(This bears watching.   – promoted by kestrel9000)

I’ll reserve comment for below the fold.

There is something beautifully poetic about this new ad out from the Brock campaign and Vermont GOP that they apparently want to raise money to put on television. This beautiful rendition of the 1984 Reagan re-election ad was clearly intended to tug on the hearts of Vermonters who handed Republicans their last victory here at the presidential level – and in doing so, they manage to demonstrate just how little the Republican party has evolved in the past 28 years. No wonder Lisman is emptying his pockets to put a conservative message on television and radio – it’s pretty clear that the Vermont GOP has no idea how to do it on their own.

Hey everyone,

I know many of you have already had this invitation passed on in some variety, but I wanted to extend it to the whole Green Mountain Daily community. Tomorrow (Thursday) evening in Essex Junction, Rep. Kesha Ram and I are hosting a reception for Students for a New American Politics, the political action committee where I currently serve as Executive Director. I’d love to get the chance to see some of you all in person while I am still in state.

While I’ve talked about SNAP briefly with some of you, I wanted to take a little time to talk about to explain exactly what it is that I’ve been putting all my political energy into for now just over a year, and why now is the time to invest in shaping the direction of our party – if you’ll join me below the fold.

There are major problems with the ways that we engage young people in politics. Campaigns depend on them – young people knock on doors, they work jobs the make up for what they lack in pay with ridiculously long hours. It’s not all bad work though – the people who get into the game when they’re young are more likely to stick with it. They become the activists, organizers, even politicians themselves of the next generation.

If that’s the reality we live in – and my experience both here in Vermont and elsewhere in the country as I’ve travelled with SNAP tells me that it is – then it is not just in our interests, but it’s our responsibility to make sure that those young people reflect the same diversity of our movement.

Unfortunately, campaigns aren’t always the most meritocratic organizations. I was fortunate enough to find people that trusted me when I was way too young to be working on campaigns – but I think I’m an exception rather than the rule – usually it takes connections to get your foot in the door, and even if you have an opportunity, you can only take it if you have the financial security to work full time for almost nothing.

At SNAP, we care about electing progressive leaders to Congress. We’re proud to have helped great candidates win in some of the closest races in the country – Al Franken, Tom Periello, and Joe Courtney by less than 100 votes in 2006. But we also want to make sure that we are making a last impact on the future of the Democratic Party. That is why we spend our money through our fellowship program.

Rather than make donations to our candidates, we pay college students to work as full time field organizers on their campaigns for 10-12 weeks during the spring, summer, or fall. Our fellows are incredible campus organizers who have never gotten the door opened for them into professional politics, and the 55 fellows who have came through our program have now gone on to tremendous success as professional campaign staff, local government officials, union organizers, and professional advocates and activists.

We’ve found such great success with the program that this year we plan to fun 40 fellowships. We’ve received hundreds of applications for these positions, and have had to make incredibly difficult choices about hiring our organizers, but the people we have are truly some of the best the nation has to offer. 70% of our applicants attend state universities, and a similar number are eligible for federal financial aide. They each have incredible stories of how they got their start in politics, and it is those stories and more that I hope to share with some of you tomorrow evening.

The event will run from 8-9:30pm at my house (9 Wilkinson Drive, Essex Junction), though of course if you have other time constraints you are free to arrive and exit as you please. I’m just tremendously excited to share these stories with the people that helped give me my start, because there is nothing that makes me feel better about our politics today than being able to give the same opportunity I was granted to another wave of incredibly talented young people. Our program offers a unique opportunity, and it excites me that the best organizers in country aren’t just getting opportunities to work in politics, they are getting those opportunities solely on incredibly progressive campaigns, working for people who will be actual leaders in Washington.

Please don’t hesitate to bother me with questions!

( – promoted by odum)

For the second installment of my Vermont series, I want to illustrate one of the ways that LDI scores can be useful in non-electoral analysis.  One of the the biggest issues citizens face when it comes to state government is that they often know very little about what the people they are voting for support – especially in a state with districts as small as Vermont, where campaigns for state legislature aren’t high-spending ultra-partisan affairs.  While the recall will be the true barometer, if Wisconsin residents knew what the legislators they were electing really wanted to do with state government, would they have ever had the numbers to take such destructive acts?  

In order to combat this lack of information, third party groups often try to inform voters about candidate positions on their individual issues, and this is helpful, to a point.  Scorecard scores tend to be intentionally divisive, looking to paint one party as against their issues, and another for it – furthermore, on something like environmental issues, a Democrat with a far from perfect record on the environment might be a considerable improvement over someone who will vote against environmental interests 100% of the time.

By using these third-party scorecards, and plotting them against the District Index scores for the districts these legislators represent, we have better context to evaluate which legislators are pulling their weight on which issues, and to what degree a legislator might be deviating from the rest of his party.  

Below I have taken four scorecards that cover the 2009-2010 members of the Vermont Senate, and plotted them against the index score for the Senate district they represent.  

Chamber of Commerce scores tend to be balanced in favor of Republicans, with Democrats much more likely to receive lower scores. Unlike some below, these scores are just based on the 09/10 session, and the full list of bills included can be found on the Vermont Chamber of Commerce website.  The black line is a simple linear regression of the data.  The results speak to the amount of ideological diversity within the Democratic party.  Take the Chittenden Senate district (D+10) for example: Sen. Diane Snelling (50%) only receives the third highest score in the district, behind Doug Racine (56%), and Sen. Hinda Miller, whose 79% score is tied among Democrats only by Bob Starr, whose Essex-Orleans seat (R+16) is one of the most Republican districts in the entire state.

