[P]hil Scott, the state’s Republican lieutenant governor, mailed a letter to 20,000 Vermonters last week because, he said Monday, he is “getting more serious” about a gubernatorial run.
While friends have urged him to run, Scott wants to find out “how real the support is.” The letter, which was sent to addresses of residents across the state he’s collected over time, is an attempt to garner support — financial and psychological — “outside his circle” of boosters.
Scott says he may send out a “second wave” of 20,000 letters in the next couple of weeks. Each mailing costs between $10,000 and $15,000, and will come out of his roughly $98,654 campaign warchest, most of which is a carryover from his 2014 run for lieutenant governor.
Whatever response Scott gets in words of encouragement or cold hard cash, it will not go to waste even if he decides not to run for governor, he says. The governor’s race was thrown open with the announcement by Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin that he will not seek a fourth term in 2016.
Scott says he has “every intent” of running for something, but he has “an eye” toward the Fifth Floor.
He will decide “internally” whether he will launch a campaign after Labor Day and make a formal announcement later in the fall, he said Monday.
In the meantime, he is getting a sense of his electability through informal polls of individual voters.
People come up to him wherever he goes, Scott said, and ask him if he’s running.
Saturday, it was two “liberal Democrats” at the Onion River Century Ride who said they appreciate his common-sense approach and his understanding of financial issues in business and state government.
Their praise was unsolicited, he said. Unlike most politicians, Scott doesn’t glad-hand and work a crowd.
“It’s mostly people coming up to me. I try very hard to try to put myself in their shoes,” Scott says. “They don’t want to be interrupted.”
His message, he says, is what people want to hear.
The state, Scott says, needs a fiscal “reality check.” In the letter to constituents, he tweaks Democrats for not listening to voters in the last election.
“Vermonters sent Montpelier a clear message: Fix property taxes, fight tax increases, mend a broken health care system, and give us all a sense of optimism for a bright future in the state we love,” Scott wrote. “In the aftermath of the election, many politicians claimed they heard the message ‘loud and clear,’ and for a while, it even seemed like they took it to heart. But the proof has never materialized.”
He then sounds a familiar theme that he has campaigned on as lieutenant governor: Vermont’s “crisis of affordability.”
It’s a message he believes resonates with voters.
“The costs of living — from health care to property taxes to monthly bills — are rising faster than paychecks,” he wrote. State government needs to shrink, and the economy has to grow, he says.
“We must grow the economy to provide more job opportunities, attract working families, slow the migration of our youth out of Vermont, and help balance the state’s budget,” Scott wrote.
Scott is among a crowded field of potential candidates, including Bruce Lisman, a Wall Street executive and native Vermonter who would likely run as an independent and potentially siphon Republican votes from Scott.
There are at least three Democrats in the discussion: Sue Minter, secretary of the Agency of Transportation; Matt Dunne, a former state senator and Google executive; and House Speaker Shap Smith.
