Jon Margolis is VTDigger’s political columnist.
There’s a bit more than first met the eye to this business of Gov. Phil Scott making it clear the other day that he and the leader of his own party in his own state are not political soul mates.
Though it isn’t the first sign that Scott is planning to seek a third term next year, it’s another indication. Because if he is running, he had no choice but to put plenty of space – if not an impermeable barrier – between himself and Deb Billado.
Not after her 947-word screed about “the mob of hate-crazed, fear-driven people” who oppose President Donald Trump and investigated Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. No one associated with such sentiments can win a statewide election in Vermont.
So Scott dissociated himself. He did it gently, without denouncing Billado. He called the message she placed on the state party website “unfortunate.” And it wasn’t as though he put out a statement. He spoke at a press conference, in answer to a question, almost two weeks after her message appeared. He had to say something.
But he seemed to have expected the question, and while his response was not harsh, it was firm. His point was clear: I’m not with her.
Or, he might have added, hers. Because Billado seems to be speaking for most members – or at least most of the active members – of the Republican State Committee. But not, it seems, for most Republican elected officials, starting with Scott.
Or for Senate Minority Leader Joe Benning, R-Caledonia, who said, “I disagree with the tenor of what was said. The language would not have been my preference.”
Benning is the Senate Republican Caucus’s representative on the Republican State Committee, but he said he has delegated that task to Sen. Cory Parent, R-Franklin. Benning said neither he nor Parent saw Billado’s statement before it became public.
Elected officials and party leaders often see the world differently. To get elected to public office, candidates usually have to win the votes of people who are not wedded to every jot and tittle of their party’s platform. Party leaders do not; they just have to win the support of party activists, who tend to be the most faithful ideologues.
The result is that in some states the leaders of both parties owe their positions to these ideologues. A party chair can find him/or-herself a former party chair by seeming to be too willing to compromise or take a nuanced position. The chair’s constituents – members of the state party executive board and the county party chairs – tend to be true believers with no truck for compromise or nuance.
Elected officials, on the other hand, risk not being re-elected if they are too uncompromising or if they treat all opponents as enemies rather than adversaries.
Besides, compromise and civility are required if an elected official is going to help govern his or her state, county or city. In Vermont, most Republican members of the Legislature, even though they are in the minority, do show every sign of wanting to help govern the state. They act as though that’s part of their job. It is.
Democratic legislators (with some exceptions, of course) tend to act the same way in the statehouses of Utah, Alabama and North Dakota, where they are in the minority.
“We work on a daily basis with people with whom we have different viewpoints on how to solve problems,” Benning said. “In the committee process we try to reach consensus. We don’t stand up and call each other names.”
For Vermont Republicans, the long-term danger reflected in the Billado statement is that it goes way beyond being extremist and uncivil. It’s irrational, bordering on lunacy.
With talk about crimes being committed by “evil” Democrats and a dark plot that fraudulently concocted the notion that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, Billado endorses (without using the term) the allegation that a “deep state” conspiracy is out to undermine President Trump.
This is America. There is no deep state conspiracy because there is no deep state. There are federal agencies that have to be watched lest they abuse their power. Sometimes they have. That does not constitute a deep state.
This state – Vermont, no adjective needed – needs a Republican Party that not only is rational but is so perceived by the electorate. For the most part, it has one. Phil Scott has no deep state delusions, and it is safe to say that of the 49 Republican legislators (six senators, 43 House members), somewhere between zero and three of them would endorse Billado’s outburst. Billado is “only” the state party chair. Most Vermonters, no doubt, have never heard of her (or of her Democratic counterpart Terje Anderson).
Still, this kind of absurdity from a senior party official, endorsed or at least tolerated by the rest of the State Committee leadership, can do the GOP’s reputation no good. Because majority parties always do, Vermont Democrats will get into trouble one day. A scandal. A major blunder (there have been some minor ones). Or just the intellectual sclerosis that comes from being in power too long.
When that happens, it would be better if the other party were playing with a full deck.
