This morning’s edition of my Times Argus brought a smile to my face. Followed, as I perused the lead story, by more smiles, chuckles, an incredulous snort, and some outbreaks of laughter that prompted Loyal Spouse to look up from our Eggs In Purgatory* with a quizzical expression.

*Some kind of tomato sauce in a frying pan, eggs cooked on top. Today it was Mexican style: sauteed onion, canned tomatoes, and salsa under the eggs.

The source of my amusement was entitled “Vt. GOP spurning ‘vitriolic’ strategy.” (The online version, behind the Mitchell Family Paywall, has a more benign title.)

Yeah? Huh. Is this the VTGOP whose chair, “Super Dave” Sunderland, disgorged a pair of awfully darn vitriolic press releases in the past few days? The more recent, previously dissected in these virtual pages, was a slam at the Shumlin Administration for a scattering of job losses around the state, that read like it could have been written by the King of Vitriol, “Angry Jack” Lindley, on a particularly bilious day.

The first slammed Bernie Sanders for unfounded allegations of complicity in the Veterans Affairs scandal. It was a classic Republican/Fox News attack: pose a damning question (“What did Bernie know and when did he know it?”) and leave it hanging. No need for evidence, see?

If indeed we’re entering a new era of vitriol-free Republicanism, a nice first step would be a press release congratulating Sen. Sanders on his statesmanlike deal with John McCain for a bipartisan bill to fix the VA.

Anything, Super Dave? No? Well, we continue.

The gist of the Times Argus piece (by Neal Goswami) is that the VTGOP is looking to “rebuild and rebrand” in 2014, after sinking “to a new low” after the 2012 election. The rebuilding, Goswami reports, will take a while; he quotes Sunderland as saying the strategy “over the next several election cycles will be to return the Republican Party in Vermont to a position of influence in public policy.” Which is a nice way of saying “We’ve fallen into complete irrelevance.”

This year’s effort aims to make some “incremental gains” in the legislature; three seats in the Senate and perhaps a dozen in the House. Sunderland as much as admits that the GOP’s statewide ticket will be full of holes, with perhaps only candidates for Governor and Lieutenant Governor. But even so, he says 2014 can be a positive first step:

The policies of the past in the Vermont Republican Party failed and we lost elections and it got us to where we’re at now with 45 seats in the House and seven in the Senate.

… We are going to demonstrate to Vermonters that the new direction that we’re headed, the direction of a broader base, the direction that listens to Vermonters and responds to the needs and concerns of Vermonters, that’s a direction that will win.

Goswami takes the easy way to including a voice of dissent, calling upon Darcie “Hack” Johnston, strategical uber-failure. And she is more than ready to defend the discredited tactics of the “Angry Jack” years. She claims that “Vermonters are frustrated, and are at the end of their rope with Peter Shumlin’s policies.” Which just shows you that she’s still listening only to Vermonters within her social circle. Certainly Shumlin’s numbers have declined since the heydays of the  post-Irene recovery, but “at the end of their rope” and ready to support hard-line conservatism? Not at all.

Johnston also, presumably without irony, laments the fact that “the party lacks candidates and lacks resources to fund the candidates they have,” without mentioning that it was she and her like-minded colleagues who reduced the VTGOP to its current parlous state. It’s because of the Republican dead-enders that so many business leaders have lined up behind Shumlin. It’s because of her tactical twin brother from another mother, Corry Bliss, that Brian Duble crapped out on his bid to succeed the popular Jim Douglas.  

Super Dave has a nice rejoinder for Johnston’s backseat driving:

“I recognize that there’s a small faction of people who want to cling to a negative, angry, vitriolic strategy that I don’t believe is good for our party, for our candidates or for the state of Vermont,” Sunderland said. “I believe that this is a group that is small and getting smaller and I don’t believe that they represent the majority of Republicans in Vermont.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Of course, I’m still waiting to see actual evidence of a new, changed, more moderate (or at least inclusive) Vermont Republican Party. But the prospect of an intra-party slap-fight, ending with Johnston et al. slinking off into the darkness, made my eggs taste that much sweeter this morning.  

