Gov. Peter Shumlin speaking in Rutland on Sunday. VTD/Eli Sherman
Vermont Progressives greeted Gov. Peter Shumlin with a standing ovation at their quarterly steering committee meeting in Rutland on Sunday. Though the next election is more than a year away, early support from the Progressive Party during his first term is crucial for Shumlin’s re-election bid.
Winning the hearts and minds of Progressives is essential. That’s because the party, though small, has had a major impact on the outcomes of past statewide races. In 2008, Anthony Pollina ran as a Progressive against Gov. Jim Douglas and Democratic challenger Gaye Symington. Pollina finished second — by a tenth of a percent ahead of Symington.
In 2002, Shumlin ran against Pollina and Republican Brian Dubie in a three-way race for lieutenant governor. Dubie won that early contest. In last year’s race for governor, Dubie lost to Shumlin by 4,300 votes.
The Progressives dropped out of the gubernatorial race in the last election cycle, and four of the five Democratic primary candidates sought endorsements from the party. Once Shumlin won the nomination, he had no trouble wooing voters from the left, largely because he was in sync with the Progressive Party’s top priorities – single-payer health care and the shutdown of Vermont Yankee.
Shumlin is the first governor to address the Progressive Party State Committee meeting.
Martha Abbott, chair of the party, said Progressives care more about issues than partisan politics.
“If the governor and the Democratic leadership take our issues and fight for them and campaign for them in the Legislature, we win, because winning on the issues is how Progressives define winning,” Abbott said.
In his address to party members, Shumlin restated many of the talking points from his stump speech and emphasized core Progressive issues, including decriminalization of marijuana, sustainable agriculture, health care as a human right and support for public education.
“If you can teach me how to read, you can teach anyone to read,” Shumlin said. (The governor is dyslexic.) “We must be the education state, and we will be.”
The governor defended his budget cuts to human services programs, which included reductions in funding for the Area Agencies on Aging and developmentally-disabled Vermonters who are cared for at home. Shumlin reiterated his belief that Vermont’s tax rates are too high and wealthy residents are leaving the state as a consequence.
Shumlin promised the audience that he had no interest in going to Washington (presumably as a congressman).
“Washington is paralyzed,” Shumlin said. “Nothing good is going to happen there. Other states seem to be too scared to make the changes necessary. Politicians from all parties are so concerned about getting re-elected, they don’t want to make the tough decisions.
“So here’s my promise. I never want to go to Washington. That would be my idea of hell. I don’t want to do it. I never want to be the president of the United States. I’ve done the state Legislature and I’m not going back there. So, all I ask you is, work with me to get some real things done.”
Editor’s note: Anne Galloway contributed to this report.
Correction: The Progressive Party’s state committee meeting was its quarterly meeting. It was previously reported as its annual meeting.
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Governor Shumlin’s agenda was a disguised Republican plan full of favors for the well off and pain for the middle class and extraordinary pain for people fighting to stay alive. Remember the “my job is to create more millionaires” statement? I remember.
Maybe the Progressives should live and act as progressive or better yet, vote like Representative Pierson. It is a long way until November 2012
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It was the quarterly meeting of the party’s steering committee, not the annual convention.
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The Progressives should follow the lead of Representative Chris Pierson. I hope the Pregressives keep all their options open for 2012.
I was glad to donate $500 to the Progressive Party because there needs to be alternative Progressive ideas as we address health care and the state budget.
It is easy to be back dog on the sled because the view never changes, but If you move to the lead dog the view is challenging. I have never been a good back dod.
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As a progressive , I agree with Martha Abbott. We care more about issues than politics.
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It’s always about politics. When they say “it’s not about politics” that, too, is politics.
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Wally, thanks for the catch.