The VPIRG scores also only cover the last session, and are significantly less partisan, with all but five senators scoring 80% or higher.  The underachieving six? Democratic Senators Dick Sears and Dick Mazza, both just hovering above 50%, and then Republicans Randy Brock, Kevin Mullin, and then-Sen. Phil Scott, whose 44% is only higher than Peg Flory.  Sen. Flory’s score is artificially deflated however, as she did not have a full session’s worth of votes to be recorded on.

The League of Conservation Voters release lifetime scores, which are even better indicators to really get a grip on where legislators stand.  Again, Sen. Flory brings up the rear at 13%, but just as significant is the fact that the second lowest score again belong to Sen. Starr.  Also worth a mention is Sen. Alice Nitka’s score of 67%.  While it’s not as low as some other members of the Democratic caucus, it is notable for the fact that among the cluster of Democrats in districts comparable to her own, it is significantly lower than her colleagues.

Finally, the AFL-CIO also releases a lifetime scorecard.  The only word of caution I would give is that they are incredibly selective about what votes are counted, and as a result, for first-term senators, the only scored vote was their decision to close Vermont Yankee as planned, which they scored as a “bad” vote.  That is why someone like Progressive Senator Tim Ashe, who you would expect to see near the top of this graph, is instead on the bottom line.  It’s also worth noting the Republican scores on this one: Sen. Snelling’s score is 2nd in her Caucus to Sen. Vince Illuzzi.  Effectively, the two most pro-labor Republicans come from the two Republican Senators whose districts are farthest apart.

If this data is interesting to you, it is worth checking out a post I made on Green Mountain Daily a while back, looking at these same scores for members of the Vermont House. With Vermont behind us, I’ll have more states on the way shortly.

( – promoted by Jack McCullough)

(Cross-posted from The Legislative District Index.  Content is written for a national audience, so there are some basic Vermont things to skim over, but the data is what I figure people will be interested in.  Look for Part 2 Monday, where I’ll have some more data to share, including those legislative scorecards for the Vermont Senate).

Back in the fall of 2009, I was looking for some metric to evaluate the risk posed to legislators by their vote on marriage equality the previous session.  The result was the Vermont District Index, my first attempt at making any sort of metric for measuring partisanship in state legislatures.  Two years later, that project has turned into the Legislative District Index.

Because of the time I have had to work with Vermont’s data, today’s post is going to be a little different than the states that have come before – I want to illustrate the real potential of this data over a longer period of time.  For Vermont, I not only have 2010 data, but I also have data from 2008 and 2006, which I’ve made available for download here. For now though, we will just stick with the 2010 data – and I’ve included which party has held each seat for the past three sessions.

For those not familiar with the state, Vermont’s legislature has some interesting quirks.  The Vermont Constitution allows for house districts to be drawn for either one or two members, and makes no limit on how large a Senate district may be.  The result is a six-seat Senate district covering most of Chittenden County – which is quite frankly deserving of a post dedicated to itself.  Since I haven’t had to publish a state with different sized districts yet, I couldn’t figure out how I wanted to publish the Senate list, but the way I’ve done it below I think is the clearest to understand.  Just understand that senators are elected at-large from county-sized districts.

The other thing that stands out immediately is that the generic margin isn’t nearly as Democratic as some might expect.  On the national level, there is no question that Vermont is the safest of territory.  But when it comes to state politics, a relatively weak Republican party has managed to perform well on the back of a few public figures.  Consider this – a Democrat has not received over 50% of the gubernatorial vote since Howard Dean in 2000, when he captured 50.5% of the vote.  Republicans have held around 1/3 of the seats in the state house for most of the decade, nothing like the absolute shutouts we’ve seen in some of the more Republican chambers in the country.  That said, Vermont still comes in as the 2nd most Democratic state we’ve looked at so far, just behind Hawaii.  The graph below shows the raw 50/50 scores of all the states surveyed thus far, with the line stretching from both extremes, and the bar covering the middle 50% of districts.

If you read our Maine article, we talked about the importance of a relatively stable ideological continuum within a party.  If there are large ideological gaps, it becomes easy for the party to be either anchored to the safest of areas (Nebraska) or wind up promoting the growth of a third party (Maine).  With strongholds in Burlington and Brattleboro, the Vermont Progressive Party seems to fit very well into this framework.  Similar to the steep slopes we saw in the above states, there is a rather sharp drop off from the 8-10 most Democratic districts compared to the rest of the Democratic leaning territory. The below graph illustrates that, overlaying the distribution of VT-DI scores on top of the LDI scores of the other states surveyed.

Born out of Sen. Bernie Sanders campaign for Mayor of Burlington in the early 80’s, the Progressive party started with seats on the Burlington City Council, and grew to a statewide party that has held a handful of house seats, garnered a significant chunk of votes in heavily contested statewide elections, and naturally, been the source of plenty of tension amongst the Vermont Left.  With that in mind, 2010 was something of a unification of the Vermont Left, as Progressives chose to not nominate a candidate for governor, and former gubernatorial candidate Anthony Pollina ran as a D/P fusion candidate in his successful bid for Vermont State Senate.  Furthermore, a generic Vermont Democrat performs significantly better than Democrats in Maine, which has allowed for the party to maintain strong control over the legislature, despite having a successful third party contesting otherwise safe seats. Despite being home to a much wider range of ideological diversity than Hawaii, Democrats still maintain comparable supermajorities.  

In addition to doing my usual recap, I wanted to use my home state as an example of some of the other things we can think about using LDI data.  When redistricting seasons rolls around, suddenly people become a lot more interested in state legislatures, and while Congressional redistricting draws the most attention, there are plenty of major fights playing out over local district lines.  Vermont doesn’t draw districts until 2012, but all ready there have been very different proposals put forth by the tri-partisan redistricting committee.  But those plans have little meaning given the Democratic supermajority, and so any decision about new districts are likely to be made within the party.

