Big trouble at Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, the Vermont company that’s been growing by leaps and bounds due to its popular single-cup coffeemakers (and the non-biodegradable K-cups they consume). Last week, GMCR stock took a tumble after it badly missed expectations for second-quarter profits. That, in turn, led to the latest bad news: Founder and Board Chairman Bob Stiller and lead director William Davis were removed from the Board of Directors after they were forced to sell big chunks of company stock during a time when such sales are prohibited by company rules designed to prevent illegal insider trading.

Well, ain’t that a sentence and a half. This is a complicated story, but it seems to indicate a real lack of judgment on Stiller’s part. And it’s one more black mark for a company that’s got more than enough on its plate already.

Stiller and Davis (especially Stiller) sold huge chunks of stock last week — five and a half million shares. They were forced to sell because they’d taken out big loans with their GMCR stock as collateral. The terms of the loans require stock sales if the stock price falls far enough fast enough. Which it did last week. More info on the practice from Bloomberg Business Week:

In general, executives take out loans backed by their stock as a way of obtaining funds without actually selling their shares. Loans are preferable to selling shares, which generate taxable capital gains and can look bad to investors.

If the shares decline in value, lenders will issue a margin call in which the executives must either pay down the loans or provide more collateral. If they fail to do so, the banks seek to recover their loans by selling some of the stock pledged as collateral in the open market.

Seems a bit iffy to me — taking out loans on company stock to avoid taxes — but apparently standard operating practice for top execs at successful companies. I’m going to focus on Stiller from here on, because he was by far the biggest borrower and the biggest seller. Before last week’s forced sale, he had put 12.5 million of his GMCR shares into margin accounts. Today, he still owns 8.3 million shares — and all but 1.9 million are in margin accounts.

In short, he borrowed huge amounts of money by pledging the lion’s share of his company stock. This worked fine as long as GMCR’s share price continued to soar, but spelled instant trouble if GMCR suffered reverses. And the forced stock sales would come at the worst possible time — when GMCR had just suffered a major reversal.

Is it just me, or was this a really, really stupid thing to do?

To me it looks like a fundamental violation of the first rule of personal finance: Never gamble with money you can’t afford to lose. And Stiller’s position was tenuous enough that he was also forced to unload eight million shares in Krispy Kreme to raise some emergency cash.  

In explaining his extensive borrowing, Stiller noted that he is officially retired and that his stock portfolio is his main source of income. Asked by the Associated Press about reports that he has lived a lavish lifestyle, he said…

“Maybe I shouldn’t do these things, but I’ve worked all my life building this company and it’s been successful,” said Stiller, 68. “I want to enjoy it. Whether it’s living lavishly, I think that’s all relative.”

Yes, it’s all relative. I’ll note here that while Stiller doesn’t draw a salary from GMCR, he did receive $175,296 last year in compensation for his duties as Chairman of the Board. That’s enough, by itself, to put Stiller in America’s top six percent for household income. But hardly enough to maintain an admittedly indulgent lifestyle.

And a huge comedown for a guy who was on the Forbes 400 list of American billionaires as recently as last September. Forbes estimated his fortune at $1.3 billion, mostly in GMCR stock. And more than 80% of that stock, as we now know, had been used as collateral in personal loans. This sounds less like something a savvy CEO would do, and more like the spending binge of a Lotto winner.

In response to Stiller and Davis’ exposed positions, GMCR revised its internal rules late last year, and no longer allows top executives or Directors to borrow against their company stock. (Stiller and Davis’ arrangements were grandfathered in.) Clearly, someone at GMCR saw potential trouble in their founder’s finances, and moved to prevent future recurrences.

Which is cold comfort for a company that’s heading into a very challenging time. It’s enjoyed a lovely period of rapid, almost uncontrolled growth thanks to its stranglehold on a popular market niche. But you can only sell so many of those K-cup machines, and GMCR’s patents will expire in September. They have high hopes for some new products, but the sharks are circling. And if there’s one thing harder than coming up with one hit, it’s creating an even better sequel. Just ask RIM, or Kajagoogoo, or Michael Cimino.  

