If you spend any time at all on certain Vermont news websites, you’ve seen the latest offerings from our buddies at Vermonters First, the conservative, secretive Super PAC funded by the Howard Hughes of Vermont politics, Lenore “Cameras Will Steal My Soul” Broughton.

VF’s first round of web ads was a graphical freakshow, with clashing colors, a myriad of type fonts, and, most famously, the illegal use of the State Seal.

Well, VF ordered up a new round of web ads from its out-of-state consultants. And while they aren’t quite as awful as its first round, they’re pretty damn obnoxious nonetheless. Of course, I suspect that that might be the point: if you subscribe to what might be called the Charmin theory of advertising, an obnoxious ad can do the job better than a well-designed, creative one, because the obnoxious one sticks in your head like a bad song*.

*Specifically, “Seasons in the Sun” by Terry Jacks.

So maybe they know what they’re doing. I prefer to think that they’re just clueless about quality ad design. But here’s where you get the chance to decide for yourself.

For the sake of the kiddies, I’ll present the images after the jump, so you have time to shield impressionable young eyes. I’ll also offer some comments, and suggest some ideas for their next round.  

Strikes a nice ominous tone, what with the fully-lit but very empty House chamber in a kind of fish-eye view. The black background is a nice trigger for a feeling of menace, and it also makes the message pop.

The blue shafts of light give it a creepy sci-fi invasion vibe, as if the Borg have occupied the Statehouse and begun turning lawmakers into cyborgs compelled to obey every command from Governor Shumlin. Or Keith Ellis, or someone.

Some of the fonts actually match, thank goodness. And the text expresses the core message while carrying just a touch of Rhymin’ Simon whimsy.

A pretty good effort, all told.

Not at all true, of course, but that’s beside the point. Vermonters First isn’t interested in the truth, it’s interested in fomenting fear.

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This one’s kind of meh. The message is simple, effective, and fundamentally misleading, just as intended. But the color scheme is all over the place, and doesn’t compel attention.

The Benjamins in the background are dark and muddy; it’s hard to tell what they are. The half-arrow phasing from yellow to orange, meaning what? A heightened terror alert?

The ream-sized fake health-care bill is a nice touch, echoing national Republicans’ plaint that Obamacare is Too Big And Confusing. (As if any health care overhaul could be anything but big.)

But I must add a word about this use of Montpelier as a stand-in for all things evil and liberal. Bruce Lisman did this all the time in his Campaign for Vermont (Prosperity?) radio ads, because he wanted to appear bipartisan and so he avoided directly slamming the Democrats.

Why Vermonters First has picked up on it, I don’t know. But as a resident of Montpelier, I object to the conservatives trying to turn my town into another San Francisco, Boston, or Chicago: the civic embodiment of corrupt, overarching liberal power.

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Now, here’s an effective little piece of propaganda. The ominous black background, the empty bed in a dark room, a single spotlight aimed at the head. Fairly screams YOU WILL DIE HERE.

Of course, single-payer health care will result in spooky darkened hospital rooms because light bulbs, like everything else, will be RATIONED. And the light will be cold and cruel because warm, soothing incandescent bulbs will be BANNED by the Democrats’ Healthcare Greening Commissar, Bill McKibben.

GOVERNMENT-CONTROLLED all in caps is a nice bit of theatrical text. But in this context, the ovoid “LEARN MORE” button looks like a pill that you’re forcing us to take. Might want to rethink that one.

So, all in all, Vermonters First has pulled off a decent job of smearing Democrats and scarifying their policies.

BUT.

I can do better.

You want to scare voters? I’ll show you how to scare voters.

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First ad, to replace the Borg-in-the-Statehouse number:

Simple. Direct. Memorable. Over the top. Perfect for last-minute fear mongering.

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Second ad, replacing the muddled mess of a “tax increase” ad. See if this doesn’t catch your attention better.

I mean, why stop with blatantly misleading the public? Just lay it out for the sheeple: Democrats are vampires!

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Third ad, giving the health care pitch.

Yeah, that’s the ticket! If you’re gonna invoke the old “death panels” lie, don’t settle for an empty bed with a single spotlight. You need shackles and blood!

Just like in Canada!

Now see, I whipped these up in a half hour with Google Image searches and a bit of photoshopping. Why spend tens of thousands of dollars on outside agencies when you can DIY it on the cheap and get a much more inflammatory message out there?

