As one astute observer in the student audience that filled the Vermont Public Television studios for Thursday’s debate put it: “I thought there were some interesting candidates, overall the most charismatic ones weren’t the most serious ones.”
“The most eye-catching were the ones that weren’t trying to win, but were just trying to get their ideology out there,” added Henry Atkins, 17, a senior at Rice Memorial High School in South Burlington.
The candidates who have the better chance to win — read Republican Scott Milne, Libertarian Dan Feliciano and incumbent Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin — all stayed with familiar themes.
Milne continued to accuse Shumlin of recklessness, while pledging to make Vermont more business-friendly. Feliciano touted his private-sector skills as an efficiency expert, which he says will allow him to cut government spending and improve the delivery of services.
Shumlin doubled-down on his message that single-payer health care will be a boon to the economy and help reduce growth in the health care spending, which he said is the biggest obstacle to job growth in Vermont.
The viability and sensibility of Vermont’s push toward a first-in-the-nation, publicly financed system received novel viewpoints with all seven candidates sharing their ideas.
Independent Cris Ericson said she would hold a referendum to ask Vermonters what percent of their income they would be willing to pay toward the system.
Then using the approved rate, she would implement universal health care through by a system of public hospitals.
Independent Emily Peyton, who hinted that this — her third run — might be her last, said more important than health care reform is addressing the root causes of poor health, such as poverty.
Feliciano pledged to stop Vermont’s march toward single-payer, allow individuals to purchase insurance outside the state’s Obamacare exchange and increase competition to drive down costs.
“Free market solutions work best,” he told the students and moderator Stewart Ledbetter of WPTZ.
Milne repeated his claim that “single-payer is dead,” and certainly can’t happen by 2017. The Republican has not come out against single-payer and, in Thursday’s debate, said that if in three-to-five years, other states have implemented single-payer, he would consider it for Vermont.
On divesting Vermont’s pension funds from fossil fuel companies, Shumlin said it’s “not the sharpest tool in the shed” to address climate change, but said he would keep an open mind.
Feliciano and Milne said they oppose divestment, and Milne said Vermont has far more pressing problems to address than climate change, while Feliciano said the state needed any investments that are turning a profit to shore up the retirement fund.
Much of the debate skipped rapidly from the questions that were asked to questions the candidates wanted to answer.
Liberty Union candidate Peter Diamondstone spun a question about whether to reorganize the Department for Children and Families to better protect vulnerable children, into a treatise on the culture of violence and then assailed the military industrial complex.
Independent Berard Peters, who styled himself as “about as grassroots as it gets,” was light on policy positions, but did say at one point that Vermont needs to reduce red tape for those looking to start a business in the state, or “they’re going to pass us by like roadkill on the interstate.”
Responding to a student’s question about what more Vermont could be doing to address opiate addiction, Ericson tried to turn the tables on Shumlin.
Ericson told the audience she had read online that Gov. Peter Shumlin had given $5 million to a ski resort that could have been used to battle opiate addiction.
“What about that Peter?” she asked the governor.
“Is it my turn or yours?” Shumlin asked.
Ledbetter deftly moved to the next candidate before the exchange matured.
To sum it up, a student audience member, Timothy Lewis, tweeted the following:
“What do you get when you cross 3 suits, jorts, a Duck Dynasty cast member, and a whole lot of sequins? The VT Governors Debate.”