Caught a little gem of deliberate obfuscation over at Vermont Tiger today. The Tiggers saw fit to post Bruce Lisman’s unavoidable commentary piece* on the end of the Legislative session. Basically, he bemoans the Leg’s failure to adopt “common sense” policies on health care, education, energy, and the budget. To put it another way, he bemoans the Democratic majority’s failure to adopt thoroughly Republican policies. Amazing!

*It’s been published absolutely every-damn-where over the past few days. Which is nice, because it’s not like Bruce Lisman has any other outlets for his ideas. Well, except for his $200,000-and-counting vanity project, Campaign for Vermont. Yeah, poor guy needs a little help promoting his agenda. Thanks, Vermont media!

But the real howler comes at the end, in the brief bio note identifying the author. This is how Vermont Tiger describes our favorite wealthy amateur politician and Republican-in-Nonpartisan-Clothing:

Bruce Lisman is the founder of Campaign for Vermont.  He was born in Burlington’s Old North End and attended Burlington public schools before going on to graduate from the University of Vermont.

Hmm. Hm, hm, hm. There’s a bit of a gap there. A gap of about four decades — the time he spent in the sunless canyons of Wall Street, amassing a skrillion-dollar fortune.

Somehow the Tiggers skipped over the two-thirds of Bruce Lisman’s life that had nothing to do with Vermont and had everything to do with making a huge pile in high finance. Which surprises me; I thought Vermont Tiger was solidly in favor of wealth. In Lisman’s case, they appear to be ashamed of it.

AFter the jump: Evidence of his wealth, and the collapse of his lifelong employer.

Nobody except Bruce and his team of accountants and lawyers knows exactly how rich he is. But we can offer one indication, in the form of his last known residence in Manhattan.

It was a lovely little pied-à-terre on 5th Avenue between 72nd and 73rd Streets. Overlooking Central Park. A few blocks south of the Metropolitan Museum. It featured four bedrooms and five bathrooms (?); he’d bought it for $13.125 million in 2006, and unloaded it in 2009 at a slight loss — $12.8 million.

My heart bleeds. Did something bad happen to the economy between 2006 and 2009? Something that might have caused a drop in high-end Manhattan real estate prices? I seem to recall some sort of close brush with global economic calamity during that time frame. Something to do with greedy bastards on Wall Street, I do believe.

A shame that it cost Mr. Lisman a few hundred grand on the resale. It may also have caused an early end to his Wall Street career. He’d spent pretty much his entire professional life at Bear Stearns, working his way up to the top ranks of the financial giant. He was in his 24th year in a plush Bear Stearns executive office when the corporation sadly cratered in 2008 due to its insane overexposure in the subprime mortgage securities market.

Here’s a little tidbit from the last days of Bear Stearns, courtesy of a Wall Street Journal postmortem:

In the middle of the afternoon, Bruce Lisman, the usually taciturn 61-year-old co-head of Bear Stearns’s stock division, climbed atop a desk near his fourth-floor office and demanded his traders’ attention. “Let’s stay focused,” he bellowed. “Keep working hard. Bear Stearns has been here a long time, and we’re staying here. If there’s any news, I’ll let you know, if and when I know it.”

Less than three days later, the wreckage of Bear Stearns was bought at fire-sale prices by JP Morgan, and Lisman made a soft landing in his new bosses’ executive suites. But then, a matter of months later, he retired. Which begs the question: did he really retire, or was he gently shown the door by a company that didn’t want to be encumbered by executives from a failed financier?  

That’s all rank speculation, of course. And I’m sure that’s why Vermont Tiger chose to pretend that Bruce Lisman’s New York years never happened — instead, portraying him as some sort of home-brewed hero, a son of the land, a Vermonter through and through.  

I’d like to thank Vermont’s Loudest Economist (TM) Art Woolf for pointing me to a very interesting little article at Bloomberg News. The subject is Bloomberg’s list of the world’s strongest banks. And, as Woolf notes in his latest “Around the Web” piece on Vermont Tiger, the list is dominated by Canadian banks. They account for four of the world’s six strongest banks (CIBC, TD, National Bank of Canada, and Royal Bank of Canada) and placed two more in the top 22 (Scotia Bank and the Bank of Montreal).