Well, well. Windham County is currently served by two Democratic state senators: the very able Jeanette White and the execrable Peter “The Slummin’ Solon” Galbraith, a.k.a. The Most Hated Man In The Senate.

(His latest offenses, ICYMI: being a persistent thorn in Governor Shumlin’s side on single-payer health care; being so relentlessly bull-headed about campaign finance that he blocked a minor technical change in this year’s bill; and taking up a good portion of the Senate’s closing days with an extended peroration on health care reform, which wasn’t even on the very crowded agenda at the time. And which caused the Senate chamber to empty out, with his colleagues seeking the relative solace of the bustling hallway.)

And yet, two more Democrats have stepped into the race — a very unusual turn of events.  I’m sure it has nothing to do with rumors that the Democratic Party has been loudly whispering “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” within earshot of potential candidates from the southeast. Yeah, just a coincidence. I’m sure the Party will do all it can to subvert support The Most Hated Man’s re-election bid. (He might just have to dig into his fossil fuel fortune again, as he did four years ago when he pretty much bought the seat by spending $50,000 on his own campaign.)

The latest entry is Becca Balint of Brattleboro, an educator and consultant who sits on the town’s Development Review Board and is a Town Meeting representative. Her interests, per the Brattleboro Reformer, center on developing the southeast’s economy by emphasizing its existing strengths: green jobs, mental health services, and the cultural economy, plus improving high-speed Internet access.

Previously announcing was Joan Bowman of Putney. She moved to Vermont only four years ago, but has jumped into the deep end of the activist pool by getting involved with multiple community organizations and serving as a navigator for Vermont Health Connect. Her primary issue, per the Reformer, is single-payer health care.

Both candidates, of course, say their entries have nothing to do with opposing the incumbents; they simply want to engage in a discussion of the issues facing the county and Vermont.

This might be the most interesting primary in the entire Democratic Party field. I look forward to an informative, reasoned, issue-oriented debate, and/or fireworks.  

First there is a mountain; then there is no mountain; then there is…

St. Albans’ two senate seats have been transformed into musical chairs.

When 17-year veteran Democratic Senator Sara Kittell declined to run in 2012,  former Senator Don Collins returned to the fray, defeating Republican Dustin Degree to retain the seat in Democratic hands.  

Collins was ready and willing to give it another go in 2014 until just a few days ago when he announced that he would not run again, leaving Democrats with a single, untested candidate (Bill Roberts) for the two-seat district.

Two nights ago, on GMD, Democratic Rep. Mike McCarthy hinted that a new female candidate was preparing to announce for Collins’ seat.

Imagine my surprise when I stumbled out into the sunshine to walk my dog and ran into Dustin (my next door neighbor) who told me that Sara had announced in the Weekend Messenger, which was still unopened on my front porch!

Quipped DD with a grin: “Now I think I’ve changed my position on term limits…I’m for them!”

Of course term limits wouldn’t have kept Sara from returning to the Senate after a break, as she proposes to do.

Kittell will be a far more formidable contender than the unknown Mr. Roberts, who only recently identified as a Democrat.

Long the chair of the Senate Agricultural Committee, Sara is one of the best and most respected political voices for sustainable ag and environmental policies.  She remained very popular with her former constituents in Franklin County, even when her keen sense of responsibility lead her to vote less conservatively than they might have wished.

Always taking great pains to fully inform herself on the issues, Sara has a record of courage and diplomacy that makes her one of the few political figures for whom I’ve never lost respect.

Welcome back, Senator Kittell!

So Century Arms is folding up one flap of its tent in Georgia and stealing silently into the night?

What a shame.

