Editor’s note: Hamilton E. Davis is VTDigger’s health care columnist and a veteran Vermont political observer.
[T]he 2016 election in Vermont is already noteworthy for several reasons. One is that it is already well underway, even though Election Day is more than a year away. Another is that it will test the proposition that the Republican Party is making a strong comeback after years in the political wilderness.
The answer to that question will come in the race for lieutenant governor, rather than some higher-profile contest, or series of contests.
The backstory for all this is the sudden reversal of Gov. Peter Shumlin’s fortunes in 2014. After winning a tight, five-way battle in the 2010 Democratic primary, Shumlin went on to eke out the narrowest of victories over the Republican Brian Dubie in the general election of that year.
In 2011, the new governor immediately launched a ground-breaking single payer health care reform project, as well as pursuing his campaign pledge to force a shutdown of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant. And he impressed the state generally in managing Vermont’s response to Tropical Storm Irene. Riding this strong early performance, he crushed a fully credible Republican state Sen. Randy Brock in the 2012 election.
The frost descended on Shumlin, and to some extent the Democrats generally, with startling suddenness in 2013. The triggering event was the administration’s failure to get the federally mandated health insurance exchange off the ground, which was followed by poor management performance across the board. The bill for all this came due in the 2014 election when Shumlin very nearly lost to a decidedly non-credible Republican opponent, Scott Milne. Shumlin would have lost if Libertarian candidate Dan Feliciano had not siphoned off a few thousand Republican votes.
In June, less than six months after pulling the plug on the financing side of his health care reform project in December 2014, Shumlin said he would retire from office, and the political realignment began.
The Republican moves were straightforward — Lt.Gov. Phil Scott would run for governor, and Brock would run for his seat. Bruce Lisman, a retired Shelburne financial executive is challenging Scott in a GOP primary, but will have an uphill battle, given Scott’s popularity and Lisman’s lack of political experience and exposure. In the race for lieutenant governor Brock could face a contest with state Sens. Joe Benning or Kevin Mullin, or both. So, a new leadership lineup for the GOP will emerge here.
On the Democratic side, House Speaker Shap Smith and former state Sen. Matt Dunne and a newcomer to statewide politics, Sue Minter, who served as secretary of transportation in the Shumlin administration are all vying for the gubernatorial seat.
The outcome of the governor’s race, both the primary and the general, will establish a pecking order on the Democratic side.
What is missing from this picture is a Progressive candidate. Rep. Chris Pearson of Burlington told Jasper Craven of VTDigger that the party would run candidates for governor and lieutenant governor in 2016, but this sounds like bravado. There is a big difference between a candidate and a serious candidate, and the party doesn’t appear to have the latter.
Even if the Progressives had a serious candidate, he or she would be a spoiler with limited statewide experience in a three-way race against the popular Scott, and one of three established Democrats.
If they don’t run a viable contender for the top slot, it’s hard to see how relevant the Progs would be without any presence at the statewide level.
The real test for Progressives will come in the lieutenant governor’s race. The question will not be whether they can get a Progressive candidate elected, as a Progressive. They can’t do that: any Progressive who is serious about winning will have to run in the Democratic primary, but Progressives have been doing that regularly in the past few elections. By continuing to use that pathway, they have a real chance to get a full-throated Progressive into a statewide office, albeit with a hybrid designation.
The strongest potential candidate for such a role is state Sen. David Zuckerman, an organic farmer who represents Chittenden County. He ran and won as a Progressive for several terms in the House; but when he sought a Senate seat in 2012 he ran in the Democratic primary. After winning the seat in 2012, he listed his party affiliation as Progressive-Democrat (P/D).
Zuckerman cannot formally announce his campaign because he hopes to get public financing for the race, and the rules prohibit announcing in that case before February. He has made no secret of the fact that he intends to run, however, and among his most salient comments on that question he has said that he would run in the Democratic primary, but that he would also seek a cross-endorsement by the Progressive Party.
In the Democratic primary he would face Kesha Ram, a Burlington state representative; and possibly Democratic state Sen. Philip Baruth of Chittenden County, or newcomer Brandon Riker of Marlboro. Both Ram and Baruth are every bit as liberal as Zuckerman, so the question arises: What would Zuckerman do if he lost in the Democratic primary but won the Progressive endorsement? Would he run he ran a third-party candidacy against the Democratic and Republican candidates?
I asked Zuckerman about that the other day and he said it was “extremely unlikely” that he would do so. He declined to elaborate on that, but it seems likely that he wouldn’t run as a third-party candidate unless the Democratic candidate was very conservative, or took positions strongly opposed to the ones Zuckerman favors.
If he were to win the Democratic primary, he would list his party affiliation as Progressive/Democrat, but his political posture clearly would be on the far left of the Vermont spectrum. He is a champion of issues such as the ban on genetically modified foods and the legalization and regulation of recreational marijuana for adults.
Either Zuckerman or Corren would be staunchly liberal on the issues, and they could describe themselves as P/Ds. But it would be clear to everyone that they would go nowhere without winning the Democratic primary. So, that’s about it for the Progressives. The outcome of the 2016 campaign will establish a new generation of political leadership in the state and if the Progs fail to get somebody into statewide office in the 2016 window, under whatever label, they won’t have much of a future.
Zuckerman looks like their best shot.
