The guns are a-blazing on this eve of the Vermont Republican Party convention. And the #1 target, by far, is Lt. Gov. Phil Scott, head of the “moderate” wing of the party. The shooters are prominent conservatives who would rather see a teeny-tiny but ideologically pure VTGOP than, oh, win some elections.

Up first is Darcie “Hack” Johnston, who never met an election she couldn’t lose. Yesterday on her Facebook page, she posted an excerpt from something Paul “The Huntsman” Heintz wrote — in September of 2012. The occasion was Scott’s appearance before Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility, in which the Lt. Gov. allowed as to how the GOP ought to “give the Affordable Care Act a chance to work.”

For Johnston, Vermont’s staunchest opponent of health care reform, this is treasonous apostasy. And her apparent purpose in dredging up this bit of old news is to fan the flames of anti-Obamacare hatred and train them on Scott and his cadre. (She put the cherry on this little shit sundae by referring to Scott as “Lite Gov.” Never thought I’d see the Hack stealing lines from Peter Freyne. Of course, the Late Lamented was referring to Brian Dubie, but who’s counting?)

Johnston’s post drew several responses from like-minded conservatives, and a pair of rebukes from Republican lawmakers Joe Benning and Patti Komline. Here’s Benning:

Darcie: it baffles me wondering what it was you thought you would accomplish with this posting. Only hours before we are meeting in an attempt to unite as a party, you’ve taken a year old quote, on a divisive subject we all know to be quite complicated, to disparage the only state-wide office holder we have left. This posting merely invites further fracture, leaving us all in a toxic environment. It forces us to explain ourselves (once again) to those who might otherwise be looking for a party that presents itself with a positive image espousing basic constitutional principles. With all due respect, please do us all a favor and take down this post.

Somehow I don’t think Johnston will comply.

And now, on to an acorn that fell really, really far from the tree: Mark Snelling.  The failed candidate for Lieutenant Governor and treasurer of a nearly-bankrupt political party (heck of a resume, Snelly) rowed himself up Shit Creek in a really weird attempt to disparage Phil Scott and David Sunderland (the “moderate” candidate for VTGOP Chair) — by publicly accusing Bruce Lisman of secretly plotting a run for Governor.

For which he later issued an abject apology. And after issuing said apology, saying he still believed the stuff he’d just apologized for. Yeesh.  

This comes to us from Peter Hirschfeld at the Vermont Press Bureau, and is available on its non-paywalled website.

Snelling’s original claim:

“The reality is that within the last eight weeks, Bruce Lisman has considered running for governor,” Snelling said Thursday afternoon. “He’s had a budget put in front of him, saying that it would cost $3.2 million to run for governor. And he sat through a three to four-hour meeting and thought about it and looked at all sides of it and decided against it.”

Now, here’s some tortured logic. Snelling reasoned that if Lisman ran for Governor, he’d run as an independent — and he would try to convince the VTGOP to stay out of the race, to give him a clear shot at Gov. Shumlin. And in Snelling’s mind, if Sunderland were chair, he’d be more likely to accede to Lisman’s hypothetical request. Plus, Snelling pointed to Scott’s “lack of public enthusiasm” for Randy Brock as a sign that Scott might throw his support to Lisman.

All of this, remember, is purely an invention of Mark Snelling’s overactive political imagination. And it got him in hot water with the Lisman crowd, forcing this apology emailed to Lisman Thursday night — only a couple of hours after Snelling’s original comment:

Bruce,

I owe you an apology.

I was doing an interview and I was trying to make a point about future elections and the dynamics of the various parties and how they can interact along with possible third parties.

To make my point, I spoke about your organization and made statements about which I have no first-hand knowledge.

It was a discussion where CFV was a tangent and I should not have gone down that tangent.

It was a mistake and I apologize.

Mark

Within hours of sending his apology, Snelling told Hirschfeld that he stands by his claim that Lisman harbors gubernatorial ambitions:

“I fully believe that what I said was true,” Snelling said this morning.

Way to apologize there, Snelly.

These hapless sallies by Snelly and the Hack are good examples of their approach to party-building and reaching out to independent and undecided voters: they’d rather be ideologically pure than broaden the VTGOP. They’d rather lose with conservative principles intact than win under a slightly more moderate banner.

And they sure as hell would rather cling desperately to the little bit of power they have now, than risk losing it for the sake of their own party’s fortunes.

If this crowd wins the convention — and I expect that they will — then the VTGOP is in for a long, dark night of electoral irrelevance.

And if Phil Scott wins the day, he’ll inherit a party with no base and few resources, and he will have alienated the conservative base that’s been driving this damn bus.