As I mentioned before, Vermont’s current districts are highly irregular – I’m represented by more states senators (6) than anyone else in the country.  In a district that big, campaigns become incredibly expensive undertakings, even in a state as small as Vermont.  Additionally, there is considerable scholarship that shows the notion that different sized districts with the number of legislators they elect proportionate to the number of voters within the district does not make for equal representation.  Rather, a voter in a large district has a much smaller chance that their vote will be decisive in an election compared to a voter in a regular single-member district.  Couple all this with the fact that population growth means Chittenden is in store for another Senate seat, and it becomes clear that something has to change.

The problem for Democrats is that virtually any solution weakens the strong position the six-seat district puts them in.  The most common “solution” is to take the town of Milton (R+25), and add it to the Grand Isle/Colchester Senate District, upping the number of senators elected to 2, and maintaining 6 in the rest of the Chittenden County district.  In that plan, Democrats in the six-seat district remain safe, and the Grand Isle district becomes slightly more conservative.  Someone like Republican House Minority Leader Don Turner, who has been a visible presence lately, might be inclined to run for the seat, and it would certainly prove a close contest.  But that solution still leaves you with a six-seat district.

Below I’ve put together a chart of two possible alternatives to the status-quo plan from above, which will illustrate exactly why Democrats have their hands tied.  First is a plan that would divide the six-seat district into two three-seat districts – one containing Burlington and South Burlington, the other containing the rest of Chittenden County.  In the second plan, only the city of Burlington is in a two-member district, with South Burlington as part of a larger four-seat district with the rest of the county.  Using 2010 State Senate election results, I’ve estimated who would be elected from these hypothetical new districts.

While the Burlington based districts will be strengthened (a result Progressives would likely prefer), the district covering the rest of the county becomes toss-up territory, with a LDI score similar to Washington County, where all three parties have found success.  The only way Democrats could break up the six-seat district and retain their advantage would be to split Burlington in half, which goes against the entire reason Vermont has multi-member districts to begin with – maintaining full communities (and in the Senate’s case, counties) as best as possible.  

I think I’ve all ready hit you all with a lot of content for one update, but I’m not quite done with Vermont.  Check in soon for Part 2 of my Vermont coverage, where I’ll illustrate some other calculations we can look at through the lens of VDI: measuring legislators issue positions relative to the ideology of their district.  

( – promoted by Jack McCullough)

UPDATE: AFL-CIO Lifetime Scores now included

This is another installment from my project that has been in the works now for nearly two years, but might finally be coming around the corner to some sort of real conclusion.   So, as I wait to find out if I’m going to ever land the funding to expand the project nationally, I wanted to share some of the information I all ready have on hand.  My hope is that, once I’m able to work all this out and make the numbers all available, there will be more of this kind of analysis online.

To provide a little back history, in the fall of 2009 I set out to develop some sort of rudimentary legislative district index for Vermont (If you’re interested, click on my profile and check my past diaries for a little more background).  My basic formula was to include Presidential, Gubernatorial, and State Legislative results in order to accurate rank the partisan preference of all 108 of the state’s legislative districts compared to the state on average.  You can expect a longer post about my methodology once I have a clearer picture of what the timeline is for this entire project, but I’m basically using the results of six recent elections, weighted for how strongly I’ve valued them as an indicator and for how long ago the election occurred.

One of the principle reasons for this project was that in the time I’ve been following politics online, I have been intrigued by how data plays an increasingly large role in casual political observation, and the popularity of analysis in the style of FiveThirtyEight.  However, for people to be able to replicate that kind of stuff on a local level, they need metrics to use, and those are often lacking.  

As an example of the function of this legislative district index, I’ve taken the 2008 Vermont District Index and paired it with the legislative scorecards issued by VPIRG, Vermont League of Conservation Voters, and the Vermont Chamber of Commerce for 2009-2010 to try and paint a fuller ideological picture of the last session of the Vermont House.  For the purposes of these charts, I only included legislators who were serving at the end of the 2010 session.  

Before I blabber on too much, here are the charts:

The first one uses the lifetime scores given out by the Vermont League of Conservation Voters (who deserve recognition for making lifetime numbers easily available).  There are a couple of points that really stand out on the map.  For Democrats, there are a fair number of representatives who underperform the trend line, ranging from Rep. Warren Kitzmiller in Washington-5 (D+35, 82% lifetime LCV score) to the worst offender, Rep. Richard Howrigan in Franklin-2 (R+16, 34%).  For the representatives in more liberal seats like Rep. Kitzmiller, his score is still on the lower end for the Democratic caucus, but by no means out of line.  Rep. Howrigan, on the other hand, has voted more conservatively on environmental issues that a number of Republicans in more conservative seats than he is in.  Effectively, when it comes to the environment, he votes much more like a Republican.

On the other hand, the Republican side of the equation isn’t all that interesting.  Aside from the hardliners who sit around 20%, there is a fair degree of leeway amongst the Republican caucus on the environment, with scores bouncing between 20 and 60 percent.  Worth nothing that there’s no real correlation when you look at the Republican caucus by itself – Republicans seem to be voting exactly how they feel on the environment  

The scores from VPIRG are the least helpful of the group, as so many Dems have 100% scores – the overlapping along the 100% line is what makes this graph appear so sparse.  There are only seven Democrats with imperfect scores: Reps. Browning, Gilbert, Howrigan, Keenan, Potter, Rodgers, and South, all on the conservative end.  That being said, Rep. Chip Conquest stands out as a shining example of the kind of Democrat you want to elect: not only is the seat he won in 2008 the most conservative seat held by a Democrat, but he managed to win re-election in 2010 while still receiving a 100% score from VPIRG.  Once again, the Republican caucus is all over the place.  Perhaps the most interesting point here is Rep. Topper McFaun in Washington-4, who represents one of the most conservative seats in the House, yet posted the highest VPIRG score among Republican legislators at 71%.