Which is obviously what you’re aiming for, right?  

Well, well… the Burlington Free Press today published an editorial harshly critical of Wendy Wilton for her baseless charges of malfeasance in the Treasurer’s office. Here’s the first paragraph:

Republican candidate Wendy Wilton is showing the kind of state treasurer she will be. She will be accusatory and she will poke fingers in eyeballs.

And that’s just the warmup. The Freeploid then points out that Wilton’s request for a state investigation isn’t a compilation of evidence; it’s just a list of unanswered questions. THe evidence, says the editorial, consists entirely of

…a single opinion of a former employee in the treasurer’s office who commented on a story on a web site and three years of overtime in the treasurer’s office.

… This specious support falls well short of constituting a valid reason for making these serious accusations.

And the conclusion::

Without offering any evidence other than conjecture, this tactic comes across as nothing but a mean-spirited attack from a candidate whose primary leverage is to drag down her opponent with innuendo rather than run on her own merits.

Congratulations to the Freeploid for taking such a strong stand in the heat of a campaign. It’s too bad that most media sources, including the ‘Loid itself, have given so much ink/airtime to Wilton’s attacks. And it’s too bad that most journalists feel constrained to simply present both sides in a case like this — Wilton attacks, Pearce responds, and we’ll have to leave it there — rather than searching for the truth and drawing conclusions where appropriate.

Wilton is likely to continue her attacks because they’ve drawn a lot of attention to her campaign. (And because her only option is to “run on her own merits.”) WIll the Freeploid’s news pages continue to report her attacks, in spite of the paper’s own judgment about their validity?

Lenore Broughton’s conservative Super PAC, Vermonters First, has reported another big media buy to the Secretary of State’s office.

And guess who’s not on their advertising list? VTDigger:

The super PAC has spent $39,330 on ads to support 41 Republican or independent candidates for the Vermont Senate and the Vermont House of Representatives.

…In addition, Vermonters First has bought $28,037 worth of advertising on Wendy Wilton.

But not a sou for Vince.

This could be a simple fluke. It’s one report, and VF will almost certainly continue to buy ad time. But I see a lot of VF web ads while I’m trolling for Vermont news. And while I’ve seen a lot of issue ads attacking “Montpelier” and some backing Wendy Wilton, I haven’t seen a single one for Vince Illuzzi since VF had to withdraw its web ads that featured the Vermont state seal.

But if VF has stepped back from Vince, it could mean a number of things. We know VF just spent $17K on polling, so they presumably have a pretty clear picture of the campaigns. Maybe they’ve decided he’s a shoo-in, or a likely loser. Maybe they’re going all-in on Wilton, either because they smell blood in the water or because she’s a better ideological fit with VF.

One thing I do know: We won’t find out anything from the man in the trenchcoat, Tayt Brooks, International Man of Mystery. Oh no, the doings of Vermonters First are a state secret. Just like the face of Lenore Broughton.  

Three items regarding our local news: An embarrassing goof at Channel 3, the Incredible Shrinking Freeploid, and an ill-timed fundraiser at VPR.

WCAX oopsie: You know you’re in trouble as a Republican candidate in Vermont if… WGOP can’t get your name right. In a brief item written by one of its news anchors and posted on its website, the station refers to the Republican US Senate candidate as “James MacGovern.”

Er, the guy’s name is “John.”

Extra embarrassing for Mr. MacGovern: there are 18 viewer comments posted under the story, and NONE of them pointed out the error.

(If WCAX is reading this, the error may be fixed by the time you click on over.)

How small has the Freeploid gotten? We can all see, every morning, how much smaller the physical newspaper has become. But here’s an even starker indication: The ‘Loid wants to sell off its landmark downtown headquarters. And there’s a rather amazing statistic in the article:

The seven buildings on College Street that will be offered for sale total about 55,700 square feet, but the newspaper’s Information Center and business operations require only about 10,000 square feet.

So in the past, the Freeploid’s news and business operations required almost six times as much space as they do now. There’s the impact of all the outsourcing and cutbacks.

The company plans to retain ownership of its printing facility and mailroom on South Winooski Avenue, but it wants to sell off the downtown space and become a tenant, occupying a sliver of its former HQ. Sad.

After the jump: Why now, VPR?

