Erik Mason is a behind-the-scenes pol who appears to be more comfortable cheerleading from the sidelines for the GOP’s frontrunner candidates – Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie, who is running for governor, and Mark Snelling and Sen. Phil Scott, R-Washington, who are vying for the office of lieutenant governor — than he is talking about the Republican platform or the candidates’ stances on issues.
The young political operative – he is only 30 – comes across as confident, smart and unassuming. Though he wears a suit and tie to the office, Mason doesn’t project the stereotypical clean-shaven GOP look — he sports a Miami Vice style beard.
Getting Mason to talk, however, is something of a challenge. It’s not that he’s particularly taciturn or distant, he’s just reticent in typical native Vermonter style: He doesn’t say more than he has to, and so questions tend to elicit one-sentence answers.
He boils down the state GOP’s platform, which sounds familiar refrains regarding a moratorium on new taxes and burdensome government regulations, to “making government as efficient as possible.”
Mason said in reference to the platform posted on the party’s Web site: “If you’re talking to someone, and they ask, what does the GOP stand for, it’s a document you can point them to, and it outlines broadly what the party believes.”
Mason reflexively defers to the GOP candidates when asked what the party’s stance is on difficult issues facing Vermont, including the $151 million budget deficit, the relicensure of Vermont Yankee and declining revenues.
That said, Mason doesn’t come across as an anti-government partisan. “We need to decide what we want government to do and then figure out how to pay for it,” Mason said.
When asked if Dubie will be participating in debates against his opponents in this election cycle, Mason suggests again that it’d be best to ask the candidates. (Dubie studiously avoided debates in the 2008 lieutenant governor’s race and has yet to appear at a single gubernatorial forum – though one of his campaign workers appeared at a forum in Newport recently to videotape the Democrats in action.)
“I don’t know,” said Mason, “I haven’t been told he is going to by anybody.”
Mason is in charge of all statewide GOP activity, and he came to the role shortly after Gov. James Douglas’ re-election bid in 2008, after a two-year stint as a party campaign worker. He has never run for office, and his work as a volunteer and paid campaign manager for the Vermont chapter of the Republican Party is the extent of his political experience.
Mason was born and raised in Barre, and after graduating from Spaulding High School in 1997, he headed southwest for college. He studied political science while attending Arizona State University and graduated in 2001.
He returned to his hometown shortly afterward and almost immediately began working for the party.
In 2006, he worked for Douglas’ re-election campaign, and to his chagrin, stepped into the lime light while conducting pedestrian-level opposition research: He was accused of misrepresenting himself when he videotaped Democrat Scudder Parker speaking before a group of students in a political science class at the Community College of Vermont. Afterward, the instructor, Laura Rubenis, told The Rutland Herald she didn’t know Mason was a GOP campaign worker.
“Mr. Mason did not honestly present himself or his motives, nor did he state his intentions to me or the institution’s administrative staff prior to class,” Rubenis wrote in a complaint to Douglas’ re-election campaign.
Douglas’ former campaign manager, Denise Casey, told The Herald: “They could have refused to be taped, and Erik would not have taped.”
Mason says he identified himself, and the instructor gave him the A-OK.
Then-chairman of the party Rob Roper appointed the 20-something Mason to the executive director’s position following Douglas’ successful re-election.
“We videotape each other all the time,” Mason said. “The Democrats do it; we do it. If people come up and ask, we always tell them who we’re with. I haven’t seen any issue since.”
Mason was elevated to deputy campaign manager for Douglas’ 2008 re-election campaign, and he was put in charge of the GOP’s House and Senate races that year.
Though some of the chairs were rearranged, the party held onto the same number of Senate seats (7 out of 30) and lost one House seat (down to 48 out of a total of 150). The GOP picked up a Senate slot in Franklin County with the election of Randy Brock and lost a Caledonia County seat to the Democrats.
Mason’s job was to rally the base, and his efforts as the chief organizer of the legislative races were successful enough to set up his appointment to the top leadership position in the Vermont GOP office. Then-chairman of the party Rob Roper appointed the 20-something Mason to the executive director’s position following Douglas’ successful re-election.
Since he was appointed to the top job, Mason has been focused on the legislative races and developing support for Dubie. The GOP has a candidate for secretary of state, Chris Roy, but has yet to tap talent for the attorney general and treasurer positions. State Auditor Tom Salmon recently switched loyalties from the Democratic Party to the GOP.
“My job is to basically help support current elected [GOP] officials,” Mason said, “to make sure that we get more Republicans elected across the state and to help get current candidates re-elected.”
In addition, Mason is working with newly-elected Party Chairman Steve Larrabee to shape the mission and the party’s state structure from the county committees to the executive committee.
The Republican Party has several thousand members, and its activist base is in Barre, Rutland, Shelburne and Burlington, Mason said. The 14 county committees, which oversee 160-170 town committees, meet monthly. He said town organizations are very important because it’s at the local level that new people get involved in the party.
“I help with working out the direction that (Larrabee) wants to take the Vermont Republican Party,” Mason said.
Though the GOP has held the offices of the governor and lieutenant governor for four consecutive terms, it has failed to gain the other statewide positions – attorney general, treasurer and secretary of state in the last eight years. (This fall, however, Salmon’s defection gave the GOP an inadvertent triumph.)
GOP dominance in the House and Senate has proved elusive. The two chambers of the General Assembly have been held by Democrats for some time – the House since 2004 and the Senate since 1996.
Mason said, “We’re definitely looking at every House, every Senate seat and we’re recommending the best candidates we can get.” He has his eye on Rutland, Franklin, Orange and Caledonia counties, which tend to trend conservative – and the three seats in Windham, Lamoille and Chittenden counties left open by Senate Democrats who are running for governor.
GOP dominance in the House and Senate has proved elusive. The two chambers of the General Assembly have been held by Democrats for some time – the House since 2004 and the Senate since 1996.
Still, Mason believes the GOP’s prospects in the upcoming election cycle are sunny. He is confident Republicans will hold onto the two top executive positions (he pointed to Dubie’s recent birthday fundraiser that 500 people attended) and the auditor’s office, and he says the party has a good chance of picking up the secretary of state’s office, which longtime holder Deborah Markowitz is stepping away from to make a bid for governor.
“It helps us, being an open seat,” Mason said.
He is confident Republicans will hold onto the two top executive positions (he pointed to Dubie’s recent birthday fundraiser that 500 people attended) and the auditor’s office, and he says the party has a good chance of picking up the secretary of state’s office.
With anti-incumbency attitudes gripping the nation, Mason is even setting his eyes on Vermont’s senior Democratic senator, Patrick Leahy, who is running for a 7th term in Washington in the upcoming 2010 midterm elections.
“I think it helps in the Senate race against Pat Leahy,” Mason said about the anti-incumbency attitude. The GOP is backing Len Britton of Woodstock against Leahy. Britton is the owner-operator of Britton’s Lumber, Landscape and Feed in Taftsville.
Mason sees himself as the Vermont GOP cheerleader. As he puts it: “We are just trying to get people motivated. We’re just trying to get people fired up and involved in the campaign and get them to see how important 2010 is going to be.”