Mr. Woolf briefly noted the amazing phenomenon and offered a congratulatory note to our northern neighbor. However, he apparently failed to read far enough into the article to discover the reasons for Canada’s banking strength. The answer is downright embarrassing to an apostle of free-market economics writing on Vermont’s leading free-market blog:

Canadian banks invoke their strong capital levels, the country’s conservative lending culture and strict regulatory oversight under a single supervisor as reasons for their showing. The supervisor requires Canadian banks to hold a higher level of capital than do international standards.

Ahh. So our banks, relatively unfettered in a post-Reagan regulatory climate, came perilously close to crashing the world economy and needed a huge bailout to survive their own stupidity and cupidity.

Meanwhile, Canada’s banks, weighed down by the heavy hand of the country’s paternalistic regulatory structure, are among the strongest financial institutions in the world.

There’s a lesson to be learned here. Somehow I doubt that our Esteemed Professor will learn it.  

Vermont Republicans have apparently seized upon the GMP/CVPS merger as their best weapon against Governor Shumlin. More precisely, the utilities’ plan to repay a $21 million ratepayer bailout through some energy-efficiency investments. It was one of the key issues House Minority Leader Don Turner included in his last-minute list of demands that hamstrung Democratic attempts to pass its remaining legislation. It became arguably the single biggest anti-Shumlin talking point in the closing days of the legislative session.

And, considering that the issue is emblazoned on Randy Brock’s “Republican bear” mascot, it’s certain to be a key component of his campaign for Governor. (The bear could simply get a different T-shirt, of course; but Brock has also referred to it as his “$21-million bear,” which seems a pretty firm commitment.)

I’m not here to debate the merits of the merger, just to explore its place in the coming campaign. And, more precisely, the Republicans’ utter hypocrisy on the issue.

Now, I do believe that some Republicans legitimately oppose the deal on the grounds of fairness to ratepayers. But for the entire party to seize on the issue, and to try to portray itself as the friend of Everyman, is a complete joke. The VTGOP is pushing the issue out of sheer political opportunism; Governor Shumlin has outmaneuvered them on so many issues, and done a good enough job of keeping the state running through very challenging times, that the Republicans are desperate for a winning issue. And this is the best one they’ve been able to find.

Which is a little bit sad, frankly. And a whole lot hypocritical.

After the jump: an outbreak of politeness at Vermont Tiger, and consequence-free demagoguery in the GOP.

The force of this hypocrisy hit me when I read a mildly-worded commentary on Vermont Tiger by the staunchly conservative Bill Sayre. Who happens to be board chairman of CVPS. (And is also a partner in Bruce Lisman’s “nonpartisan” Campaign for Vermont. Just sayin’.) His essay offered an uncharacteristically understated defense of the deal, and some diplomatic bemoanings over the tenor of legislative debate.

(The Comments thread underneath Sayre’s essay is also quite uncharacteristically polite and tippy-toey by Vermont Tiger standards: full of delicately-worded arguments couched in expressions of mutual respect. It’s far from the fire-breathing outrage that accompanies the usual Tiger diet of anti-left screeds.)

Sayre had to be diplomatic because he suddenly found many of his “old friends and kindred spirits” on the other side. This is a man who has no trouble making full-throated attacks on the liberal/socialist/collectivist left, but he was put off stride when he had to argue with his fellow conservatives.

His discomfort is understandable, because his “old friends and kindred spirits” would — under any other circumstances — defend the merger deal and depict anyone who opposed it as an irresponsible anti-business liberal who was out to wreck Vermont’s economy. But in a year when Vermont conservatives are desperate for hot-button issues, they can’t resist this one. Even if it puts them on the “wrong” side philosophically.  

And they can comfortably do so because they know they are powerless to block the deal. Do you really think Don Turner wanted to intervene in the merger? He knew damn well that the Democratic House leadership wouldn’t accede to his demand, so he was free to demagogue the issue.