Did VPR think this through? As anyone who listens to public radio is aware, it’s fundraising time at VPR. Ah yes, that magical time of the year when they pre-empt one-third of their drive-time programming, plus smaller chunks in the off-hours, to do the necessary job of begging for money.

A common refrain in this fall’s drive? The value of public radio’s election coverage.

Which it is PRE-EMPTING to raise money.

I know that mid-October is the standard time for pubcasters’ major fund drives, and there are some very good reasons for that. But during the height of the campaign? Less than three weeks before Election Day? Really?

Did anyone at VPR give this any thought? Or did the fundraising process simply roll on as usual?

It’s too late to fix this now, but I have two ideas for 2016. One, do the drive in late September and early October, before the campaign reaches its height. Or two, postpone it until shortly after the election and couple it with a very active mid-October pitch during regular programming breaks. 30-second spots or live reads, saying “We’re postponing our fund drive in order to bring you complete election coverage. This reporting is only possible with your help. Please consider making a pledge now, so we can continue to bring you complete coverage.”

Are both of those options so unworkable? Would the financial returns be so much lower? Somehow, I doubt it. But public radio has become a very large, high-stakes enterprise, which has to maintain a sharp eye on the bottom line. Sometimes, to the detriment of its supposed mission.  

Two brief items combined in one diary here. First, in case you don’t obsessively track Seven Days’ online presence, I direct your attention to a funny, disturbing Reporter’s Notebook from Andy Bromage. Subject: the paper’s attempt to get a photograph of Vermonters First moneybags Lenore Broughton.

As you may know, Miss Daisy is a shy, retiring sort, but she does fulfill at least one civic function, as a member of Burlington Telecom’s Cable Advisory Council. Well, 7D couldn’t find a photo of Broughton anywhere, so they sent photographer Matthew Thorsen to a CAC meeting.

When he got there, Thorsen says, two members of the board had already arrived, but not Broughton. They asked who he was and what he was doing there, and Thorsen says he replied that he was taking pictures for the paper. Broughton showed up a few minutes later, Thorsen says, and asked the same question. Thorsen repeated who he was, at which point, he says, Broughton said, “No, no,” put her hands across her face and bolted from the building.

Yipes. Considering that Broughton was attending a public meeting, Thorsen would have been well within his rights to simply start snapping, but he was more polite than that. In fact, he left the meeting rather than cause further disruption. After he departed, Broughton returned from her spider hole and the meeting went on.

This is the oddball who’s trying to buy our elections.

After the jump: Vince Illuzzi has raised a lot less money than you think.

On to the second item. Earlier this week, I reported (along with many others) on the mid-October campaign finance reports. And all of us, looking at the raw totals, said that Vince Illuzzi had raised a total of $74,527 for his campaign, while Doug Hoffer had raised $47,427. A significant discrepancy.

What we failed to report, as Doug the numbers guy points out, is that Vince’s total includes a $25,000 loan to his campaign, plus $17,000 he rolled over from his State Senate campaign fund. Take out that money, and Vince has actually raised — in the manner of getting people to give him money — a little under $32,000. Hoffer’s total includes a $10,000 loan to self, making a total of $37,447 in funds actually raised from others

So, if you look only at actual fundraising performance, Doug has actually outdone Vince. In spite of Vince’s vaunted political connections and lifelong insider status. (Generally speaking, all the statewide Republican candidates have done consistently poorly in  fundraising, from Randy Brock on down.)

And, as I did accurately report earlier, Vince has spent quite a bit more of his pile. He has about $5,000 left in the bank, while Doug has $13,000 on hand.

Let the record show…  

Oh, our old friends at WCAX-TV and news director/former Douglas functionary Anson Tebbetts are at it again. Yesterday they aired a 3-minute piece on Wendy Wilton’s flimsy charges against Beth Pearce — and the report seemed to be stacked against Pearce.

First, when I (twice) watched the story on WCAX’s website, it was preceded, each time, by a 15-second Vermonters First ad for Wilton. Maybe that was inadvertent, but it’s absolutely inexcusable.

Then we get to the video. The anchor introduces the piece by referring to “the two candidates trading barbs,” which is not true, because it’s Wilton who’s throwing the mud. Then, Kristin Carlson spends the first 1:35 of her report focused on Wilton’s accusations. In the middle of this, there’s a brief B-roll clip of Pearce — but you don’t hear her, you just hear Wilton slamming her.