The Chamber of Commerce scores flip the trend line in the other direction and offer a few interesting points to keep in mind.  For the Republicans, Rep. McFaun’s score again deserves attention, as he was scored significantly lower than his colleagues who represent equally conservative districts.  If there was any sort of legitimate tea party presence in Vermont, you would have to imagine that between his votes on these issues and his previous rhetoric on health care, he would be a prime target.  The other low number on the list comes from Rep. Joseph Krawczyk, who was identified by the index as possessing the most Democratic seat held by a Republican – though after his defeat last fall, that title is back with Rep. Kurt Wright.

For Democrats, only three break the 60% barrier, but all three fall on the more conservative end of the scale.  Once again, Rep. Howrigan is on the list, as is Rep. Keenan and Rep. Robert Krebs, who was appointed to finish the term of the late Rep. Ira Trombley after his passing, before winning the office in his own right last fall.  It is worth noting that Rep. Krebs high score, while by no means out of line given the lean of his district, is inflated as a result of the limited number of votes that could be tabulated for him – his voting record in the House was identical to Rep. Mitzi Johnson (40%), who also represents the Grand Isle-Chittenden District.

Lastly, just to clarify, by analyzing these charts I by no means claim that their scores are accurate measures when viewed alone – there are well documented issues with interest group scorecards, and it appears that the rules for how legislators are scored are not always applied equally by all groups.  That being said, viewing these numbers in the context of the partisan lean of the district does give us a chance to peak at the members who have been more willing to stray from their caucus – whether that is for better or worse depends on the individual situation.  As always, if you’re interested in seeing more specific graphics, feel free to ask in the comments or contact me directly.

UPDATE:

Thanks to Dennis LaBounty, political director at the Vermont AFL-CIO, I can now show you their scorecard as well

A few quick notes: last session, there was only one House roll call vote that the AFL-CIO counted for their scorecard: S.290 AN ACT RELATING TO RESTORING SOLVENCY TO THE UNEMPLOYMENT TRUST FUND, which was overwhelmingly passed with the support of leadership, and resulted in the first “WRONG” vote for most Democratic lawmakers.  In this kind of graphic, that becomes even more pronounced, as there are a lot of fairly liberal, freshman Democrats who have scores of 0%.  I debated whether to counterbalance this by counting H. 647, a bill they highlighted as being a victory for labor, but since it wasn’t a roll call vote there really wasn’t any appropriate way for me to tabulate the votes.

In terms of looking at some of the lawmakers in this graph, surprise, surprise, once again Rep. McFaun has been voting pro-labor at a much greater rate than his colleagues. On the Democratic side, there isn’t much to bring up: the underperforming Reps on the liberal end of the spectrum all have 4 or less votes, one of which was a “WRONG” vote this year, and if you head down to the more conservative districts, the last Democrat sitting at 100% is Rep. Bob South, who broke ranks on the bill last session, but just as is the case with his other freshman, only has one data point to rely on.

For the lifetime numbers, AFL-CIO’s approach of being very strict about what votes count and what votes don’t works very well, but in the short term, it can really skew the picture.

Help me get to Netroots Nation!  And if you’re interested in building the next generation of progressive leadership, or simply want to know more about what young progressives are talking about, check out our blog at Students for a New American Politics.

After reading Odum’s front page piece on everyone’s favorite Vermont news publication, I decided it was worth taking a look into whether there is any real logic for the kind of editorial they put out today.  My conclusion? Yes.

The reality is that the Record’s audience is so wildly different than the rest of the state, that a Salmon campaign is probably cause for serious celebration, no matter how unappealing it may be to the rest of the state.  

These are the the 2010 VDI numbers from the Northeast Kingdom (I wish I had the New Hampshire #’s all ready to go along with them, but alas, that will be another time):

Keep in mind that the mean district in Vermont (D/R +0 on the VDI scale) is one that a Democrat wins 57-43.  The seats in the Northeast Kingdom are not ones that are home to “New England” Republicans – these are seats that would be considered conservative by much more expansive samples. If you take the average VDI of the Northeast Kingdom (approx. R +20).  If you look at that in a more national context (again, something I wish I had the numbers to do right away), you’re talking about political territory similar to the state of Montana, or Michelle Bachmann’s congressional district.  That’s an entirely different animal than Vermont politics, one in which Salmon doesn’t feel nearly as out of place.

I think the easy counter argument to this is that even if you acknowledge the terrain in the Northeast Kingdom, Sanders took every county against Tarrant in 2006, and his lowest county total is what my metric finds to be the average.  Now, I don’t know what the Caledonia Record’s editorials were like at the time – I can only imagine they put together their own little arm of the Tarrant campaign – but my guess is that while the brand may be the same between the two Sanders challengers, the style is wildly different, and Salmon is much better positioned than Tarrant to appeal to these kind of supporters.  

First off, Salmon is local, while Tarrant never was.  Even though Tarrant wasn’t a carpetbagger, his wealth created a certain degree of distance from the electorate that Salmon doesn’t have to deal with.  On top of living in the area, he’s got a name that goes back, leaving him with an even more familiar face.

On top of this, Salmon and Tarrant appeal to very different strands of the Republican party.  To use a national example, Tarrant is much more of Romney – his social conservatism was never going to be the driving point of his politics, and his major political advantage was that he could easily grab hold of the business community, and in turn, the suburban middle-class worried about the economy.  Salmon, on the other hand, is somewhat akin to a Tim Pawlenty: a politician whose bread and butter is spending and budgets, but has no problem throwing out the verbal red meat that the tea party just eats up.

