[W]hen considering his political future, Scott Milne can often seem stuck in the past.
The Republican political novice who almost upended a heavily favored, two-term Democratic governor last year is flirting with running again in 2016, possibly for the U.S. Senate, where he’d be taking on the deeply entrenched, seemingly unbeatable Sen. Patrick Leahy.
Last week, in an email to reporters, Milne challenged Leahy, the longest-serving senator in Vermont history, to run a $100 campaign. It was an idea that harkened back to the legend of George Aiken, who famously spent $17.09 on his final Senate campaign in 1968. Milne’s grandfather worked for Aiken in Washington in the 1940s and his mother, Marion Milne, championed campaign finance reform in the Vermont House in the 1990s.
“If he wins a $100 election, it would do great things for Vermont. I’d argue that it’d be one of the legacy achievements in his career,” Milne said. The 75-year-old Leahy was first elected in 1974.
Milne says the amount of money in politics is “preposterous,” that, for example, the upcoming New Hampshire U.S. Senate race should not cost by some estimates $30 million. With a seemingly safe seat, Milne says Leahy shouldn’t need to hold $5,000-a-person fundraising events like he recently did in Burlington.
The 56-year-old travel agent says Leahy can’t “run around and say Citizens United is terrible, money in politics is terrible, and I’m having a fundraiser for $5,000 per person. That’s hypocrisy.” Citizens United is a widely criticized 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision on campaign financing.
It’s not clear whether Milne is trying to tweak the senator or if he is seriously considering a run. Milne said he has spoken to the national Republican Senatorial Committee, who told him he’d need to raise $7 million. He says there’s “about a one in three chance” he’ll take on Leahy, and that if he does (and Leahy rejects his offer), Milne says he would not be spending millions. Instead, he said, he would run the same kind of low-key campaign he did against Gov. Peter Shumlin with mostly volunteers. He said he wouldn’t rely on significant fundraising, he didn’t have a set list of public policy proposals to discuss, and that he would make mistakes. If the media “want somebody who’s going to give the same answer to every question, go interview (Democratic candidates for governor) Matt Dunne or Sue Minter, it’s clear that’s their style.”
Milne also said he is considering a run for lieutenant governor, which would pit him against former state Sen. Randy Brock in a primary. “I think primaries are good,” Milne said.
In an interview at his South Burlington travel office, Milne repeatedly railed about how the press and pundits had not taken him seriously in the 2014 governor’s race, that some still mocked and laughed at his campaign, despite his near win. While none of the experts had given him a chance, Milne said in “talking to people on street corners” he knew the 2014 race would be close. And he said, so did Gov. Shumlin.
“I don’t think too many people in the media knew what was going on, but a lot of other people did,” he said. Milne finished 2,400 votes, or 1.3 percent, behind Shumlin in a race ultimately decided by the Legislature because no candidate received 50 percent of the vote.
Milne disputed the notion that he harbored resentment about the punditry and media coverage of the 2014 race and how he continues to be treated like a pariah by some of the people and leaders within his own Republican Party.
He said he was not focused on the past, settling scores or on more recent slights.
“I’m not reliving the 2014 (race), but I think you and all your buddies saying nobody thought – you’ve even got (political commentator) Chris Graff on TV last week laughing and saying even Scott Milne was surprised. I called Chris Graff to have a conversation with him and he doesn’t even bother to call me back. So that’s not reliving the 2014 conversation, that’s saying to Vermonters: ‘Take with a grain of salt what Mark Johnson tells you and what everybody else tells you and make sure you find out what’s going on when you vote in 2016,’” he said.
Milne added: “I don’t think (the coverage was) unfair. I mean, I don’t think people are out to get me. I don’t think it’s a fairness thing. I think it’s a competence thing. And I think people learn from their mistakes.”
Milne also cites examples of prominent Republicans who still don’t take him seriously enough to return phone calls and treat him like the Rodney Dangerfield of Vermont politics. One who says he learned his lesson is Lt. Gov. Phil Scott, now running for governor, who underestimated Milne and acknowledged he hasn’t always been treated with respect.