The arms trader that was identified by PBS’ Frontline in 2011 as a big contributor to the gun problem in Mexico, abruptly laid off 41 of its Franklin County work staff today, blaming the White House for the layoffs.  

In a press release, Century said the layoffs occurred as a consequence to the White House’s denial of a large importation of vintage WWII rifles from the South Korean government. A planned, nearly $30 million transaction, the importation was blocked “unexpectedly … at the last minute” after the company had obtained necessary approvals and permits, the release said.

(‘Wonder where the company is getting its talking points these days!)

It seems that the Feds are no longer inclined to turn a blind eye to the company’s practice of circumventing the law by importing old firearms from third-world countries, retrofitting them with contemporary bells and whistles that would have been illegal to import into the U.S. if already built into the third world exports; and then reselling them to god-knows-whom.  

Century Arms  “make-overs” have been finding their way into illegal ownership in Mexico in unusually high numbers.

Over the last four years, more than 500 of the WASR-10s imported by Century Arms have been recovered in Mexico after being purchased in the U.S. That means Century’s WASR-10 accounts for more than 17 percent of the total guns recovered in Mexico since 2006 — the highest of any other recovered gun or rifle.

While we certainly don’t welcome layoffs in Franklin County, this is one situation where we might want to be cautiously cheered by the news.  Besides the remarkable efficiency Century Arms has had in getting its product to Mexican “consumers,” I have heard anecdotally that the labor conditions at CA leave something to be desired.

The New York Times may still consider us the face of drug addiction in Vermont, but at least we might be able to slip the moniker of “Gun Runner Central.”

Hey, remember Corry Bliss? The guy who helped make Peter Shumlin our Governor by managing the Brian Dubie campaign into the ground? The guy last seen in Connecticut, squandering Linda McMahon’s pro-wrestling millions in a losing bid for a U.S. Senate seat?

Welp, I just Googled him, and guess what? He’s continuing the grand Republican campaign consultant tradition of failing upward. Following his latest sortie in Georgia (running an early favorite to a third-place finish), his record as a campaign manager is now a spectacular 0-7.

Makes Darcie Johnston look like David Axelrod, doesn’t he?

Let’s review some of the highlights of Bliss’ dismal career.

His disastrous management of McMahon’s campaign prompted this post-mortem by former Republican Congressman Chris Shays:

Corry Bliss… basically left Vermont in shambles, and he’s leaving Connecticut in shambles. But he’s got more money. He made more money.

Full disclosure: Shays had lost the Republican primary to McMahon’s millions before she went on to lose the general election. But Shays is certainly spot-on about Vermont in shambles; the VTGOP has never come close to recovering from Dubie’s loss. And who turned Jim Douglas’ right-hand man into a loser? VTDigger’s Anne Galloway:

Bliss has transformed Dubie through ads and press releases from the aw-shucks nice guy Vermonters generally liked into a candidate who has appeared to misrepresent the truth. …The campaign’s strategy in forums and debates, through bitter attacks on his opponent more than an explanation of Dubie’s own policy initiatives, has appeared to be a relentless attempt to characterize Democrat Peter Shumlin as untrustworthy and unethical.

So yeah, I’d say “shambles” is a fair assessment of Bliss’ impact on Vermont.

After the jump: failure upon failure, unto the present day.

Three of Bliss’ failures have been in his home state of Virginia. His first came in 2008 two years after he graduated from law school: he managed the unsuccessful re-election campaign of Republican Congresswoman Thelma Drake. In 2011, he ran the campaign of State Senate candidate John Stirrup. Bliss immediately began producing extremely negative campaign materials which destroyed the image of Stirrup as a nice guy. Sound familiar?

Then came his fruitless raid on McMahon’s bankbook. After that, Bliss went back to Virginia and somehow got himself hired by Joe May, a five-term incumbent in the House of Delegates with — wait for it — a “good guy” reputation. Guess what? May lost the Republican primary. By fifteen percentage points. And Bliss’ “nasty, vicious, dark” campaign tactics have been blamed.

