If you thought Gov. Peter Shumlin had enough to worry about — an ambitious single payer health care plan, post-Irene stressers like the new state hospital and the reconstruction of the state office complex, not to mention worrisome pension liabilities — think again. The governor from Putney is also eyeing the big time fundraising/head honcho position at the Democratic Governors Association.
Paul Heintz, political reporter for Seven Days, reported last week that Shumlin has all but sealed the deal, and is looking at a December ascension to the post, i.e. after he is presumably re-elected in November.
If this seems like something of a pattern, well, it is. Shumlin is one of a string of Vermonters who have split time between the Fifth Floor and D.C. Gov. Jim Douglas, a Republican, was head of the National Governors Association, after all. Gov. Howard Dean took the helm of the DGA back in the day.
Jack Lindley, chair of the Vermont GOP, however, sees Shumlin’s aspirations as a sign that this means the first-term governor will become a part-timer. Moreover, based on Heintz’s report which states that the DGA chair’s primary responsibility is to raise millions of dollars from major corporations, Lindley describes “the job of the DGA Chair … as a bundler of undisclosed corporate donations for Democratic Governors around the country.”
“This is the ugly truth,” Lindley said in a statement. “At a time when health care costs are going through the roof, energy prices are skyrocketing, jobs are fleeing, and along with them an entire generation of young people who must leave to find a decent job, we need a Governor who is going to concentrate of fixing the problems of Vermonters rather than ‘hangin’ with DC big shots and running around the country handing out undisclosed campaign contributions.”