“I was guilty the last time of not giving Scott Milne enough credit and I’m not to make the same mistake again,” Scott said.
“I think that he felt as though, he had more confidence in the last election, obviously, than many others gave him credit for, so I think his complaints are somewhat legitimate, that he feels as though if people had given him more respect and actually helped more that he would have succeeded,” Scott said. “And you know, maybe guilty as charged. I was very surprised. That’s a known fact that I didn’t give him enough credit. I didn’t think he had a chance, but he proved us all wrong and I think he deserves an enormous amount of credit for what he did and the issues he brought up and he’s certainly a credible candidate.”
Vermont Republican Party chair David Sunderland said: “Based on 2014, I’ll never doubt Scott Milne on the direction he wants to go and how he wants to go.”
“I would love to see him involved in another campaign,” Sunderland said. “Only he can really decide whether this is the right time, and if it is, which office is the right one to run for.”
At a Vermont Republican Party fundraiser Friday night, Milne’s son led the Pledge of Allegiance prior to the dinner and talk by presidential candidate and Ohio Gov. John Kasish. Milne also attended.
Milne said Leahy’s “Achilles heel” is being part of the Washington establishment and that 2014 governor’s race was a “harbinger” of the current political success of outsiders like Donald Trump or insurgent presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“To some extent, you can look at the 2014 governor’s race in Vermont, which I happened to be in the right place at the right time, admittedly, but I think that was sort of a predictor, a harbinger of what we’re seeing on the national stage right now,” Milne said.
Milne said he almost won last year because many either didn’t like the governor’s policies or if they did, they thought he was a bad manager. Milne says he never raised questions about Shumlin’s character.
Milne said the “textbook” and the political experts will argue he has little chance in a presidential election year when turnout is higher, in a strongly Democratic state, against a longtime incumbent like Leahy, a member of the Appropriations Committee.
Longtime political analyst Eric Davis, a retired political science professor at Middlebury College, said he would expect Leahy to get at least 60 percent of the vote given his popularity, organization, and fundraising abilities. He also said Milne could expect little if any financial support from national Republicans.
“My completely unsolicited advice to Scott Milne would be to use the goodwill he accumulated in 2014 to help Phil Scott, Randy Brock and Republican legislative candidates in 2016,” said Davis.
However, Milne, who verbally pepper-sprayed the political analyst during the governor’s race on charges of incompetence, said: “It’s been a strange year already. I would argue it’s worse to be an incumbent that’s got your fingerprints on the mess we’re in as a state and as a country than a Republican in a primarily Democratic state in 2016.”
Meanwhile, Leahy’s campaign says he will continue to hold fundraisers in case an opponent is able to tap into a super PAC. Campaign manager Carolyn Dwyer says Leahy has $2.2 million on hand.
“Senator Leahy has been a forceful critic of the Citizens United decision and has been leading the efforts to overturn this ill-advised decision,” she said. “Until such time, he follows the law as it exists. Having had many close decisions, he takes no election for granted.”
Dwyer said Leahy’s first four elections were “close.” In 1974, Leahy won by 3 percentage points over Richard Mallary, by 1.3 percent over Stewart Ledbetter in 1980. In 1986, Leahy beat Richard Snelling by 29 percent, and in 1992, he defeated Jim Douglas by almost 11 percent.
In 1998, Leahy “defeated” Fred Tuttle, getting 72 percent of the vote. In 2004, he won 71 percent over Jack McMullen and 64 percent in a race against Len Britton and others in 2010.
Milne said he’s never voted for Leahy, who he says is “a great Vermonter. He’s done a lot of good things. I have a lot of respect for him, but I don’t think he’s going to go down in history as one of the top two senators from Vermont” along with Aiken. Leahy won Aiken’s seat after Aiken decided to not seek re-election in 1974.
“He’s got some liabilities. He’s got much better assets and positives than Peter Shumlin, but he’s beatable,” said Milne. “Everybody’s beatable.”