This year, Bliss continued his untarnished-by-victory record as campaign manager for Karen Handel, former Georgia Secretary of State and one of seven candidates for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate.  A late April poll had Handel in a virtual tie for first place. Unfortunately, that didn’t last; she ran third in the May 20 primary, earning 22% of the vote. (The top two finishers, David Perdue and Jack Kingston, with 31% and 26% respectively, are competing in a runoff.) According to a Politico post-mortem, Handel fell short because “she failed to raise enough cash to compete with Kingston and Perdue in the expensive Atlanta media markets.” I guess Corry should restrict himself to self-funding gazillionaires in the future.

I dunno what Bliss’ next move will be. If there’s any justice — or any collective sanity among Republican candidates — it won’t be politics. In fact, to prepare for his next career, I’d suggest practicing the line, “Welcome to Subway. May I take your order?”  

It’s not perfect, but after a long and wrangling journey, Vermont now has a shorelands protection law (H.526.)  

A truly contemporary sign of political personhood, “Defeat H.526” even had its own Facebook page, which only got 134 “Likes.”  That kind of indicates to me that they probably got it more or less in balance.  Even naysayers must admit something had to be done to.

It was quite a bone of contention up in the St. Albans area, where some property owners chaffed at having to yield perceived property “rights” to the public good.  They’ll get over it though; and they did get some protections for those rights “grandfathered” in.  

“This law is a good step forward. It won’t undo the damage we’ve done where we’ve built too close to our lakes, it will help safeguard water quality and wildlife habitat for future generations of Vermonters. In the coming years, we’ll be very glad we took this step as a state.” – Kim Greenwood, VNRC water program director/staff scientist.

Wow, it’s the second week of June already. Summertime is upon us…and so is the filing deadline for Vermont candidates. June 12, it is. One week from yesterday, it is.

David Sunderland, I’m guessing, is frantically working the phones trying to find Republicans to fill out his statewide ticket. Or, he’s thrown in the towel and is planning a long weekend of slammin’ the Bud Light and wondering why he ever took Phil Scott’s call in the first place.

But something more significant than impotent Republican flailing is going on. That would be John Bauer’s effort to qualify for public financing in his run for Lieutenant Governor. His deadline is also June 12. A reminder: he needs at least 750 donations — of less than $50 apiece — to qualify for a pot of public financing that would make him financially competitive with Phil Scott.

Plus, if he makes it, it’d be a significant victory for the concept of public financing. It’d say that an energetic hopeful with good ideas can earn enough scratch to mount a solid campaign, which is the purpose of the public option. That alone is worthy of support, but Bauer himself is also worthy.

He’s been working hard, traveling the state, speaking to anyone who will listen. Still, he’ll need a strong push to qualify; 750 is a challenge.

The work continues. Indeed, I got a call yesterday from a Bauer volunteer. I had to tell him I’d already donated… but since then I’ve learned that family members, including spouses, count towards the goal. So I’ll give ten more bucks in my loyal spouse’s name, and we’ll count for two.  

Bauer would make a strong candidate, but he doesn’t have deep pockets. He needs the public financing. He’s articulate, engaging, and he’s full of good ideas on making Vermont a better place for everyone, especially working folks. Read my earlier report here, or visit Bauer’s website for more.  

You can donate online via ActBlue, reachable through Bauer’s website. Or send a check to John Bauer for Vermont, PO Box 454, Jeffersonville VT 05464.

And remember, because of the public financing rules, a small contribution is truly meaningful. He’s gotten donations as small as $1, and the maximum is $50.

Postscript. Yes, I know that Progressive Dean Corren is also pushing for public financing, and I wish him well. But I’ve met John Bauer and I like him and his ideas, so he’s my guy. Plus, talking realpolitik, a Democrat would be better-positioned to give Scott a run for his money than a Prog, if only because of internal party organization. And Bauer is a very progressive fellow, so there isn’t much separating him from Corren in policy terms.

