Tag Archives: Phil Scott

Lt. Gov. Phil Scott: “I thought there was a sort of stigma,”

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Phil Scott is a clever one …and he says some of his best friends are hippies.

Lt. Gov.Scott who is running in the Republican gubernatorial primary has dredged up a sticker he had made up about four years ago. The sticker reads: “Lt. Gov. Phil Scott asks you to buy local! It’s not just for hippies anymore!” he says it is aimed at promoting the buy local movement to everyone.

Scott “sported’ a sticker during a recent statehouse interview with The Burlington Free Press and he explained:

[…] four years ago, he visited farmers markets throughout the state to meet people. While Scott saw these hubs of local food and artisan crafts as quintessential Vermont, others saw a place only for hippies.

“I thought there was a sort of stigma,” Scott said.

While he’s not one of them, Scott said he has many “proud hippie friends” who also wear his stickers and get a good laugh out of the tie-dye versions.

Huh? “Sort of a stigma” Oh well, good ol’ Phil is just having a good ol’ laugh. Kind of like when, after Hurricane Irene he “joked” that;  those he saw doing clean-up work were mostly Republicans. And you know at least he didn’t stick something like Take back Vermont, buy local on his bumper for his primary campaign.nobestniks

Candidate Scott doesn’t mention, but he might have recalled that Governor Douglas started an initiative (shortly after the buy local movement took hold) at the Agency of Agriculture in 2003 to buy local food for state institutions. Douglas did face criticism for taking a little too much credit (as was his habit) for the start of the  buy local movement. But Jim Douglas didn’t feel any hippie stigma.Governor Douglas was just co-opting an issue as any good politician might and in doing so  hope to scoop up supporters (votes) in an inclusive way.

But Jezzum,Phil ! Come to think of it Jim Douglas is just a flatlander from way back.

Syrian Refugees and Scar(e)city

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I’ve had occasion to spend some time driving around the state for work and I’ve been listening to reports on VPR about Syrian refugees- and our politicians responding to the situation. It’s been a divisive issue, with a few leaders stepping up to welcome refugees- like Governor Shumlin and President Obama– and a few leaders fanning the flames of fear- like Sen. Lindsey Graham, Gov. Bobby Jindhal, and our own Vermont Republican gubernatorial candidates.

The UN estimates there are over 4 million refugees from the civil war in Syria. Most of them are in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. In recent months tens of thousands of Syrian refugees have left crowded camps in the region and struck out for Europe- often paying smugglers to guide them on dangerous journeys across the Mediterranean. Many have died just trying to make the trip.

So what is our response? Many politicians have engaged in disgusting pandering and fear-mongering- including gubernatorial candidates Bruce Lisman and Lt. Governor Phil Scott. I applaud Gov. Shumlin for his leadership on this issue, and I was glad to see Matt Dunne making a strong statement of support for Vermont hosting Syrian refugees.

“I would have hoped that Phil [Scott] would be someone who would not just fall in line with the right-wing Republicans in Congress.”- Matt Dunne

President Obama has been making the case for welcoming Syrian refugees to the United States, but he was defied by 47 Democrats in the House who sided with Republicans in an effort to halt refugee resettlement in the wake of the attacks in Paris last week. It turns out the “Syrian” in the group of attackers probably wasn’t Syrian at all and was in the possession of a forged passport.

Over the last few weeks in my church, our pastor has been talking about moving out of an attitude of Scar(e)city into an attitude of Abundance. Is it good for us to protect what we have at the expense of our neighbors? Are we really willing to reject our obligations to other human beings when we have been blessed with so much? I can’t imagine that our free society, with all of its diversity, could be diminished by including a few thousand people who are fleeing a war-ravaged land. With all of the abundance in the United States of America, and here in Vermont, can we really turn away these refugees with a clear conscience?