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As I stated in an email to Anne Galloway Shumlin’s presentation to the Progressive meeting was the rhetoric of a stump speech – a wish list which seemed at odds with the harsh realities of our collapsing economy. I did not give the Governor a standing ovation but rather polite sitting applause. Shumlin contradicted himself from one moment to the next. In response to the question as to whether or not he was a Reaganite supply-sider, a trickle-downer because of his budget cuts to programs for the disabled and elderly while maintaining a sacrosanct policy of not taxing the 190 million dollar windfall realized by the richest Vermonters,Shumlin first said that he was the only Governor who could “see New Hampshire” from where he lived (shades of Sarah Palin), and that he definitely knew of rich folks leaving the state rather than pay a higher tax. A moment later he stated rather testily that the wealthy were “not fleeing the state!” But the highlight of the session was not the Governors ‘dog and pony show’ but a very cogent presentation by a progressive economist whose name I unfortunately cannot remember. I’m dismayed that the Vtdigger correspondant did not even mention this most substantive talk but instead reported political vagaries of little substance. This presentation occurred before the Governor arrived which is a pity because it put the lie to Shumlin’s economic agenda. In the matter of the rich fleeing the state because of a fairer share of tax burden, a cited study showed conclusively that this was not so. It was also brought out, in a very understandable power point presentation, that austerity measures such as firing state workers and cutting social programs inevitably exacerbate the recession because the primary engine of economic recovery, consumer demand, is stifled. The economist also stressed the fact that the state has been lax in borrowing money (issuing bonds) for job creating infrastructure projects, at a time when interest rates are historically low. Although he didn’t use the term the presenter was advocating ‘Keynesian pump priming’ as well as a surtax on the wealthy to minimize the pain among working Vermonters. This approach is also advocated by Nobel prize winning economists Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz. I despair of my Progressive colleagues who were so impressed with Shumlin’s ‘pep talk’! Shumlin like Obama is a captive of neo-liberal myths about the economy and has bought into the ‘balanced budget’ austerity paradigm of the right-wingers who do not understand the difference between ‘productive deficit spending’ i.e. education, infrastructure, healthcare – all of which produce multifold social value in the long run, as opposed to pouring money down a rat-hole i.e. the war in Afghanistan, Iraq, the 175 military bases around the world, the Defense/War budget. As a Progressive, I feel emphatically we must play our ‘gadfly’ role to the hilt, where Governor Shumlin is concerned and not quail, and not hesitate to hold his ‘feet to the fire!’
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It is true that most of the members of the Vermont Progressive Party State Committee who were present gave Governor Shumlin a standing ovation when he arrived.
That probably had more to do with the fact that he actually kept his promises on health care and Vt. Yankee. It may be true that any Democratic Governor would have done so, but the fact is that he did it.
Probably there was also some celebrating that for the first time a leading Democratic office holder has recognized that when the two parties can work together Vermonters win – rather than the too often public position of the Democratic Party that the Progressive Party should just go away so they can make “realistic” deals with Republicans.
However, Eli Sherman did your readers a diservice with a shallow article which seemed only interested in what was good for the Governor rather than what happened at the meeting. As Al Salzman points out above we spent 1.5 hours discussing the reality of the Vermont economy, what can create jobs and encourage the right kind of development in our state. That was followed by a lengthy discussion led by Senator Pollina and Representative Pearson on developing the VPP’s ecommic program for the next session of the legislature. All of these ideas run counter to the trickle down econmics frame that the Governor seems to embrace on taxes and economic issues.
Nor did he report that when Martha Abbot read the questions that we wanted the Governor to answer they all challenged his reluctance to even discuss raising revenue to help solve the problems in the state.
If you want to see what the Progressives actually stand for, and participate in shaping our economic plan, vist our website at VPP.org
We have come to expect more from Vt Digger.
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An article that says nothing of substance, quotes political rhetoric without holding it up to even minimal scrutiny, whose one quote of anyone in opposition is an innocuous generalization (“…winning on the issues is how Progressives define winning”), an article such as this is the very definition of propaganda. Vtdigger you have made a very poor impression on this first-time visitor.
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The picture of the meeting shows a lot of empty spaces in the seating.
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I have to agree that this article does a pretty poor job of representing the substance of the meeting. In particular, the economist to whom Al Salzman refers, Jeff Thomppson of the Political Economy Research Institute, played a significant role in shaping the agenda, and his perspective was reflected in many of the questions posed to the governor. At issue is the governor’s fundamentally flawed perspective on the role of revenue in balancing our economy. The Governor still stubbornly resists embracing that role.
For a very different perspective on the Progressive meeting, please read my post on Green Mountain Daily:http://www.greenmountaindaily.com/diary/7952/the-governor-meets-with-progressives
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Hello all,
Thank you for all your comments.
I have been in touch with the presenter Jeff Thompson from the meeting and per him sending me a variety of material yesterday afternoon, including the powerpoint from the meeting, a full report of his research on the economy will be coming out later this week.
Best regards,
Eli
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While Shumlin has been pretty good and fairly consistent with respect to the goal of establishing a health care system in the state and working to shut down VY, like his counterpart in NY who is a fiscal reactionary, Shumlin refuses to raise taxes on the wealthy and chooses instead to cut social programs. This is a major disappointment. No progressive can support such an irresponsible and flawed policy.
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We have to somehow find the impossible way to change the way we finance our campaigns. When we can democratize that process the billionaires (however they got their money) will no longer need to be coddled.
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“Shumlin promised the audience that he had no interest in going to Washington (presumably as a congressman).
“Washington is paralyzed,” Shumlin said. “Nothing good is going to happen there. Other states seem to be too scared to make the changes necessary. Politicians from all parties are so concerned about getting re-elected, they don’t want to make the tough decisions.
“So here’s my promise. I never want to go to Washington. That would be my idea of hell. I don’t want to do it. I never want to be the president of the United States. . .”"
Remember these words. Anyone who has followed Shumlin’s career in the slightest knows that he has already forgotten them. Anyone who thinks Shumlin has satisfied his electoral ambitions by being Governor of Vt. is kidding himself. And the only place to go from here is to Washington.