During this (by TV standards) endless attention to Wilton, WCAX airs a rather startling claim:

Wilton says her campaign was tipped off to the problems by seven current or former employees who have concerns about Pearce. Channel 3 talked to several people about their worries; none would go on camera.

There’s a nice piece of yellow journalism for you. WCAX repeats a very strong — and very vague — charge from Wilton; WCAX speaks to “several” people (they don’t remember how many?), but can’t get any of them on camera. And reports absolutely nothing about what they might have said off-camera. Were they willing to substantiate WIlton’s charges without showing their faces? Did they want to be anonymous? Did they refuse to say anything? We don’t know; WCAX did not tell us. That’s an abject failure of journalism.

Finally, at the 1:37 mark, after some very specific accusations from Wilton, we get a briefer and less specific defense from Pearce. After less than a minute with Pearce, Carlson returns to Wilton, noting that she has requested investigations by the Auditor and Attorney General.

And that’s about it. A slanted intro; two-thirds of the time spent on the Republican and less than one-third on the incumbent Democrat. Apparently WGOP is alive and well.

Tell me, why do any Democrats give any of their ad money to this station?  

If you’re a political journalist and you don’t know how to begin a story, there’s always the old standby “The race for ____ heated up yesterday when…”

And there it is, in this morning’s all-in-color-for-a-buck Freeploid. Today’s fill-in-the-blank is “Treasurer.” And the heating is courtesy of Republican challenger Wendy Wilton*, who is accusing incumbent Beth Pearce of a veritable cornucopia of malfeasance, and demanding not one, but TWO investigations.

*Wilton’s cheap-ass campaign website bears the misleading headline, “Treasurer Wendy Wilton for Treasurer.” Wilton is, of course, Treasurer of the city of Rutland, population 16,399, a tiny bit different than being Treasurer of the state of Vermont, population 626,431. So Wendy, if I’m the president of my local Elks Club chapter and I run for President of the United States, can I put “President John Walters For President” on my website?

Wilton has filed complaints with the Attorney General and the State Auditor, regarding overtime pay in the Treasurer’s office and reputed delays in an upgrade of state retirement systems. Wilton depicts her action as a simple request for information, but an e-mail blast from her campaign refers to “an overtime scandal” and “gross mismanagement.”

Yeah, not political at all. Three weeks before the election. When there’s no way any investigation or audit can be completed by Election Day.

After the jump: a closer look at Wilton’s bluster.

The overtime stuff is old news. One key staffer ran up significant overtime* because some experienced staff left the office, while Pearce kept the overall payroll under budget. In her new complaint, Wilton asks why Pearce didn’t hire additional personnel instead of allowing overtime pay. (Gee, Wendy, you want to INCREASE the state payroll?) Pearce’s response: the work was highly technical in nature, and you can’t just hire a few temps to get you through a rough patch. In short: This ain’t McDonald’s, lady.

*Although the overtime figure isn’t nearly so scary when you break it down. Wilton says the staffer accumulated 3,216 hours in overtime. In a three-year period. So if you divide 3,216 by three years, you get 21 hours per week in overtime. So the staffer in question was putting in 60-hour weeks, while filling the shoes of two departed senior employees. That sounds a lot less appalling, no?

As for the overdue pension system upgrade, Pearce acknowledges some delays (which are pretty much par for the course in this kind of thing) but says the entire project is on track — and under budget.

Now, that’s my kind of malfeasance.

Pearce also points out that another audit would be superfluous, since the State Auditor conducts a yearly audit of the Treasurer’s office. The most recent audit, she says, found no problems.

And yet Wendy Wilton wants two investigations.

Well, not really. She just wants to stir up trouble.

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p.s. I began this piece with a flip observation about lazy writing, so I’ll end the same way. The Freeploid’s article is headlined “Candidates Spar in Heated Treasurer’s Race.” Oh boy, cat fight!

Thing is, last I checked, a fight requires two participants. In this case, Wilton is attacking Pearce’s credibility and professionalism (and even adherence to the law), while Pearce is responding to the accusations. That’s not a fight, and that’s not a “heated race.” That’s one candidate going off the deep end in a desperate attempt to smear her opponent.

p.p.s. I’d like to put in my own request for an investigation. Wilton’s cheap-ass campaign website features a photo of the candidate. The exact same photo used by Vermonters First in its recent, ill-fated State Seal webvertising campaign.

The same photo!!!!!!