But if you prefer Corren, that’s fine by me. I’d urge everyone to give a donation to either guy, just for the purposes of boosting the public financing concept. We liberals spend a lot of time and energy bemoaning the influence of big money in politics; this is a rare opportunity to do something about it. And it’s a pretty darn simple thing to do.  

A catastrophic outbreak of Bunched Knicker Syndrome is underway in and about Washington, D.C. Its sufferers can be identified by the plaintive cry, “We’re all happy that Bowe Bergdahl is on his way home, BUT…”

The Republicans are making a tawdry spectacle of themselves, yammering about the potential mayhem that might be done by the released Taliban figures, the worthiness of Bergdahl to be rescued at all, and even Bob Bergdahl’s beard, fer crissakes. (“Looks like Taliban,” cry the Fox News idioterati. Yeah, and as Jon Stewart pointed out, equally looks like Duck Dynasty.)

We are accustomed to sudden epidemics of BKS among Republicans, but quite a few Democrats are joining the ranks of the afflicted. Like, for example, our own Senator Patrick Leahy. His “BUT” involves the alleged lack of consultation with the wise leaders of Congress (i.e. himself) before the swap was conducted. Via VPR:

“The right decision was made any time to get an American service person back. I think that it would have been a lot better if the President had done more consulting with the appropriate members of Congress,” said Leahy.

… “Had [President Obama] done more consulting with Congress I would think he probably would have realized that there were some strong concerns that would be raised,” said Leahy.

I have two very large problems with this.

First of all, there’s a time to raise process issues and a time to shut the hell up and stand behind your President. This, St. Patrick, is an example of the latter. The President is getting hammered by every conservative voice in the country right now; he needs his folks at his back. If you do have procedural objections, this is a good time to raise them quietly with the White House rather than running to the nearest microphone.

Second, the notion that Obama would have avoided controversy if only he’d been smart enough to ask Pat Leahy is either downright laughable or completely insane. This prisoner swap has been in the works for more than two years. It’s been discussed publicly by, among many other people, Senators John McCain and Dianne Feinstein. (McCain even endorsed the idea in principle — that was, of course, before Obama had the temerity to implement the idea himself. Now, McCain is retroactively aghast.) And, according to the Washington Post, discussions about the swap between the White House and top House Republicans go back to November 2011.  

So the outlines — even the very specific details — were common currency in Washington. The timing may have been kept quiet, but Leahy had plenty of opportunities to offer his Wise Counsel™

to the White House.

After the jump: A Modest Proposal.

So, while the Republican hive mind is giving the President a full-on blanket party, Our Pat is standing off to the side saying, “Well, I’d help, but you didn’t consult me first.”

This isn’t the first time St. Patrick has been more concerned with proper procedure than with good politics. There’s also the continuing imbroglio over his adherence to the “blue slip” tradition and the bad judicial deal it forced Obama to make with Georgia’s nutball Senators.

Leahy’s been in the Senate for almost 40 years now. Perhaps he has come to identify more closely with the World’s Greatest, and Richest, and Whitest, and Oldest Deliberative Body than with his party or his constituents.

Perhaps, dare I say it, he should consider retiring at the end of his current term.  

Another “timely(?)” exit from the Senate is Don Collins of Franklin County.

It was announced yesterday in the Messenger that the long-time senator from St. Albans, who returned after a previous retirement to serve one last term, apparently has had enough of Montpelier and plans instead to concentrate on local education issues.

Collins was one of a list of Democratic senators that Republicans rather grandly announced they would be “targetting” this year.

I rather hope this wasn’t the only reason he stepped aside.  Given the remarkably flabby performance of Vermont’s Republican strategists in recent years, that beast don’t got no teeth.

Be that as it may, we’re down to just one Democratic hopeful from Franklin County, Bill Roberts, who is something of a dark horse.  He only recently announced as a Democrat and, as an anesthesiologist

and part-time home redeveloper, he has the cash to stand the campaign.

