Good morning, folks. How ’bout a nice hot cup of schadenfreude with your pancakes and bacon?

Vt. Republican Party battles over its future

This cheery headline greets subscribers to the Mitchell Family Organ today. Yes, it’s paywalled; I’ll recount some highlights here within the bounds of fair use, but it’s worth actually buying a copy of the paper to get all the gory details.

The article, by Mitchell Family stalwart Peter Hirschfeld, recounts a struggle “for control of the party’s organizational apparatus,” such as it is:

The emergence of two factions – one led by Vermont Republican Party Chairman Jack Lindley, the other by Lt. Gov. Phil Scott – has pitted the old-guard GOP against a cadre of upstart reformists looking to put some distance between themselves and the Republican National Committee.

Scott, the VTGOP’s most successful politician by a country mile, put together a “Strategic Plan Committee” to figure out a return path to relevance. Its members include State Reps. Heidi Scheuermann and Patti Komline, Sen. Joe Benning, and former Douglas Administration multi-tool Jason Gibbs, currently flacking for Bruce Lisman’s Campaign for Vermont. (Which raises the question, unanswered in the article, of whether Lisman himself, and his Wall Street millions, are behind the effort. But hey, Lisman’s a self-described nonpartisan, so he couldn’t possibly be involved. Cough.)

The committee’s already strained relationship with Lindley’s office has been complicated in recent weeks by leaks, subterfuge, and a fundamental disconnect between Scott’s new brain trust and the chairman controlling their party.

That would, of course, be our friend Angry Jack Lindley. Who reacted, yes, angrily. He forced several of his cronies onto Scott’s committee, and things have escalated from there.  

Lindley and his loser buddies (including Darcie “Hack” Johnston and Mark “Hey Look, My Last Name Is” Snelling) accuse Scott of trying to hijack the VTGOP for his own benefit, arguing that it’s bad for a single elected official to dominate the party.  

Sounds like they can’t wait for Scott to go independent. Which would leave the VTGOP with how many statewide elected officials, exactly? … Oh yeah, NONE.

The core of Scott’s argument is that the VTGOP is failing due to association with the national GOP, and needs to plot its own course. The Lindley faction says the state party would be in even worse shape if not for help from the national level — pointing specifically to the $20,000 per month the state party “earned” last year by parking funds from the Mitt Romney campaign in its account.

Which is kinda like saying that a tick should be grateful to the dog. The Scott faction’s counter-argument is that if the VTGOP weren’t seen as a captive of the Fox/Limbaugh brand of conservatism, it might just be able to raise money on its own instead of being a parasite.

One final bit of comedy from Hirschfeld’s article. He asked Phil Scott if Lindley is the right man to lead the VTGOP:

“Um, I think that, um,” and here Scott pauses for a full 10 seconds. “I think he can, for now. I don’t doubt his intentions. I think he’s been working very hard to try to, I guess, re-energize the party. But we’ll see. Time will tell.”

Hirschfeld then says that “the knives are coming out for Lindley,” and that “Lindley won’t go quietly.”

Get your popcorn ready, folks.