At the end of the day, neither is a real, crusading social conservative – something that would probably fly with the Caledonia Record’s editorial board, but land the candidate in hot water elsewhere in the state.  Brian Dubie is probably the only candidate that satisfies those wishes, and those views were ones he had to keep buried during the campaign, because of the same reasons I’ve stated above.

I think the really interesting question in Vermont politics is which direction will the state Republican party go?  Jim Douglas is evidence of the fact that Vermonters won’t hesitate to cast votes for someone they believe to be a moderate, but that’s not where the money and excitement is right now in conservative politics.  I think Republicans in this state can either shun the national movement, try to provide a moderate voice, and win office that way (in the mold of Phil Scott), or they play games with the tea party movement, probably diminishing their electoral outcomes but leaving them with more conservative candidates when they do get in to office.

 Loading ...

(Was meaning to write a diary something like this myself, but been too caught up in everything else. Thank heavens we’re an open forum! – promoted by odum)

For the first weekend in a long time, I find myself with a Sunday evening and no papers to write, and so I hoped I could contribute something to the conversation around Vermont House seats that could change hands this Tuesday.  Last year, I came out with something I called the Vermont District Index, compiling election results from past several years to rank how Democratic or Republican a house district is compared to the state as a whole, based off the idea of the Cook PVI.

After reading Shay Totten’s piece on the house districts he and Eric Davis have their eye on, I thought I’d go through my database and break down those races a little bit further.  Needless to say, if the nitty-gritty of Vermont House races isn’t your interest, this piece probably isn’t for you, but there are a lot of exciting races happening down the ballot this year, and I’ve taken some time out to dive deeper into a few of them.

Join me in looking at Chittenden 3-4, Rutland-Windsor-1, Franklin-3, Caledonia-3, Orleans-1, Windham-1, Addison-5, Washington 3-1, Windsor-Orange-1, and Washington-1

Chittenden 3-4 (D+47)

Burlington

Represented by: Kesha Ram (D) & David Zuckerman (P-retiring)

This race is the one my model becomes useless for, because it doesn’t have any way of differentiating between Democratic and Progressive candidates.  After weighing a potential run for Lt. Governor and Chittenden State Senate, Zuckerman announced that he would not be running for any office this year.  Ram (full disclosure: I worked on her 2008 campaign) is finishing out her first term in the Statehouse after winning the seat in what was arguably the most heated campaign in the state last time around.

Former representative Chris Pearson, who came in 3rd in the 2008 race, is back again.  Diane Gottlieb, a longtime Progressive activist, is also on the ballot, though she appears to be serving as more of a sponge for Pearson, with her candidacy not even being mentioned on the Progressive website.  Ram’s running mate, Peg Single Boyle, had to win a tough primary to become the second Democratic nominee, and has waged a strong campaign alongside Ram.  Ultimately, it’s going to come down to whether or not Pearson has made significant inroads on his own – during his tenure in the House, he never had to win a contested election after being appointed to fill Bob Kiss’ seat.  

Rutland-Windsor 1 (R+14)

Chittenden, Mendon, Killington, Bridgewater

Represented by: Megan Smith (D)

Shay cited Smith has a vulnerable Democrat because of her votes on same-sex marriage and the veto override.  Rutland-Windsor-1 is ranked as the 41st most Republican seat in the House, and the 10th most Republican seat currently held by a Democrat.  In Smith’s 2008 campaign, she beat her opponent in all but one of the district’s four evenly-sized towns, racking up a 17 point edge in her hometown of Killington and trailing by 4 points in the most conservative part of the district, Chittenden.

Smith is saddled with a significant challenge in Jim Eckhardt, a small business owner and chair of the National Federation of Independent Business Leadership Council.  The two candidates have raised similar sums of money, Smith reporting $5535 and Eckhardt $5019, though Eckhardt retained a slight cash-on-hand advantage at the October 15th filing deadline.

This seat looks like an incredibly difficult Dem hold – Bridgewater is the only Democratic center to try and boost turnout in and all four towns have voted Republican by significant margins in the past two gubernatorial races.  While all four of the towns have voted slightly more Democratic over the past two cycles, Smith may be one of the few representatives who “pays a price” for giving us two big votes this past session.

Franklin 3 (R+4)

St. Albans City

Represented by Kathleen Keenan (D) & Jeff Young (D)

While Keenan, who’s been serving since ’89, is certainly safe, freshman representative Young slipped into the house by a four-point margin in 2008 and was unable to stay out of the headlines last session.  Young initially voted against same-sex marriage, but then voted to override Douglas’ veto on the grounds that it would help him become a more effective legislator in the future.

That legislative future is now in doubt. Young hasn’t filed a single financial disclosure report this cycle, while a Republican challenger Dustin Degree, had raised $2755 at last notice.  This seat sits right in the middle on the spectrum of house seats, and while reliably a vote for Douglas, has been safely Democratic at the national level for the past decade.  It’d be a shame to lose a seat that should be safely Democratic, so I have to hope that what Young has lacked in fundraising, he’s made up for in work on the ground.

Caledonia 3 (R+21)

St. Johnsbury

Represented by Gary Reis (R) & Bob South (D)

Where as Franklin-3 is a seat we shouldn’t be losing, Caledonia-3 is one that we should just be thankful to hold in the first place.  South’s seat is the 3rd most Republican that Democrats currently hold, and the 21st most Republican in the entire House.  St. Johnsbury elected two new representatives in 2008, and all four candidates came within five percent of each other.  

It’s clear that South is aware of the difficult of his position, and has brought in a decent fundraising haul to keep himself afloat, raising $2790 by the Sept. 15th deadline, far outpacing Reis ($1193) and the two other challengers who don’t appear to have raised serious funds.  