His focus seems to be on addressing drug and alcohol abuse, a great way to reach the folks of St. Albans who have recently felt the awkward stare of national media around that issue.

Stay tuned.

The state Senate, in my unhumble opinion, could be vastly improved by the elimination of the Old Farts’ Brigade, an assemblage of Way Too Senior Solons (way too many of them Democrats) who are way too enamored of their own individual brilliance.

Er, they believe their shit don’t stink.

Well, the OFB has been reduced by one. The Freeploid’s Terri Hallenbeck reports that Bob Hartwell, the kinda-sorta climate change denying chair of the Senate Natural Resources Committee, has decided not to run for re-election.

My first thought was, Whoopee!!!

My second thought was a musical one: that warm, sensitive ballad “Fuck You” by the redoubtable Cee-Lo Green. This one’s for you, Bob.

Yeah, didn’t much care for the man. But the best I thought I could hope for was his entirely justified removal from the SNRC. And that seemed to be a very slim hope, given the hidebound nature of the Senate’s Committee on Committees, which doles out the committee assignments. (Phil Scott, plus venerable Old Farts John H.A. Campbell and Dick Mazza.)

So am I happy to see Hartwell go? You bet your sweet bippy I am.  

The news did not come directly from Hartwell; the source was his fellow Bennington Democrat (and Old Fart) Dick Sears, who offered this rationale:

Sears said Hartwell wants to spend more time on Cape Cod. Sears said growing strain between Hartwell and environmentalists likely also took its toll. “I suspect that that’s part of it,” Sears said.

Sears did not say, but I will, the “entirely justified (and entirely Hartwell’s fault) growing strain.” For the last two years, Hartwell and his committee — loaded with single-issue wind-energy haters — spent virtually all its time seeking, by any means at its disposal, to make it harder for Vermont to beef up its renewable energy resources. Hartwell’s climate-change skepticism, expressed in an April interview with Paul “The Huntsman” Heintz, was just the maraschino cherry on top of the shit sundae. As a reminder of Hartwell’s apostasy:

“I think what I don’t like about the extremists on the climate issue … is that somehow this is all being caused by human behavior. There is a significant natural phenomenon that is also going on, in my view,” Hartwell told Seven Days.

… “To suggest that mankind is causing the whole climate to shift, that’s a big reach,” he added. “I don’t think anybody’s ever proved that.”

As Heintz helpfully pointed out, Hartwell’s comments came less than two weeks after the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had released its report, making an extremely strong case that human influence “has been the dominant cause” of climate change. Hartwell quickly tried to deny that he’d said what he’d said, but the damage was done.

And if his willfully ignorant statements helped lead to his departure from the Senate, well, at least something good came of them.

His withdrawal comes only one week ahead of the filing deadline. The timing is clearly aimed at greasing the skids for his chosen replacement, State Rep. Brian Campion; it’s way too late for anyone else to gear up. Sears says he and Campion will campaign as a team.

I don’t know beans about Brian Campion, so I won’t condemn the man solely on the basis of his choice of allies. According to Project Vote Smart, he has a pretty solid voting record: 100% ratings from the League of Conservation Voters and Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility, and a suitably low 13% from the Vermont National Federation for Independent Business. His 44% rating from the Ethan Allen Institute is a bit worrying, but far from probative.

According to the always-reliable Wikipedia, Campion is very active in the civic life of Bennington: he’s a trustee of the Bennington Museum, a commissioner of the Bennington Housing Authority, and he’s a director of the Bennington Chamber of Commerce. His day job is with Bennington College’s office of external relations. I can only assume his favorite restaurant is the great Blue Benn Diner.

Oh, and he’s gay.

I wish him well. And I hope he’s an improvement on Bob Hartwell, who can go to Cape Cod and watch the sea level rise for some mysterious unknown reason.