Two political rallies Sunday in downtown Burlington drew partisan crowds of Republicans and Democrats. Each gathering – the first for Sen. Peter Shumlin, the Democrat running for governor, and the second for Republican Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie — was true to the style and focus of the respective campaigns.
There were no direct interactions between the noontime “March for Choice” organized by “Women for Shumlin,” and the “Pro-Brian, Pro-Jobs” rally held by the Dubie campaign an hour later, though both groups purported an interest in women’s rights. The Dubie contingent referred to the Shumlin march as an “anti-Dubie” rally.
The “Women for Shumlin-Women for Choice” rally was both a march for a cause and a show of support for Peter Shumlin, who has made clear his pro-choice stand. Gov. Madeleine Kunin, Sen. Susan Bartlett, and Planned Parenthood of Northern New England organized the event.
The march drew men and women worried about possible threats to family planning clinic funding as well as passage of new legislation that might limit access to abortion such as requiring parental notification.
The crowd of families, young adults and older social activists ranged in age from Elizabeth Wallman, 94, to Miranda Baruth, 6. They milled about at the top of Church Street around a table with cider and doughnuts, few of which were consumed during the noisy, talkative half hour leading up to the march. Dogs barked and children ran in and out, sometimes stopping to be introduced to a family friend, and then, with a good deal of whistling and cheering, the group proceeded down to City Hall with occasion shouts of “Choice Matters” to hear Gov. Kunin introduce Shumlin as a defender of the right to choose “when or whether to have children.”
The crowd, asked whether they cared about “jobs,” cheered heartily, then with the same energy when Kunin asked if they cared about “choice.” Kunin then drew a connection between the ability to work and earn a living: “A woman cannot work if she cannot make the choice, when or whether to have children.”
Madeleine Kunin: “A woman cannot work if she cannot make the choice, when or whether to have children.”
Here is where “we want to keep government out of our lives,” she added, drawing a contrast with conservatives “who want government out of people’s lives except when it comes to a woman’s right to choose.” With the crowd listening attentively, she voiced her central concern, the unknown presented by Dubie as governor: “We don’t know, because we haven’t had one (a “Right to Life” governor) since Roe v Wade was enacted in 1973.”
The crowd then heard from Rep. Rachel Weston and business-owner Melinda Moulton, both of whose sobering accounts—the first about the way a parental notification law could have prevented a young girl whose brother had gotten her pregnant from getting the abortion she wanted, the second about her mother’s death from a botched abortion in the days before Roe v Wade—led to their support for Peter Shumlin and their concerns about the availability of safe family planning and abortion services.
Shumlin laid out his support for a woman’s right to choose and his worries about the threat of having a governor who is anti-abortion “even in cases of incest or rape or the life of the mother.” In his remarks, he said to the marchers that it had been “an act of courage to be here today,” reminding his listeners of the history of violence against the Pro-Choice movement. He then called for a moment of silence in memory of Kathleen Smith, the woman recently murdered in Burlington, whom he said worked for social justice all her life. Shumlin’s speech ended with a call for unity: “One family, one Green Mountain state, one community.”
Later, as the crowd dispersed, Patty, a 27-year-old Burlington social worker who preferred to give only her first name, summed up her reason for coming. She’s not worried that Dubie would make abortion illegal, but “anytime you have people taking something away it creates an atmosphere that makes it seem like it’s not OK for women to get these types of services and then they can feel scared, they can feel stigmatized, even if it’s not even possible for it to happen. Even if it isn’t made illegal, the way the community reacts, the way the state reacts has a big impact on what people choose to do, what they feel OK doing.”
The invitation to the “Pro-Brian/Pro Jobs” rally was headed “Important Rally” and inside the campaign and inserted “Peter Shumlin is dividing Vermonters with wedge issues – distorting Brian Dubie’s record and positions, using scare tactics, and spreading mistruths to gain votes.” Thoroughly well organized, from the picket fence-worth of green and white “Brian Dubie for Governor” signs planted along the Battery Street side of the park to a small white tent where supporters could sign in and an excellent sound system, this rally made “jobs” the main topic, though all the speeches, except Dubie’s at the conclusion, were from women.