But South has to contend with his 2009 vote to override the Governor’s veto on same-sex marriage, a vote that likely riled constituents.  South’s district was targeted by the Vermont Republican Party’s poling during the marriage debate, where they found only 31% of the district in favor of passing the law.  South faces an uphill ideological battle, but if he goes down on Tuesday it won’t be for a lack of trying.

Orleans 1 (R+25)

Brownington, Charles, Derby, Holland,

Represented by: Bob Lewis (R) & Scott Wheeler (R-retiring)

Talk about digging deep.  If Democrat Lisa Erwin-Davidson is able to capture this open seat, she’d claim the 14th most Republican seat in the House.  Following Wheeler’s retirement, the Democrat has put herself in a good position to snatch the second seat, staying even in fundraising with incumbent Lewis.

She’ll face an uphill battle at the ballot box though.  In 2008, both Republicans finished within a point of each other, a solid 11 points ahead of each of the Democrats.  60% of the district is composed of Derby, where Douglas underperformed in 2008 compared to the rest of the district.  There’s no real Democratic base to draw from in this district, and the roughly ten percent of the vote that comes in from Morgan (R+35) will bend heavily Republican, so it’s going to take a real across the board effort for Erwin-Davidson to sneak into this seat.

Windham 1 (R+1)

Guilford, Vernon

Represented by: Patty O’Donnell (R-retiring)

Windham-1 represents one of the best pick-up opportunities for Democrats this cycle.  Outgoing representative Patty O’Donnell had been serving in the 3rd most Democratic district represented by a Republican.  Keep in mind that though the district bends slightly more Republican than the state as a whole, Vermont is Democratic enough that this seat should be reliably Democratic – Kathy Pellett and Martha Heath sit in similarly Democratic districts.

Both the Republican, Mike Hebert, and the Democrat, Richard Davis have raised over $2000, with Hebert possessing a $600 edge in fundraising.  They’ll have to contend with one of the most ideologically interesting districts.  Guilford (D+18) and Vernon (R+22) split the district 50/50, forcing the candidates to win over two towns with completely opposite ideologies. Case in point: Vernon swung for Obama by only 7 Votes and saw Douglas run up a 30 point margin over Symington and Pollina, while in Guilford Obama racked up a 50 point margin and Symington and Pollina combined for a 30 point edge over Douglas.  

It’ll be interesting to see the different results in the two towns once they are finalized, but this is a seat that Democrats should be able to pick up if Vermont bucks the national trend and votes Democratic on Tuesday.

Addison 5 (R+1)

Bridport, New Haven, Weybridge

Represented by: Chris Bray (D)

If Windham-1 is a seat Democrats should pick up, Addison-5 is one they should hopefully be able to hold.  Just slightly more Democratic than the seat in Windham, Chris Bray’s failed Lt. Governor bid has opened up a seat for Republicans to try to capitalize on.

This match-up will be a re-match of the 2000 race in this seat, between former representative Harvey Smith and Democratic business leader/educator Spencer Putnam.  While Smith won round one, and served until Bray unseated him in 2006, Putnam isn’t taking chances this time. Having raised just shy of $10000, Putnam has built up a $6000 fundraising advantage over the former representative, and has waged an aggressive campaign.  Smith enjoys a name recognition advantage, but as long as Putnam keeps things even in Bridport, he should be able to bring this race home.

Washington 3-1 (R+14)

Barre City

Represented by: Paul Poirier (I)

Porier’s race is probably the most intriguing to me on the ballot this year.  Towards the end of the 2009 session, Poirier announced he was leaving the party to more effectively represent organized labor in the House.  While there were rumbling that this might be to ward off a Progressive challenger, nothing materialized, with only Republican opposition to oppose.

That being said, it doesn’t make Poirier’s road back to the statehouse any easier.  His district sits on the far end of Republican districts represented by a liberal, and in 2008 he was only able to manage a 51-49 win. Republican challenger Leo Valliere has doubled Poirier’s fundraising, having already spent more than Poirier has raised all cycle.  While Poirier has picked up endorsements from all across the spectrum including Barre Mayor Thom Lauzon, losing the Democratic label on the ticket could cost him some votes.  Poirier’s aware of the risk however, and made some waves earlier this fall by taking the odd step of hiring Amy Shollenberger as a paid campaign consultant in a state legislative race.  He’ll need all the strategic support he can get if he plans on serving an eighth term in Montpelier.

Windsor-Orange 1 (R+11)

Tunbridge, Royalton

Represented by: David Ainsworth (R)

Ainsworth must feel like he got incredibly unlucky with his challenger this year.  While his seat is by no means safely Republican, in a year that’s supposed to be exciting for the party it is the kind of seat you don’t have to worry about.  Unfortunately for them, parties usually don’t have to prepare for a challenger like Sarah Buxton.

The former Dean administration senior staffer and congressional campaign manager Buxton has raised over $13000 in her challenge, pushing Ainsworth into a difficult place.  Ainsworth narrowly edged his Democratic opposition 51-49 in 2008, and with this kind of challenge, it’s hard to see how this seat will stay Republican, especially in two towns that have steeply trended Democratic over the past decade.

Washington 1 (D+6)

Fayston, Waitsfield, Warren

Represented by: Adam Greshin (I)

Right-leaning independent Greshin faces a challenge from Democrat Mac Rood in what should be a safe Democratic district.  There is only one Republican in a district more Democratic than Washington 1, and Greshin’s 52-48 edge in 2008 doesn’t leave much room for error.  That being said it hasn’t seemed to bother the incumbent, who has been outraised four to one this cycle, with his only contribution coming from his own checkbook.

