Editor’s note: Trail tidbits is a new campaign column that will appear on occasion through the General Election.
Peter Shumlin appears to be on a roll. Last week he was endorsed by Jeffrey Hollender, CEO of Seventh Generation, a major national green corporation based in Burlington; over the weekend he was feted by authors John Irving and Stephen King; and today State Treasurer Jeb Spaulding not only backed Peter Shumlin for governor, but also compared him with President Barack Obama.
“Peter possesses a combination of traits that not many politicians have: a clear forward thinking vision and the ability to energize people combined with practicality and an understanding of what is realistic and, most importantly, how to get things done,” Spaulding wrote in a statement.
Spaulding, a Democrat who has managed Vermont’s retirement funds and its long-term debt obligations since 2003, served with Shumlin in the Senate.
He praised Shumlin for restructuring the retirement plans for teachers during the last session and for working with House Speaker Shap Smith and Gov. Jim Douglas to bring in “a balanced budget, adequate reserve funds, fully funded pensions, a workable solution addressing the shortfall in the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund, no broad based tax increases, reducing taxes on capital gains and estates for those who create wealth and jobs.”
“Peter Shumlin has the kind of experience that will make him a great governor in these challenging economic times,” Spaulding said in a statement. “A successful entrepreneur himself, he understands the risks, rewards, and challenges of being in business in Vermont, or any other state for that matter.”
Guber campaign redux
As of last Thursday, the five Democratic candidates had notched more than 30 forums on their scorecards. So far, Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie has attended one – at the Vermont Chamber of Commerce EXPO in May.
Though the gubernatorial primary candidates tend to agree to agree on most policy questions, each of the five Democrats are starting to carve out public policy niches for themselves. Meanwhile, Dubie, who takes an anti-tax stance like his mentor Gov. Jim Douglas, is gravitating to the middle on many issues, though his campaign was recently zapped by a third rail of politics in Vermont — climate change.
In the last week, Deb Markowitz launched JumpStartVT to prove her mettle as a pro-business candidate; Doug Racine picked up more lefty street cred with the third in a run of endorsements from unions; and Susan Bartlett, the budget maven, sounded themes of fiscal conservatism on the trail and launched The Bartlett Blog.
Matt Dunne, in an action-packed week, which started with the birth of his daughter Cora Leah Lawrence Dunne on June 14, included several forum appearances and ended with an early thumbs-up from the publisher of The Addison Independent, Angelo Lynn, for his “fresh voice and distinct ideas” on education, ag policy, energy and economic development.
Shumlin, meanwhile, is pressing for the green vote in a big way. In two e-mail blasts to supporters over the past week, his campaign touted his environmental record in the Senate.
In the first, sent out last Wednesday, Jeffrey Hollender, “Chief Inspired Protagonist” of Seventh Generation, vouches for Shumlin’s git’er done approach to environmental policy and cites the candidate’s climate change initiative in 2006, his push for a bill that paved the way for stimulus investments in green companies in 2008 and his efforts in the last session to deny Vermont Yankee legislative approval to operate past its shutdown date of 2012.
How Green is Dubie’s Valley?
In Shumlin’s second e-mail, with the subject line “Governor’s should be right the first time,” he accuses Republican candidate, Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie, of changing his tune on climate change in order to suit the mood of the Vermont electorate — post-BP oil spill.
“We need a Governor who believes that climate change is real every year, not just in an election year,” Shumlin wrote.
As you probably know by now, the Dubie campaign took a hit last week for changing a statement the candidate originally made a month ago about climate change.
Though his campaign manager, Corry Bliss, was quick to launch into damage control mode and downplay the import of what would appear to be a dramatic shift in policy, it still read like the first real mistake of the campaign to one observer, who said, “They played it so smart and so well for so long, this is really their first misstep.”
Here’s what happened. In response to a question about whether climate change is real, and if so, what would he do as governor to reverse climate change, Dubie gave the Vermont League of Conservation Voters the following verbatim response on May 27:
“On a September evening in 2006, I stood on a rooftop with one of the three Commanding Generals, overlooking the city of Baghdad. The city was beautiful at night, but it was not peaceful. ‘Brian,’ he (the general) said, ‘America has to declare its freedom from an oil that comes from dangerous parts of the world.’ Late that same night, in a Blackhawk helicopter flying at very low altitude, we left Baghdad for northern Iraq. I looked down as we passed over sleeping Iraqi villages, and I thought about the general’s words. ‘When I get home to Vermont,’ I thought, ‘I will make it a priority to find a way to move our state and our nation away from foreign oil. My policies will be formulated to protect and enhance our environmental security, our economic security and our national security.’”