I smell collusion.  

Hey, remember when we found out that the Vermont Republican Party had struck a deal with the Romney campaign, in which the Mittster would park $5,000,000 in the VTGOP’s account in exchange for a $20,000/month gratuity? It’s kind of like Jack Lindley is the valet at Romney’s country club. Mitt pulls up at the front door in one of his Cadillacs, tosses the key to Jack, and says, “Hey, could you gas it up for me? But no joyriding, my man; I know what the odometer says.”

Well, according to new Federal Elections Commission filings, the Romney folks have continued to stash more cash with the VTGOP and three other state committees. The Vermont total is now $7,900,000.

Yeah, sucks to be Angry Jack. He’s got eight million RomneyBucks in the bank, and he gets a measly 20K in walking-around money. Politico.com explains the state-committee maneuver as a way for the Romney Victory Fund to elude donation limits; if it passes on some of the cash to state committees, even if it retains de facto control over the funds, it can collect bigger checks.

And if we know one thing about R-Money, it’s that no amount of cash is ever enough.  

According to Politico, the maneuver isn’t without risk:

The party committees – none of them in swing states – have wide latitude in how and where they choose to spend the Romney Victory cash. They are all controlled by Romney allies, and the funds will most likely be used for get-out-the-vote operations, but the recipient state party committees could technically spend it on TV ads or any other expense related to any federal election.

Ouch! “None of them in swing states.” (The other three are Idaho, Oklahoma, and Massachusetts.) Kinda gives the lie to Jack’s pom-pom waving in Seven Days:

“I’m not convinced we aren’t going to win up and down. And all my Democratic friends who think their boy Barack Obama is going to carry the day, well, he’s going to be lucky if he carries Vermont given the situation he’s in.”

Uh, Jack, I know what you meant, but you might want to stop referring to our first black President as “boy.”

Back to our story. The Freeploid had previously reported that, whatever federal election law might allow, there’s no way the VTGOP is going to touch a dime of that $7.9 mill.

…practically all the money being stashed in the state GOP’s account will be moved by the Romney braintrust to whatever battleground state it deems needs it most later this month.

Leaving Angry Jack high and dry. But hey, Jack’s a Romney loyalist; remember when he blew a gasket after the Ron Paul folks prevented Romney from winning a majority in the Vermont Presidential Primary? And how he helped the Romney forces screw over the Paul camp on procedural issues during the national convention? Given Jack’s warm regard for Romney, I’m sure he’s happy to gas up Mitt’s Caddy in return for a nice shiny quarter.  

Congratulations to Seven Days for trying to profile She Who Will Not Be Profiled, Lenore Broughton, the most influential person in Vermont politics. It’s about time someone in the news media put her under the spotlight, or at least gave it the old Bromage try. The article falls short in some important respects, and not just because of Broughton’s complete refusal to say anything to anyone who’s not under her thumb, but it was a commendable effort.

My purpose here is not to explore Broughton’s past or personality or proclivities, but to explain why I call her “the most influential person in Vermont politics.” (Among non-officeholders, let’s say.) Remember when I thought Bruce Lisman was going to throw his considerable Wall Street fortune into Vermont politics? Well, he’s gone from filling the airwaves with the sound of his voice to occasional speaking gigs at community breakfasts, and his Campaign for Vermont (Prosperity?) has been reduced to issuing position papers that get ignored by the media.

Broughton has more than filled the gap, however, with her unprecedented bankrolling of Vermonters First. How unprecedented? Broughton has already donated almost $650,000 in cash to the group. (The oft-reported $683,000 figure includes “in-kind donations,” which aren’t usually included in a campaign’s bankroll.) That’s more than one dollar for every living Vermonter. And considering that Vermonters First has already spent the lion’s share of her donations, I’m certain that Broughton will continue to write checks between now and Election Day. I wouldn’t be surprised if she tops the $1 million mark for this election cycle. But let’s just talk about what she’s spent so far.

On a national level, there’s lots of concern about the ability of people like David Koch and Sheldon Adelson to casually write eight-figure checks. Well, on a per-capita basis, a six-figure check from Broughton goes a whole lot farther than eight figures from Koch.

Earlier this year, Adelson talked about pumping $100 million into efforts to defeat President Obama. But he’s playing in a much larger pool. He’d have to spend at least $350 million on a national level to equal Broughton’s impact in Vermont.