Republicans can’t do anything to stop or change the merger. And even if Randy Brock wins the Governorship in November (snort), the deal will have been consummated by then and he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it even it he actually wanted to. Which he doesn’t.  

It’s an ideal opportunity for a little harmless rabble-rousing. Problem is, it’s not going to do them very much good. It may be the best issue they can find, but there’s no way they can convince liberal and moderate Vermonters that the Republican Party is an enemy of big corporations. It’s like when Mitt Romney was trying to convince Tea Partiers that he was really their guy. Doesn’t pass the smell test.

The Republicans are having some fun with the utility merger right now. But if they can’t find a better issue, they’re going to lose the election.  

On April 22, Senator Randy Brock (R-Hopeless) dipped a cautious toe into the world of social media by launching a Twitter feed — @BrockforGov. I became one of his Followers. One of his, ahem, 39 followers. Yep, the likely Republican nominee for Governor is gaining followers at the blistering pace of three per day. At that rate, he’ll catch up with @GovPeterShumlin in about four years — assuming that the Gov stops attracting new Followers of his own.  

Of course, Brock isn’t helping matters by the slow pace of his Tweets: a total of ten, and none at all since last Sunday’s Maple Festival in St. Albans, where he unveiled his $21 million “Republican bear.” C’mon, Randy — no Twitter commentary on this week’s hot and heavy Legislative action? Missed opportunity, son.

Now let’s pay a brief visit to Brock’s Facebook page. Hmm, that’s curious: his “About” message appears to be a relic of his 2010 run for Senate:

Thank you to the thousands who voted for me. Thank you to our many dedicated volunteers and contributors. It’s no secret that the next two years hold many challenges for Vermont. I pledge to do my part to help us meet these challenges and to transf

“To transf” what, exactly, is a mystery. And another online embarrassment for a campaign that seems to pay no attention whatsoever to its Web presence.

Otherwise, there’s a smattering of messages to and from the good Senator, but nothing much. (The page is worth a visit to read the two angry messages from conservative Catholics who were upset with Brock’s cancellation of a planned fundraiser at the infamous Wildflower Inn.) As for the candidate himself, his latest Facebook posting is a pre-St. Albans hint about that damn bear. Nothing since.

And now, let’s revisit his campaign website.

Which is sadly, astonishingly, unchanged since our last visit. It’s still a very basic template, a modest retooling of his 2010 Senate campaign website. There’s not even a link to his highly-touted “bears in the woods” video ad. The “News” page still features the December 7* announcement of his candidacy, and a series of newspaper endorsements dating from his unsuccessful bid for a second term as State Auditor. (You remember, the election he lost to “Democrat” Tom Salmon.)

*Well, no matter how things go from here, at least the Brock candidacy will never be the worst disaster to ever happen on that date.

And the “Issues” page still — STILL! — includes the following grammatical abortion:

We need to continue to encourage the development of new, green initiatives maintain our position on the leading edge of innovation for new, green initiatives for cost-effective alternative energy sources.

Come ON, Senator. That’s just sad. But I’m going to keep bringing it up until you (or your “expert” team of campaign consultants) get around to fixing that sentence.

To summarize: the Randy Brock campaign’s online presence is a downright embarrassment, something you’d expect from a low-budget fringe candidate, not from the putative leader of a major party’s ticket.  

(Not the title of the latest Robert Ludlum potboiler)

If you follow Vermont politics, you’ve probably been keeping up with House Minority Leader Don Turner’s last-minute maneuver. Earlier, he’d promised to suspend House rules as long as his caucus got at least 24 hours to review legislation; but this week, he issued a lengthy list of new demands for his assent. Then came House Majority Leader Lucy Leriche calling Turner a “terrorist,” quickly followed by Captain Renault-style expressions of shock and outrage from Republicans, and numerous apologies from Leriche.

That has become the story, unfortunately; it’s diverted attention away from Turner’s maneuver, which is a far more significant political development. But that’s what a single intemperate remark can do, and the Dems are paying full price for Leriche’s outburst.