What, if anything, did Dubie’s observation have to do with the alteration of the world’s weather system? Not much. Rumors began flying that Dubie was a climate change denier when the statement went live on the new Vote Green Governor Web site launched by the League on June 16. Terri Hallenbeck, a Burlington Free Press reporter, immediately picked up on the brouhaha; Dan Barlow at the Vermont Press Bureau piled on, and within 48 hours, Bliss, the lieutenant governor’s campaign manager, called Todd Bailey, the Conservation League’s executive director, to see if they could change the statement.
On June 18, Dubie wrote:
“I believe that scientific data clearly show that climate change is real, and as a result of human behavior, the world is getting warmer. Carbon emissions are playing a large role in the warming of our planet. We have to stop burning fossil fuels, which emit carbon into our environment. That won’t happen overnight, but we must make a commitment now to developing clean, alternative energy sources. Wind, solar, and biomass must replace the coal and oil we depend on as sources for energy.”
Is this a sudden change of heart? Is Dubie catering to voters? Is he a climate change denier? No, no and no, says Bliss on Dubie’s behalf. “His position absolutely did not change,” Bliss said. “That’s why I posted the clarification. Yes, he does believe it’s real and a result of human behavior. His record bears that out …. He has a track record for support for wind energy.”
That track record includes many statements in support of alternative energy and Dubie’s Green Valley initiative, which the lieutenant governor first described as a concept in 2003 for “making our state the Silicon Valley of environmental technology.” Dubie has used Green Valley as a touchstone over the last seven years and now again in his campaign, and he often cites the work of green-minded companies such as Clean Earth Technology of North Ferrisburg, which detects contaminated groundwater — though it’s unclear what Dubie’s initiative has, in and of itself, accomplished.
Both climate change answers from the Dubie camp are unsatisfactory in Bailey’s view. He found the first “puzzling” and “extremely vague.” The reference to a need to end America’s dependence on foreign oil is separate, he said, from the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels and the impact of carbon emissions on climate change.
“I appreciate him clarifying the response,” Bailey said. “We take these things at face value, and we’ll let the voters decide if Dubie is sincere in his answers. But if it’s this clearcut in the campaign, it’s puzzling to me why it couldn’t be included in first response.”
The second response, Bailey said, was a statement of values and didn’t include any policy initiatives.
“He has proven that he thinks renewable energy is important for Vermont, but it’s not clear if it’s good environmental policy or economic policy or both,” Bailey said. “His answers lack clarity on what he would do as governor.”
Lettuce Picking
Meanwhile, Dubie’s campaign manager, Bliss, says the Bob McDonnell fundraiser for the candidate in DC earlier this month brought in $7,500 – not $30k, as reported in The Washington Post.
“Unfortunately, my numbers are correct,” Bliss says.
As for the $800,000 he told The Burlington Free Press the campaign had raised as of two weeks ago?
“That’s just a snapshot of where we are,” Bliss says. “We couldn’t be happier with where our fundraising is.” He said the campaign will be delighted to release every detail to the public on July 15 when candidates are required to file campaign finance reports to the Vermont Secretary of State’s office.
Elsewhere, Shumlin went for the green (as in moolah) at a LBGT event in Boston last weekend, hosted by famed authors John Irving and Stephen King, and landed $15,000 in contributions for his campaign.
Back in Vermont, Crea and Phil Lintilhac hosted a dinner last night for Christopher Bray, a Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor. The event, held at Shelburne Farms, was sponsored by Marshall Webb.
One for the Gibber
And finally, Jason Gibbs will likely strike gold with a fundraising letter from Gov. Jim Douglas and the First Lady Dorothy Douglas. The pitch includes a rundown on Gibbs’ attributes as an administration official – first as the governor’s press secretary, then as communications director, secretary of Civil and Military Affairs, and finally as commissioner of the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation. (Gibbs began his affiliation with the governor on the campaign trail in 2002.) Douglas calls his former employee a “great friend” and an important member of Team Douglas.
In quotes for the pitch, Douglas enthusiastically throws his mantle to Gibbs. “Jason worked with me to make Vermont more affordable, create jobs and stand firm in the face of higher taxes.”
Douglas also lauded Gibbs’ efforts to make Forests and Parks more “effective, efficient and affordable” and said he had saved taxpayers $2 million and provided better services to visitors to state parks over the course of his year and a half tenure as commissioner.
“Jason’s leadership and commitment to fiscal responsibility is exactly what we need in our next Secretary of State,” Douglas wrote. “He understands – and has demonstrated – that government can do more good with fewer programs, limited regulation and fewer tax dollars.”