After the jump: an even scarier calculation.

This is why I thought Bruce Lisman was so potentially dangerous: in a small state, a single motivated individual can make an outsized impact through the simple power of unlimited money.

Beyond simple Census figures, Adelson is focused on the most expensive campaign in America. Even if he were to spend $100 million on the race for President, he’ll come nowhere near the official spending of the Obama and Romney campaigns. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the two major-party candidates had spent $575 million as of October 1.

By contrast, Broughton and Vermonters First have targeted a couple of low-budget races, for auditor and Treasurer. Doug Hoffer and Vince Illuzzi have spent $104,000 as of October 15; Beth Pearce and Wendy Wilton combined to spend $208,000. That’s a total of $312,000.

Lenore Broughton has spent more than twice that much.

Now, some of that has gone into issue advertising and direct-mail advocacy for down-ticket candidates. But VF’s primary focus has been on the races for Auditor and Treasurer. That’s where the lion’s share of its money has been spent. (For a sample, do a Google search for Doug Hoffer or Beth Pearce. Above the results you’ll see VF-funded links with anti-Hoffer and anti-Pearce messages.)

Feel free to check my math, but here’s what I get. $575 million (Presidential campaigns) divided by $312,000 (Treasurer and Auditor) is roughly 1,842. The two major Presidential candidates have spent 1,842 times as much money as Vermont’s four major candidates for Treasurer and Auditor.

If Lenore Broughton has spent, say, $600,000 on those two races, then to have the same financial impact on the Presidential race, Sheldon Adelson would have to spend $1,105,200,000. That’s one BILLION, one hundred million dollars.

Ten times as much as he threatened to spend.

I don’t know how much Adelson has actually spent, whether or not he’s come close to his $100 million threat. But Lenore Broughton has already, in real dollars, made Sheldon Adelson look penny-ante.

If one or both of Broughton’s favored candidates is elected in November, she will have fundamentally changed the landscape of Vermont politics. The idea that you need a credible, qualified candidate who can attract broad support? Irrelevant, if Broughton backs the other side.

This year, Vermonters First has presented very little in terms of a political agenda, focusing largely on “restoring balance” to the one-sided power dynamics of Vermont. (Which is a blatant and, for conservatives, hypocritical request for electoral affirmative action. But never mind.) It has said very little about its own political agenda.

But if you look at Broughton’s past history, it’s clear that her own political views are far to the right. Her political donations are mainly to Tea Partiers like Michelle Bachmann, Allen West, Sharron Angle and Christine O’Connell. The “charitable” donations of the Broughton Fund have gone almost entirely to “educational” ventures of the far right. (A fact that Seven Days’ article completely obscures.) Given Broughton’s own track record, it seems certain that in the future, Vermonters First will be an advocacy group for ultraconservative causes.

And she’ll be willing and able to throw truly scary amounts of money into an all-out effort to grab the wheel of Vermont politics and spin it sharply to the right.

And that is the meaning of Lenore Broughton. She is David Koch and Sheldon Adelson to the power of ten, sitting right in our front yard.  

You’d think that reporting the news would be a simple thing. Something happens; you learn all you can about it; you report it.

Well, as anyone who’s done time in the sausage factory can tell you, it’s not that simple. For that matter, anyone who’s ever been involved in a news story and then read the coverage afterward sometimes comes away with the conviction that the reporter must have been at the same event in an alternate universe. This isn’t (usually) because of malice of incompetence; it’s just that “the news” is more of a Rashomon thing than a simple matter of black and white.

Two examples from today’s political coverage: First, what’s the lead item from campaign finance reports — the Governor’s race or Lenore Broughton? And second, the handling (or ignoring) of Randy Brock’s attendance record as Auditor.

Shumlin v. Broughton. The most obvious way to cover Monday’s campaign finance reports is to focus on the race for Governor. And yes, there was a big story: Shumlin has a million dollars in the bank, and a 10:1 cash advantage over Brock. But it’s not exactly new news that Shumlin has a big financial edge. Rather, the most significant story for the present and future of Vermont politics was Lenore Broughton’s seemingly endless outpouring of cash into the coffers of Super PAC Vermonters First. It’s unprecedented in Vermont politics for one person — who has been completely secretive about her plans and motivations — to single-handedly spend enough money to buy an election. And if Wendy Wilton or Vince Illuzzi wins in November, that’s exactly what Lenore Broughton will have done.