The independent label may have protected Greshin from anti-Republican sentiment last cycle, but Democrats will benefit from (at least) a much closer gubernatorial race in a seat where they have waltzed to victory in the past, as well as the presence of Anthony Pollina on the ballot, who did well here in 2008.  Rood’s funding edge and party label will probably be enough to reduce Greshin to a one-term legislator.

UPDATE: I’ve added a few more that were asked about in the comments, though the analysis is a little lighter than the ones above.

Windsor 4 (R+3)

Hartland, West Windsor

Represented by: Steve Adams (R)

With Adams retirement, his 2008 challenger John Bartholomew stands a good chance to pick up a seat in this swing district.  Bartholowmew only lost by around 80 votes last time around, carrying West Windsor but losing by ~100 in Hartland, and so with the incumbent out of the way, it should be his race to lose, especially given that he’s outraised his opponent by around 800 dollars.

In terms of its makeup, the district has taken a serious Democratic turn over the past decade – both towns just barely pulled the lever for Gore in 2000, while giving nearly 70% to Obama in 2008.  They haven’t warmed up to Dems on the statewide level yet however, with Douglas always carrying comfortable margins around +15. This is the fifth most Democratic seat Republicans hold, and is 2nd to Patty O’Donnell’s Windsor-1 if you only look at single-member seats.

Windsor 6-2 (R+3)

Hartford

Represented by: Charles Bohi (D) & John Clerkin (R-retiring)

This seat is virtually identical in partisan makeup to Windsor 4, so there’s not too much to discuss there.  Democrats narrowly missed out on this one in 2008, with the 3rd place Democrat only 1.9% behind Clerkin.  Both sides are fielding a full slate, so that advantage won’t exist, but this is as good of a pick-up opportunity as any given how few seats are left for the Dems to snatch up.

Chittenden 7-1 (D+0)

Colchester

Represented by: Jim Condon (D) & John Zenie (D-retiring)

The only way Dems should lose this seat is if their candidate doesn’t want it that badly.  Condon is certainly safe, but his ticketmate Erin Bessy has done herself little good, only raising $400 over the course of the campaign.  The Republican opposition isn’t blowing anyone out of the water – Bob Bouchard is waging somewhat of a campaign having raised just over $1000, but the other Republican nominee looks like a standard case of a sponge.

To give you an idea of where this seat rests on the spectrum, it’s right next to my district, Chittenden 6-2 (D+0), in Essex Junction, and Kurt Wright’s seat in Chittenden 3-1 (D+1). A win for Bouchard would seat him in the 3rd most Democratic district represented by a Republican.

Thanks to everyone who stayed with me through my analysis, hopefully it sheds a little more light on what should be some of the most interesting House races of the night – though I am sure there will be a handful of surprises I haven’t looked at.  And as for the VDI, following the conclusion of the 2010 election, I hope to update the database to reflect this year’s results, and find a place for the rankings online, so that it can be available for anyone to look at whenever they choose.  In the meantime, if you have questions about specific districts, let me know in the comments.  And given that we’re close to election day, I just want to make one last campaign pitch – if you’re voting in Chittenden County on election day, make sure you make one of your State Senate votes ends up with Philip Baruth.  It’s not every day you get to vote for a candidate that you  know will be accessible and transparent, and I’m proud to have him to vote for in my first “real” election.

( – promoted by GMD)

Green Mountain Daily members and lurkers,

I just wanted to thank this community for having been a part of my life for the past… I don’t know how long it has been now.  I’ve always felt incredibly privileged to be able to share my work here on GMD, and even more honored to have a fair deal of folks reading it.

Today I received acceptance letters from Harvard, Yale and Princeton.  Never in a million years did I expect to be able to say that.  Academically, I am certainly no genius, so my acceptance likely came down to my political involvement.  This place has played a huge role in getting me more involved in the Vermont Democratic community, and it’s incredibly humbling to have the work I’ve done recognized by these schools.

So I just wanted to quickly thank this community for the role it’s had in my life over the past few years, it’s been a pleasure to be a part of this place and I wouldn’t be where I am today without you all

Thanks again,

Matt

(@#$!%&^*+. – promoted by odum)

UPDATE: It’s been a little while, but Congressman Welch got back to me on my two questions – why did he sign the letter, and does he still support net neutrality.  Here’s the response:

Dear Mr. Breuer,

I strongly support net neutrality.  The internet must remain open and available to all users.  It is essential to the free flow of ideas, creativity, participatory democracy and commerce.

We must also fight to make the internet as accessible in rural Vermont as it is in major metropolitan areas.  My signature on the letter to the FCC was intended to make that point.  We need net neutrality and we need universal broadband access.

I will be monitoring the FCC rulemaking process carefully and encourage you to do the same by visiting www.fcc.gov.  Please stay in contact with me as this process continues.

While I would quibble about the lengths at which the letter goes to push back against net neutrality, it’s an answer.  Doesn’t sit the best with me, but if Representative Welch believes that’s the way towards internet access in Vermont, it’s his choice to stand by.

After reading an article at Daily Kos, I was quite shocked to find our own congressman Peter Welch among the signees of a letter that threatens the preservation of net neutrality.  Representative Welch has joined alongside progressive superstars such as Walk Minnick, Dan Boren, and Heath Shuler in asking the FCC to abandon their plans to protect net neutrality.

The letter speaks for itself:

“…it is our strong belief that continued progress in expanding the reach and capabilities of broadband networks will require the Commission to reiterate, and not repudiate, its historic commitment to competition, private investment and a restrained regulatory approach.”

“…we would urge you to avoid tentative conclusions which favor government regulation.”

“…we remain suspicious of conclusions based on slogans rather than substance and of policies that restrict and inhibit the very innovation and growth that we all seek to achieve.”

I can’t believe that I’m writing this journal, because this is such a cut and dry issue.  You either stand on the side of the people, or you side with business giants.  