A lively crowd, including a sprinkling of 20- to 30-somethings, gathered to cheer Dubie on, but there were more self-described “senior citizens,” including an elderly man using an electric three-wheeler to get around, on the back of which he had mounted one of the large-size Brian Dubie for Governor signs. Small knots of people chatted and then Frank Cioffi, head of the Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation, introduced each speaker after the crowd had moved toward the bandshell. After saying he supports Dubie as “the innovation governor” who will be “respectful of the office of governor and respect the views and opinions of the people of Vermont,” Cioffi introduced Kris Bickford, a high school friend. She spoke most directly to the issue in the March for Choice, saying that she is pro-choice and supports same-sex marriage but that “not once has that impacted my vote for Brian because I believe that Brian will be the best governor this state could have.”
Friends sheltered under umbrellas together, laughing, cheering and clapping for nearly an hour more of why-I-support-Brian-Dubie speeches, both from women politicians—Sen. Peg Flory, R-Rutland, and Rep. Patty O’Donnell, R-Vernon,–and from women small-business owners Rachel Smith, a realtor whose family owns a real estate, construction and development company in Franklin County, and Sueayn Wood, co-owner of Moe’s Southwest Grill. Smith touted Dubie’s advocacy for entrepreneurs: “Let’s not get sidetracked by social issues.”
Flory cited the “need in Vermont for someone who understands the value of an honest day’s work and wants to help our businesses grow so that they can keep our employees with payroll.”
“Once our folks are working, then we can afford the programs that we all believe we ought to be able to provide for the most vulnerable,” Flory said. “Get the jobs first. Brian will do it.”
Wood, who sees this election as a matter of “values and integrity,” read a prepared speech in which she compared her business methods to running a household. She castigated the legislature for raising taxes over the governor’s veto “during one of the most serious recessions in American history.” She went on to blame unspecified tax increases for “flat” revenues at her restaurants. Crediting women for thriftiness during the recession, she drew laughter when she said, “We don’t go out and take extra vacations and buy new clothes and such, but the Vermont Legislature did. They continued to add new programs.” But, she said, “Brian Dubie wants to get his house, so to speak, back in order. Brian wants to pay for the must-have items in the budget and give his family, us Vermonters, a break from the continued increased governmental spending so that we can keep our own small businesses and our own families employed.”
Wood said she would like to be able to offer her employees “meaningful (health) insurance.”
“Brian has some great ideas for containing costs,” Wood said. “He wants to reduce services at all Vermont hospitals in order to contain costs and reduce redundancy” and introduce tort reform “to take away from the medical specialists the scare of being sued.”
Social issues occasionally took the stage, though rarely. Act 60, mentioned several times, is seen as the wresting of “local control” from school districts not as the response to a legal challenge to state funding of education requiring Vermont to find a way to fund schools around the state equally.
Patty O’Donnell described Shumlin as a “job killer” and “a spin doctor.”
Character issues, however, took the spotlight away from taxes and jobs when Rep. Patty O’Donnell, the representative from Vernon got up. The crowd responded with boos and groans of disapproval as she told a series of stories about Shumlin’s failure to show up at public meetings when local businesses, such as a nursing home, the Brattleboro Retreat, and C&S, the wholesale grocers, were in trouble. She described Shumlin as a “job killer” and “a spin doctor.” In her view, relicensing Vermont Yankee, which is located in her hometown of Vernon, is about jobs and she said she was disgusted with Shumlin’s comment that he is “just trying to get that company to be honest.”
The crowd laughed when she said the nation has spent “millions fighting obesity, (and) Shumlin came to a meeting in Vernon with a box of doughnuts.”
O’Donnell introduced Dubie as “a commonsense, realistic person,” who was interested in the “the most important thing” — job growth. Dubie gave his usual “stump speech” with a twist — he emphasized the “opportunity for our children” and said the “social issue of this campaign is that a Mom or Dad might lose their job.”
Did those turning out for these two rallies see most things very differently? Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that the issues that matter, at least as expressed at these two political rallies, diverge. No, in the sense that both sides see a “stark distinction” between the candidates, as a “Shumlin for Women” woman put it, or in Chris Bickford’s words, “there is no other choice.”
