Poor, poor Randy Brock. The underfunded underdog will be forced to spend most of next week at the national Republican convention in Tampa, pleading with GOP moneybags for a few crumbs from their table. Meanwhile, Governor Shumlin will be gallivanting around the state, honoring the first anniversary of Tropical Storm Irene. Enjoying, as Brock put it, a “taxpayer-funded junket.”

Yeah, the least exotic “junket” in history.

The Freeploid dutifully reports Brock’s whinge… and in the process, ‘Loid reporter Terri Hallenbeck slyly drops a couple of gems which, like a fine jeweler, I will now display under a spotlight to best reveal their charms.

After providing a few examples of Shumlin’s out-of-state fundraising prowess, Hallenbeck notes that…

Brock’s contributions show a dearth of that out-of-state money Shumlin is seeing. If he hits the jackpot in Tampa at the convention, that might change.

I can see it now: Randy Brock in a convention hallway, desperately pleading with some babyfaced underling for “just a moment of Mr. Koch’s time.”

The problem with Randy’s Tampa daydream is that for the national Republicans and one-percenters, Vermont is a pimple on the ass of America, and they have far better things to do with their money than to waste it on a conservative ideologue taking on a popular incumbent in the bluest of blue states.

After the jump: Randy Brock, apostle of moderation. NOT.

I say “conservative ideologue” because that’s exactly what Randy Brock has acted like since he launched his gubernatorial campaign. Which leads me to the following passage from the Hallenbeckian keyboard:

You might wonder if Brock is worried about how spending time at the Republican National Convention will go over with voters back home where the national Republican scene – including the rise to the prominence of tea party groups – gives some Vermonters the heebee jeebies.

Brock shrugged that off, suggesting he could be a good influence on the national party. “The best way to insure that their side prevails is not to participate,” he said. “I need to be part of that debate.”

Oh please, tell us more, Randy. How exactly do you differ from those nasty far-righters who “give some Vermonters the heebee* jeebies?” After all, you invited one of the nastiest, Maine Governor Paul LePage, to come to Vermont and raise some money for you. On issue after issue, you’ve aligned yourself with the far-right agenda of the national Republicans. Where do you differ? How do we know that, if you were somehow (chuckle) elected Governor (snort), you wouldn’t pull a Scott Walker or Rick Snyder and impose a far-right, Tea Party agenda on Vermont? (Wisconsin’s Walker, you might recall, made no mention of union-busting when he was a candidate, and Michigan’s Snyder presented himself as a relatively moderate alternative to some caveman Republicans in his state’s gubernatorial primary.)

*I’ve always spelled it “heebie,” but I haven’t consulted the AP stylebook.

This is the same Randy Brock who’s spending big wads of campaign cash on Republican “consultants” who’ve helped elect some of the most noxious of Tea Partiers. And the same Randy Brock whose own team includes Darcie Johnston, El Jefe General John McClaughry, and LePage policy architect Tarren Bragdon.  

And this is the same Vermont Republican Party that has made the Rev. Craig Bensen, the Last Man Standing in the “Take Back Vermont” crowd, their delegation chairman to the national convention. I’m sure he’ll loudly represent the views of mainstream Vermonters in “that debate” on the future direction of the Republican Party.

No, Randy, you have not shown the least inclination to be a positive “part of that debate.” Quite the opposite: you have shown yourself to be a far-right panderer of the bleakest sort — throwing away whatever minuscule chance you had to win the Governorship in a consistent and craven effort to cuddle up to Republican reactionaries.

Well, either that, or you’re a Republican reactionary yourself.

Panderer or ideologue: the choice is yours.