Republican Phil Scott is leaving a trail of empty chairs at candidate forums around the state.
Today, he is racing away from a forum in St. Albans. All the Democratic candidates, Sue Minter, Matt Dunne and Peter “devoted American” Galbraith, are attending. Even Phil Scott’s Republican challenger, Bruce Lisman, took a risk and is attending.
The Phil-Bus mobile campaign vehicle is all over the state but he won’t sit down for a few hours with the other candidates.
How is he ever going to fill the BIG chair he is campaigning for when he can’t sit down in a little chair and debate the issues?
Could be jitters -it’s his first BIG campaign after all.
No it makes him look smart. At a Prog-designed event with Progs occupying all offices in the sponsored PAC hosting the event — what can be gained for Scott that he cannot gain by what he’s already doing on his own time? Short answer: nothing. He’s showcasing himself, benefitting his campaign with facetime & the ppl who want to hear his views, connecting one on one with voters answering questions — it’s called retail politics & the most effective venue for gathering support of voters.
Availing oneself to the public by connecting in a personal way will take him miles ahead of going to a debate where it is designed solely to place the opposition, himself & Lisman, in a negative light while championing party platform issues with selective talking points designed by the party of the debate sponsors, in this case Progs & Dems, and a bad idea for *any* candidate. Lisman, with numbers in the toilet with indirect, vague, cagey responses has nothing to lose. Galbraith will say what he needs to say to get elected and then tell everyone to ef ourselves when he fails us all. We know him well & has nothing to lose either.
When Minter & Dunne accept an invitation to a so-called “debate” with Scott, Minter, Galbraith & Lisman at Ethan Allen Institute with only VT rightwingers on the panel, oh say Rob Roper, John MClaughry, Joe Benning, Don Turner etc etc fielding the questions in an audience full of other rightwingers or undecided, perhaps it would be fair to ask Scott to do the same.
He does like to stay in his Republican comfort zone.
Well, Franklin County is generally good hunting for Republicans, and the venue is definitely a neutral location. Who cares who’s sponsoring it? It’s a forum, not a debate.
Maybe he’s afraid the topic will turn to why he limited his efforts as senate president with regard to fellow Republican, disgraced Franklin County Senator Norm McAllister, to depriving him of his committee assignments. After that, we waiting literally months for him to be suspended…not unseated, leaving Franklin County without the opportunity for the Governor to appoint a replacement.
Ironically, Mr. McAllister’s trial begins Wednesday at the courthouse next door to the candidates’ forum.
Snubbing St. Albans might save the Lt. Gov. a bruise or two, but it looks a little shabby from the local viewpoint.
VT Workers Center & Chittenden Cty leftwing-PAC inviting a candidate merely to present opportunity to watch him squirm not a realistic goal. Plus he brings a WWF star-power cage-match quality that the others don’t & would pack the building spilling to overflow as the opposition would just love to see nice-guy Phil bloodied.
Perhaps VWC & friends could invite EAI & friends for a dual cage-match next time if blood, guts & squirming is the goal. Quite sure it would be well attended. Shummy-surrogate Minter the progiest could then be connected to Shumlin administration & as the Dem establishment candidate with all of their failures.
How about a lite-gov cage-match including Shummy-clone & !st lieutenant Shap Smith also wearing on sleeve all of the unpopular legislative actions for the last 10 years.
We live in an age which we have seen both sides of political spectrum become increasingly polarized. My dad was an active Dem & even a hippie until Reagen, who went rightwing & said he didn’t leave the party it left him. And the right who jump ship say the same. To the point that swing voters & Indies dwarf both parties in number. Libertarian the fastest growing party & just went up 15%.
Unfortunately since there is now so much to lose on either side the calculations are carefully examined to the extent no one in their right mind would travel across the minefield of enemy territory into armed entrenchments to make a few ppl happy. *Sigh*
There was no squirming. No ‘gotcha’ questions.
A fair number of Republicans were on hand and Mr. Lisman got as much polite applause as any of the others.
I wonder if it is because he thinks that he already has the election locked up that he does not have to bother with these pesky forums. More should be made of this.
The non-partisan non-political world of working class voters is not watching this as we news junkies are & sometimes don’t make up minds until shortly before elections. Campaigning season has traditionally started over late spring early summer during the county fair season with ppl turning attention to the general after Labor Day. Primary in late August has moved the date.
Don’t think absence is necessarily b/c “having it locked up” is a certainty. Realistically whatever is most practical iow what’s going to give the biggest bang for time & energy buck drives candidates. In right-leaning Franklin Cty he probably *does* have it locked up.
News and media organizations with professional seasoned reporters & journalists offer more perspective & visibility for a wider spectrum of viewpoints and questions so gets more attention. This is true on a national scale also. VPR, VPT, VTDigger offer a more attractive media presentation than a sparsely attended local event sponsored by a PAC.
The others have more of a challenge making themselves known to voters and need the visibility.
For someone with like +80% name recognition who is already extremely well known with decades of visibility — going on the record in front of a live audience recorded or televised before hundreds or thousands is probably more worthwhile imho.