters. This is a cheap way to buy off of those voters who don’t dig too deep. Though I am a lesbian, I am a lot more concerned about economic policies that favor the few at the expense of those who really suffer in a downturn caused by the fraud and criminality of the Wall Street banksters.
Pollina is doing a public service by letting folks know that the social issues are a just a fig leaf for a Governor whose major policies tack as right as the previous Repug Governor. The two parties are the one party of Wall Street and the American people are getting fed up with this austerity to cover for the stupid and criminal behavior of the overly rich and the ridiculous pampering/pandering to their every whim by our politicians.
So if APolina runs, he gets endorsed quickly by some of the groups that Shumlin used to gain the primary win last time. He is going to have a lot of fences to mend after the State Hospital and the Complex end up sitting empty on election day.
So far he has pissed off the 4 wheelers and probably by extension hunters, the labor community and by extension many foot troops that worked for him, and anyone who thinks he and his millionaire buddies should step up. He is a master politician, but it seems with Jeb Spaulding still poking people with a stick and Lunderville gone, he may still be tested if this session is like the last one. A few uppity senators or representatives could make things interesting.
If Pollina runs, the Dem line: “The alternative is so much worse” gets flushed down the toilet (where it belongs, in light of Obama’s record). If a threatened Pollina candidacy forces Shumlin to left of center–and he actually responds to the call to up taxes on the rich–one would need to consider the record of Dems talking the talk but not walking the walk.
So I hope Pollina actually does run, and brings into his campaign the OWS movement, increased protection for unions, and increased (not decreased) services and support for Vermont’s most needy people (including migrant farm workers).
Haven’t been a fan of Pollina or the Progs in general, but it’s time for Vermonters to shake the tree of Establishment Politics–which holds hands with Establishment CAPITALISM. Establishment Capitalism is destroying this country and the world. OWS strongly suggests that Americans may be willing to consider candidates who are not in bed with Corporations and the Rich.
I guess we shall see.
(Oh, I forgot…A Pollina candidacy will get Randy Brock elected? Well, a Pollina candidacy should get Pollina elected, if he does it right. At the very least it will give the Dems two years to come up with a candidate and a mission that are more appropriate to deal with the economic ‘climate change’ that began with Reagan and has us all at its mercy.)
(Oh, and this too…Rick Santorum? The guy who added his last name to Urban Dictionaries in 2003? Supposedly the dumbest member of Congress when he was a Senator? Well, that begets the line: “The alternative is so much stupider.” I love it too that the National Republican Party seems to be in heat about which issue is most important: Having One Nation Under The Rich, Having A Corporate State Under God, or One Nation Undereducated. Santorum? What did Dan Savage write in 2003? Maybe we haven’t seen anything yet. Maybe the Republicans will go all out and come up with a former child sex offender (or some other all round perv) for their candidate. That is, as long as he or she is really (really really) dumb. Lordy, where is Spiro Agnew when you really (really) need him?