Most of Vermont’s media outlets covered it as you’d expect: the Governor’s race was the topline, and Broughton came second — or was completely left out.  

The Freeploid, Vermont’s Most Colorful Newspaper, seemingly did the latter. It ran stories on Shumlin/Brock and Bernie Sanders’ monstrous pile, plus an informational sidebar listing other statewide candidates. But as far as I can tell from its website, not a peep about Broughton. Criminal.

WCAX’s website shows a brief item about Shumlin/Brock and nothing else. WPTZ, whose Stuart Ledbetter was actually on hand yesterday at the Secretary of State’s office, has an item that leads with Shumlin/Brock and features Broughton as the second item.

VTDigger’s main story began with Shumlin/Brock and then cycled through the rest of the statewide races before getting to a sizable item on Broughton. To its credit, Digger also broke out the Broughton story as a separate item, easily accessible from its homepage.

Only Peter Hirschfeld of the Vermont Press Bureau put Broughton first. He did a thorough examination of Broughton’s impact on the 2012 campaign, including quotes from several principals. (Article is paywalled, but here’s a link for those who subscribe.) And he got some compelling comments from Broughton beneficiary Wendy Wilton:

“What’s interesting to me is I don’t think they would be doing what they’re doing unless they felt very strongly about the candidates they’re supporting,” Wilton said. “I think they’re really looking at the candidates and where they see someone they think is worthy of support and capable of winning … they’re putting a lot of money into it.”

Nice little backhanded slap at Randy Brock there, Wendy. Hirschfeld also noted that Wilton and Broughton have some history, having jointly served on the board of a school-choice advocacy group. Which led to this fun little echo of Paul Heintz’ Tayt Brooks trap:

Asked when she last saw Broughton, Wilton said she couldn’t recall. “It was a long time ago. I’d have to think about it,” Wilton said. “I don’t recall.”



Pressed, Wilton said she hadn’t seen Broughton in over a year.

Sounds suspiciously like the Tayter’s initial reply to Heintz. Too bad Broughton herself is unavailable to confirm Wilton’s account. Or to confirm or deny anything else whatsoever, for that matter. But kudos to Hirschfeld for getting to the heart of yesterday’s news, and reporting it thoroughly.

Where’s Randy? Last week, when Brock tried to make a big stink about Governor Shumlin’s attendance record, I noted that some questions were floating around concerning Brock’s own attendance record during his time as State Auditor.

Funny thing. Turns out the Freeploid (then simply the Freeps, still a full-sized newspaper) covered this story way back in 2008, when Brock was running for re-election. The story can still be found in the Freeploid’s extortionately-priced Archives, but it was dug up and circulated around by the state Democratic Party.

The gist: Martha Abbott, then Progressive candidate for Auditor, reviewed Brock’s official calendar and found that he could only be documented as working in his office on official business 31% of the time. He was not at work 20% of the time, and there was no indication what he was up to 38% of the time. Brock complained that this was a misreading of his calendar, which would only reflect his official interactions with others, not the full range of his work.

He acknowledged that he sometimes worked from home (without giving a figure) but insisted that he was always available by phone or e-mail. Which is kinda different than actually being at your desk, it must be said. And he said that he hoped voters would focus on his accomplishments, not the minutiae of his calendar.

He could, of course, say the same about Governor Shumlin, if he wasn’t being opportunistically hypocritical.

VTDigger picked up on the story, and got Brock to add some fresh comments. He noted that the 20% time away from the office “could include weekends,” which is a nuance he did not allow to  Shumlin. And,

Brock added that he didn’t spend much time at his second home in Florida as state auditor, aside from an “occasional long weekend.”

Again, he doesn’t want Shumlin taking weekends — let alone a “long weekend,” horrors! — but he’ll give himself some leeway.

Funny thing about this story. The Freeploid, which covered it back in 2008, did not cover it today. Nor did they, as far as I can tell from searching their website, cover it after I dropped my little hint last week. Even thought they’d already done so four years ago. The topper: that 2008 story was written by Nancy Remsen, who’s still part of the ‘Loid’s political team.

Now, I don’t expect Remsen to recall every story she wrote four years ago. But I would expect the Freeploid’s editors (do they still have any?) to do a quick Archive search and maybe give it a quick update. Since it was Brock himself who tried to make attendance into an issue, you know.