As of this writing, Speaker Shap Smith was still trying to reach common ground with Turner, so this whole thing may be moot by the time you read this. But I wanted to take note of the contretemps and the ill will that lies behind it.

There’s a whole lot of anger among Vermont Republicans, folks. They are seething with frustration. (Turner said his maneuver was a matter of “the leverage I have.” It’s about the only time in this biennium that he’s had any leverage at all.)  

You can see it in the increasingly heated rhetoric of “nonpartisan” Bruce Lisman, who brands the Legislature a failure on every major issue, calls the Dems “strident” and “unfocused,” accuses them of causing “economic damage” and of “abdicating” their leadership. And, of course, he slams Governor Shumlin for “rocketing” toward health care reform. (He also slams Shumlin for taking too long to put together the system’s cost structure. Which is a neat trick: Shumlin is too fast and too slow at the same time. But never mind.)

Then there’s VTGOP chair Jack Lindley calling Shumlin and the Dems “arrogant” and threatening a lawsuit over a very mild and relatively nonpartisan redistricting plan*; and Republican money man Ralph Colin (speaking on Common Sense Radio) accusing Shap Smith of bullying the Legislature. And lest we forget, there was Darcie Johnston’s notorious (and quickly deleted) Facebook “joke.”

*He accuses Dems of “sabotaging the process.” Has he taken a look at the unconstitutional mess the New Hampshire Republicans made of their redistricting? Now, there’s a real case of sabotage.

It’s understandable, really. In the conservative flood tide of 2010, the VTGOP lost the governorship, failed to make a dent in the Dems’ Legislative majorities, and didn’t come close to breaking the liberal grip on our Congressional delegation. They did manage to not screw up Phil Scott’s bid for Lieutenant Governor.  But if that’s all they could do under the best possible circumstances, what hope do they have for the future?  

And in some fundamental way, they are dumbfounded at their plight, and at the failure of Vermont voters to see things the way they do. These days, conservatives live politically insulated lives: they read the Wall Street Journal, they listen to Rush, they watch Fox News. This provides a steady diet of unchallenged conservative talking points, and of unalloyed outrage over Democratic perfidy. Over time, this tends to distort their world view. It’s incomprehensible to them that other people might see things differently, and might even voluntarily choose to elect — gasp! — Democrats. Or even — horror! — Progressives. (That’s why the voter-fraud fallacy has such currency with conservatives: if Democrats win an election, they simply must have cheated. It’s the only possible explanation.)  

This Republican anger is likely to result in an ugly 2012 campaign by Vermont standards — especially if Randy Brock’s bid for Governor continues to flatline. This won’t help the VTGOP win anything, but it could significantly coarsen our political discourse going forward. And the Turner Ultimatum may be the beginning of a less polite, more dramatically partisan atmosphere in the Legislature.

There’s a story in this week’s Seven Days about State Treasurer Beth Pearce. Pretty good story, actually. But the headline is just annoying as hell.

Treasurer Beth Pearce Fell Into the Job — Can She Win an Election to Keep It?

Don’t blame reporter Paul Heintz, because reporters don’t write the headlines. Someone further up the chain does that. And in this case, s/he did a tooth-grindingly tone-deaf job of it. Beth Pearce did not in any sense “fall into the job,” and to imply that she did is condescending and offensive.

In actual fact, as you would know if you read the article, Beth Pearce may be the most qualified person in the entire state of Vermont to hold the job of Treasurer. She’s been Deputy Treasurer of two states, Vermont and Massachusetts. She’s spent most of her career as a financial professional in local and state government.

Admittedly, she did become Treasurer by being appointed to replace Jeb Spaulding when he became Governor Shumlin’s Secretary of Administration. But to say that she “fell into the job” makes it sound like she was a bartender when she got the call. It’s an insult to her experience and her qualifications for the position.