Does Representative Welch really believe this is the way we should push forward with internet?

I don’t claim to be an expert on this issue, but I feel like I have a pretty good sense of when we’re getting screwed, and this seems like a perfect case.



Read the whole letter here, and then let Representative Welch know how you feel.

SMALL-NOT-REALLY-AN-UPDATE: for what its worth, my messages about this letter never received a response (at least not in the window of time that I have traditionally heard back from his office on other issues)…

UPDATE 2:  I always assume everyone here reads Blurt fairly regularly, so I hadn’t thought to post this when I saw it yesterday, but figure I should now.

Shay Totten wrote a piece regarding this story, and his credentials were able to get him somewhat of an official response from the Welch team:

“Congressman Welch strongly supports net neutrality and believes the Internet should remain open and available to all consumers. At the same time, he wants to ensure the expansion of broadband access to rural areas throughout Vermont,” Heintz told Seven Days. “Congressman Welch continues to urge the FCC to act carefully and deliberately in enacting new rules that balance these two essential priorities.”

Now, I love to be a little optimistic about our public officials, but that answer to me is akin to “No Johnny, of course we don’t want to get rid of the dog, but it is always worth seeing if there is another family or shelter that can take him if we grow tired of him”.  Hell, I’m pretty sure the e-state initiative was about as progressive as this statement from Welch.  How/why does the congressman believe that destroying the little internet regulation that exists will make the telecommunications companies holistic?  

It may just be me, but I heard of a company called Fairpoint that got some regulations relaxed so that it could provide service everywhere, and they wound up doing an excellent job.  I bet if we loosen the reins on all of the companies, they’re definitely going to find interest in wiring up the most rural parts of our state.  But hey, it’s not like I’m a congressman or anything.

( – promoted by Jack McCullough)

As we round the corner towards 2010, the political rumor season is heating up. We've already seen the slew of names being batted around for Governor, Lt. Governor, and other statewide offices. 2010 is setting up as a year of tremendous political turnover in Vermont, and so now the question becomes this: how will we capitalize on what should be an election full of open seats and contested races.

For the past few weeks, I've been running through numbers from the Secretary of State's office, trying to compose a ranking profile that could lend hints towards potential Democratic gains, vulnerable incumbents, and district mismatches. Furthermore, with redistricting around the corner, I wanted to look at how individual towns were shaping up around the state.

Now, there are others here who are far better at describing the political culture that has resulted in our current House of Representatives. I won't claim to know the mechanics of these campaigns around the state. But what I believe I can contribute to the conversation is a look at 108 districts that cover our state, and how they stack up on a partisan scale.

To do this, I've created the Vermont District Index. Using the Cook Partisan Voting Index as a source of inspiration, I set out to create a ranking structure that would place our individual statehouse districts on the same scale, but altered to provide a little more depth given the unique balance of Vermont politics. More detail below the fold.

My ranking structure uses data from: 2008, 2004, 2000 presidential elections; the 2008 and 2006 gubernatorial elections; and the 2008 and 2006 state representative elections. The margins of victory were put through a weighted average, and then were compared to the state Democratic average.  My system finds that on average, Democrats win by a 13.5% margin.  It then ranges from R+35 Caledonia-1 all the way to D+51 Windham 3-3.

Before I begin to look at some of the observations I've made, I'll clear up a few procedural questions.

– A race where there is a Progressive Party candidate presents a problem when it comes to the model, given that it relies on the D-R margin.  Given that the purpose of this is to strengthen liberal numbers in the house, I chose to largely lump D's and P's together under one label.  In a D vs. P race, I would default to the State Senate result to find my numbers.  In three-party races, I tried to consider the dynamics of the race and use the numbers that make the most sense.  I figured the left can put aside it's partisan differences for this one.

 – State Senate results were used to provide data for uncontested races where the same party prevailed in both races.  In instances where a town had an uncontested state representative election, and then the opposing party received the majority of their state senate votes, I would use a default result from within their county as a stand-in.

 – The Brattleboro districts numbers may be slightly inflated, just because there were no Republican candidates I could use for local election numbers.  The good news is, they're not exactly swing districts, and fit right into where they would if I had a better comparative measure.

Now, with that stuff out of the way, it’s time to look at the first set of data.  Below are the 10 Democrats (and one Progressive) in the most Republican districts:

Franklin-1                    Gary Gilbert                                        R+25

Orange-Caledonia-1    Chip Conquest                                             R+25

Caledonia-3                 Bob South                                           R+21

Addison-3                   Diane Lanpher                                               R+21

Rutland-1-2                 Dave Potter                                         R+20

Orange-1                    Susan H. Davis                                  R+20

Chittenden-7-2            Kristy Spengler                                   R+18

Chittenden-6-1            Debbie Evans                                      R+17

Franklin-2                    Richard Howrigan                              R+17

Rutland-Windsor-1     Megan Smith                                       R+14

Bennington-4              Jeff Wilson                                          R+14

There are a couple of things that immediately jump out to me:

– Chip Conquest ran one hell of a campaign.  His district is a full 11 points more Republican than Megan Smith’s and Jeff Wilson’s.  This is significant in the fact that these are the only three members of this list who’ve been elected to single-member districts.

– Of the two-seat districts, it’s split about 50/50 in terms of which party garnered the most votes.

– As an Essex Junction resident, I find the results for the town’s district to be very interesting.  It is unquestionably more Republican than Chittenden 6-2 (which comes in at an even D+0), but I wonder how much of that is the Dubie/Essex Alliance factor.  I can’t help but think that Linda Myers’ seat must be winnable, given how unpopular her stance on the Local Option Tax was at Town Meeting Day.

I’ll leave you all with this information for now, and later in the week I’ll revisit some other sections of the data.  I hope the GMD community finds this information valuable.