My answer is emphatically no. We’ll all benefit from having open doors and open hearts in a world that has seen so much violence. If we turn our backs on Syrian refugees, like we did so many Jewish refugees fleeing the rise of the Third Reich in the late 1930s, we sacrifice all of the moral high ground and good will that we so often claim in the world.

I hope compassion wins out, and that we do take in a good number of Syrians who want safety and freedom and have had to wait, fight and sometimes die to have a chance to get it. We have so much to be thankful for in America, and in Vermont. How dare we pretend to live in a world of scarcity when our freedom, compassion and opportunities are so abundant?

Interlude

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We interrupt this brief sabbatical to say a word or two about today’s announcement that perennial GMD amusement, Bruce Lisman will enter the governor’s race as a…(drum-roll please)…REPUBLICAN!

Yes, Mr. Non-Partisan has finally traded his dog-whistle for a bright red soapbox; surprising no one.

We all knew what his tepid speechifying was leading to; ‘when’ was the only question.

Phil Scott’s presumed lock on the Republican nomination not withstanding, 2016 is really the best opportunity that Mr. Lisman will have to enter the arena, in the foreseeable future.

And what about that lock by the Lieutenant Governor? Could Lisman sense that Franklin County bad-boy Senator Norm McAllister’s refusal to go gracefully has party regulars up for a bruising in 2016?

As a political newcomer, Lisman can present himself as the clean-slate Republicans should flock to in the wake of Phil Scott’s demonstrated lack of leadership over the McAllister affair.  (No pun intended.)

In a year when Trump-fueled crazy has taken a decidedly anti-Wall Street turn in the Republican Party, it would not seem beneficial to have as one’s primary credentials, executive service at Bear Stearns and JP Morgan Global Equities; but I never could understand how the Republican denial factory works, anyway.

Republicans should have an interesting 2016, as Lisman squares off with Scott and the Franklin County GOP is forced to face their own inaction with regard to McAllister and all of the social hypocrisy that is involved.

Make no mistake about it, even though the citizen-led effort to unseat McAllister has so far been deliberately non-partisan in tone; come campaign time, the gloves are off!

Republicans have had ample time since the end of April to put their house in order.

Running under Shumlin’s nose?

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Vermonters probably wouldn’t fault or be shocked by a politician keeping the next campaign never far from his or her mind. And certainly not many would fault an office holder for wanting to keep their face in the spotlight and their ear to the ground listening to the public mood.

However I am left wondering if Vermont Lieutenant Governor Phil Scott hasn’t crafted a highly visible yet stealthy campaign for higher office that operates right under Governor Shumlin’s nose.

Scott’s “Vermont Everyday Jobs” initiative featuring the required Republican heavy emphasis on listening to businesses is designed to:

promote Vermont businesses and highlight the hard work that Vermonters do every day in all areas of our economy. By finding out firsthand, and in a hands-on manner, what it takes to make Vermont businesses work, the Lt. Governor will gain a better understanding of what state government can do to help those businesses work better. The tour will also help to facilitate relationships and ongoing dialogue between Vermont business leaders and their representatives in state government.

It’s hard to miss the genius of what Republican Lt. Governor Phil Scott, who bears more than a passing resemblance to the Discovery Channels’ “Dirty jobs” host Mike Rowe, hit upon with his “Vermont Everyday Jobs” Initiative. It’s a pre-chewed publicity package for cash strapped local media outlets, Facebook and social media. It is as if the last gubernatorial election’s contrived and awkward listening tours by former Lt.Gov.Brian Dubie had evolved legs or wings to emerge from the primordial ooze of past elections as a higher campaign life form to live among us year round.

Scott has so far spent his “Vermont Everyday Jobs” publicity outings gaining a better understanding of being an emergency department worker at a hospital, a worker on an electric utility power line crew, fast lube franchise oil changer, a solar panel assembler and spelling instructor at a K-2 school.

That’s six “Everyday Jobs” events under his belt (about one every 2 weeks) with more likely to follow in a steady series of press releases.   Maybe the concept came to him while watching TV.