Now, if you want to say that a top state official “fell into the job,” there’s someone practically right next door who qualifies…  

…good old Bill Sorrell, the long-serving Attorney General of Vermont. As the story goes, Sorrell’s mother Esther was Howard Dean’s political mentor. Dean and Bill Sorrell got to be good friends. In 1992, Dean appointed Sorrell as his Secretary of Administration. And in 1997, he tried to slide his buddy onto the Vermont Supreme Court.

Problem. Sorrell was an attorney, but he had no judicial experience whatsoever. When Dean pushed Sorrell for the high court, the state’s judicial nominating board didn’t bite; it returned a list of nominees for Dean to choose from, and it didn’t include Sorrell.

This went back and forth for a while: Dean pushing Sorrell, the board refusing to nominate an unqualified person.

Finally, to get around the roadblock, Dean chose the incumbent Attorney General, Jeff Amestoy, to the Supreme Court. No problemo; his nomination was approved.

And now there was a handy vacancy in the AG’s office. To which Howard Dean appointed good old Bill Sorrell.

Now, there’s a guy who really “fell into the job.” Not Beth Pearce.  

So the Shumlin Administration has a shiny new policy regarding PR/communications positions in state government. For those just tuning in, Shumlin frequently attacked the Douglas Administration for hiring PR folks and using taxpayer money to crank out propaganda. Then, earlier this year, Shumlin threw a hissy when three of his departments posted job openings for communications people.  

Now, the Administration has come up with a policy intended, I’m sure, to clarity the issue. Terri Hallenbeck reports that the new policy reads as follows:

“It is the policy of the state of Vermont that it will only employ individuals in communications positions to provide fact-based information and education materials to the public and government stakeholders in a manner that serves the public interest and engenders trust in state government. The use of communications positions to provide biased information is prohibited.”

My reaction: Shumlin’s old ban is in the dumpster, and the door is once again wide open for PR hires. That one little paragraph is chock-full of Orwellian doublespeak. “Fact-based information,” for example, means exactly nothing. It’s like calling Hawaiian Punch a “fruit-based beverage.”  Just about every piece of information has a fact in it somewhere.

After the jump: more doublespeak… and a hearty endorsement of the new policy.

“Serves the public interest” is in the eye of the beholder. I’m sure that El Jefe General John McClaughry devoutly believes that the Ethan Allen Institute “serves the public interest” by providing a counterweight to Vermont’s rampant socialism.

“Engenders trust in state government” is the biggest howler in the bunch. If you make your agency head look good, aren’t you engendering trust in state government? If there’s a scandal in your department and you try to minimize its impact, are you not engendering trust in state government? Scandals, after all, diminish trust in state government. We can’t have that.

Finally, “The use of communications positions to provide biased information is prohibited.” Yeah, I’m laughing again. One man’s bias is another man’s reportage. Just ask Fox News. Or any Presidential press secretary.

Now that I’ve made sport of this vacuous new policy, let me say that I completely agree with it. Modern government is a big enterprise, and there’s a real need for communications. If you’ve ever been a reporter, you know that you need someone in government who actually answers their phone or returns messages in a hurry. Trying to direct-call an agency head is an exercise in futility. PR/communications people do help get the word out, and they do facilitate the process of journalism. And yes, you have to take everything they say with a grain of salt, but reporters are supposed to do that all the time with everyone they talk to.

I’m glad to see this new policy, because I’d long suspected that the old ban on flacks was a self-serving move on Shumlin’s part. One effect of the ban was that media inquiries were often funneled through Shumlin’s own press office. That kept him in the spotlight, and kept other officials in the shade. Which was useful I’m terms of Shumlin’s obvious aspirations for higher office; we don’t need any other Democrats raising their profiles, do we?  

So I welcome the new policy. But it’s clear  that Shumlin has abandoned a position he’d promulgated — often very loudly — since his run for Governor. And this new policy statement does precious little to conceal that fact.

Here’s a Foto Funny straight from Randy Brock’s newly-launched Twitter feed. Earlier today, @BrockforGov tweeted that they’d be announcing a new member of the Brock Team at today’s Maple Festival in St. Albans. And here s/he is…

Hahaha, get it? Brock’s bear, gonna chase down Shumlin? Tie-dyed Ben-and-Jerry’s style T-shirt? Reference to the biggest issue he’s managed to manufacture so far? Really, I’ve got to give the guy some credit; that’s more humor in one photo than I thought the Brock campaign had to its name. (Not that that’s saying much.) I do hope they start dispatching the bear to Shumlin’s public events.

