[B]URLINGTON — Financial magazine titan Steve Forbes praised Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Lisman’s outsider approach to politics Friday during a fundraiser for the former Wall Street executive.
Forbes — who ran for president in 1996 and 2000 — hailed Lisman as a business leader able to reform Vermont state government, which he characterized as weighed down by inefficiency and old ideas.
“You got to bring things out there, and that’s what Bruce is doing here, explaining how we don’t have to have 5 percent spending increases when the economy is stagnating,” Forbes said before more than 100 supporters at the Burlington Country Club. “We don’t have to have ever-rising taxes. We don’t have to have education in the hands of bureaucrats.”
Pointing to Vermont’s tendency to vote Democratic, Forbes said a Lisman governorship would “send a shock around the world.” He added that Lisman’s platform — which includes reining in spending, lowering taxes and taking a free market approach to health care — “can provide a model for other states.”
Forbes spent the majority of his 20-minute speech discussing his prescriptions for the federal government, which include repealing Obamacare, instituting a 17 percent flat tax and handing a number of duties of the Federal Reserve over to private lenders and institutions.
Reflecting on the 2016 election, Forbes portrayed Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, as a flawed candidate who needs to start offering concrete conservative proposals.
“Bruce is running his own campaign, he doesn’t run Donald’s, and Donald’s doesn’t run his,” Forbes stressed.
Lisman said Forbes reached out to his campaign regarding the fundraiser, and the candidate made clear that he did not agree with the magazine editor on everything — including a flat tax.
The $75-per-person fundraiser featured wine, salmon and talk of golf.
Phil Scott, Lisman’s primary opponent, is running a decidedly more blue-collar campaign, and he has repeatedly criticized Lisman’s wealth and Wall Street ties.
Lisman brushed off any idea that the event portrayed him as an aristocrat, saying it was held at the Burlington Country Club because it was the “best place for easy parking.”
Before Forbes spoke, Lisman updated supporters with statistics detailing his hustle to win the Aug. 9 primary.
Lisman said he has met more 6,000 Vermonters across the state and the campaign has made nearly 50,000 calls to Republican households. Staffers and volunteers have knocked on more than 3,000 doors, and the campaign continues to send out mailers contrasting his positions with Scott’s.
Recounting the 26,000 miles he has logged on the road, Lisman joked that his campaign vehicle has become dilapidated.
“It used to be a nice car,” he said. “If there’s an auto dealer in the place, we need to talk.”