(And yes, Randy Brock is now on Twitter. Eight Tweets and counting. His website, however, remains an utter embarrassment.)  

Recently, Bruce Lisman’s Campaign for Vermont filed a lobbyist-expenditure report  showing that it had spent over $200,000 in the first quarter of this year*. All of that money, according to Lisman himself, came from his own deep pockets. As we said at the time, that’s a lot of money. But in today’s world of mega-million-dollar politics, it may seem like a pittance. So how much is it really?

*For 2011, CFV reported zero expenditures. This is a bit of a puzzle, since its ad campaign has been running since late November. Not sure how to explain that; perhaps CFV simply waited until January 1 to start paying its bills.

The answer is rather astounding. CFV is on pace to outdo Karl Rove’s notorious Super PACs this year. Obviously, CFV is small potatoes compared to the Rove machine; but through the power of his bankbook, Bruce Lisman is making himself a really big fish in the very small pond that is Vermont. The numbers:  

There are about 220 million registered voters in the US. This week, Rove’s organization announced that it has nearly topped the $100 million mark, and is aiming to raise a total of $240 million. That’s a little more than a dollar per registered voter.

There are roughly 440,000 registered voters in Vermont. In the first quarter CFV spent $212,000, almost all of it on advertising. Since March 31, CFV’s ad campaign has continued apace. At this rate, CFV will spend proportionately as much money by midsummer as Rove’s machine will spend all year. And if CFV simply maintains its first-quarter pace throughout the campaign, its total spending would be around $700,000. That’s about $1.60 per voter.

But since CFV’s goal is to inject its ideas into the 2012 campaign, its spending is likely to increase as the election draws near. How much? It’s hard to tell. But let’s compare it to the Shumlin and Dubie gubernatorial campaigns of two years ago.  

In the first half of 2010, Shumlin spent about $200,000. Dubie, $455,000. The two campaigns had very different spending patterns; Shumlin started slow, spent a bunch in midsummer leading up to the Democratic primary, laid low for a few weeks afterward, and then went all-in from mid-September through Election Day. Dubie spent fairly consistently, at a higher rate than Shumlin, from January to mid-September; he then picked up his spending through Election Day, but was outspent by Shumlin down the stretch.

More detail than you really need. The main point is that CFV is matching Dubie’s pace, and is significantly ahead of Shumlin’s. For the entire race, Dubie spent $1.5 million, while Shumlin spent $1.43 million.

I’m not claiming that CFV will go that high. Even if CFV intensifies its radio buys and gets into TV, it still wouldn’t incur many of the normal expenses of a traditional campaign  — staffing, organization, yard signs, travel, GOTV, etc. But even if you assume that CFV will only spend half as much as Dubie from here on, then its total budget could easily top a million bucks. Or about $2.25 per registered voter — more than double Karl Rove’s spending rate.

Maybe it won’t happen. After all, CFV has registered itself with the state as a lobbying organization. And with the Legislature about to adjourn for 2012, one might expect lobbying expenses to decline sharply. But CFV says it is engaged in both “direct and indirect lobbying,” and virtually all of its activity so far has been advertising aimed at the general public. It’s been virtually invisible around the Statehouse. I think it’s safe to assume that the lion’s share of its work will continue to be in the decidedly “indirect” category, and thus will be unaffected by adjournment.

(This “indirect lobbying” is kinda like if you wanted to water your garden, but instead of using a sprinkler you hired a fleet of Tanker 910s to drop planeloads of water all over Vermont and called it “indirect” watering. This would appear to be CFV’s approach to “indirect” lobbying.)

If this turns out to be true, Campaign for Vermont will be the most expensive independent advocacy effort in Vermont history. And Bruce Lisman will spend more than enough to have one of the loudest voices in our political dialogue.