Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Democratic Attorney General Bill Sorrell — Vermont’s longest-serving statewide officeholder — cruised to re-election, fending off a challenge from political newcomer Shane McCormack, a Republican who got on the ballot after waging a last-minute write-in campaign.
With 55 percent of precincts reporting, Sorrell was ahead 59 percent to 37 percent, prompting the Associated Press to call the race for the incumbent.
Sorrell has been Vermont’s top law enforcement officer for 17 years. McCormack is a lawyer from Underhill who had never run for public office and enjoyed little name recognition at the start of the campaign.
McCormack, a 39-year-old father of four who works as a contracts lawyer at a small Burlington law firm, criticized Sorrell throughout the campaign for devoting too many resources to consumer protection issues and not enough to tackling crime related to the opiate trade in Vermont.
"I drove around to barbeques and different events, to spaghetti dinners and put on 10 pounds to try to convince people to write my name down, that I wasn’t crazy, that I was going to talk about real issues and not fringe issues," McCormack told Republican supporters during his concession speech. " And you know, I got [many] people to believe that."
Tags: Attorney General , Bill Sorrell , politics , Howard Dean , Image , Web Only
“There was a lot of honks and waves — and no middle fingers,” the second-term Republican said. “It gave me a little bit of hope — at least for the moment.”
On Tuesday, voters will decide whether to reelect Vermont’s sole statewide GOPer — or replace him with former Burlington legislator Dean Corren, the Progressive/Democratic nominee.
“I have no idea what’s going to happen,” said Corren, who spent Monday waving at passing motorists in Chittenden County. “I’m not even thinking about it.”
Neither, it seems, are many Vermont voters. Political observers anticipate low turnout Tuesday in what many agree has been the state’s least competitive campaign season in years.
With so few expected to journey to the polls, the results could be unpredictable.
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Wednesday, October 29, 2014
If you're not already four Gucci beers deep at the Three Penny Taproom, you've got at least one more opportunity to get sloshed on this year's low-key contests: tonight's final gubernatorial debate. Hosted by WPTZ-TV and taking place at 7 p.m. at the ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center, it'll feature Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin, Republican Scott Milne and Libertarian Dan Feliciano.
To help you along the path to political inebriation, Seven Days presents the 2014 Gubernatorial Campaign Drinking Game.
The rules are pretty basic. Simply take a drink every time:
Tags: politics , Peter Shumlin , debate , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Shay Totten, a former Seven Days columnist, identified Shumski as the the owner of the Twitter handle, @slappywhyte, in a post on his personal blog Tuesday morning. Tweets like the one below suggest support for the Tea Party.
Tags: Tea Party , Scot Shumski , Burlington , politics , school board , Image , Web Only
Friday, October 24, 2014
"It's kind of interesting that a couple weeks before the election, after having done nothing for years, they're finally finding religion on property tax reform," Rep. Kurt Wright (R-Burlington) said at the time. "I welcome that, but I think voters should always be wary of near-election-time conversions."
This week, House Democratic leaders appear to have found religion on another subject: the influence of money in politics.
After spending the last two years raising campaign cash from out-of-state corporations and in-state lobbyists, House Dems issued a press release Thursday complaining about the sudden influx of such money in support of Republican candidates.
Tags: campaign finance , cannabis related , Vermont Democrats , Vermont legislature , Willem Jewett , Image , Web Only
Thursday, October 23, 2014
And Sanders didn’t even mention Shaheen’s name.
The subject came up 40 minutes into the Vermonter’s stump speech, as he hailed the progress he believes women have made in American politics.
“In this state alone right now, you have a woman governor, you have two women United States senators and your two congressional seats are held by women,” he said, adding parenthetically, “And by the way, I hope very much you’ll return one of these women to the United States Senate, who’s doing a very good job.”
The rest of Sanders’ speech appeared focused on getting out the vote in another race: the 2016 presidential election.
His visit to Hanover marked his seventh day in New Hampshire this year — and his fourth this month alone. On Tuesday, he visited Keene State College and, later Thursday, he was scheduled to appear at Plymouth State University.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , Presidential Campaign , New Hampshire , Presidential Campaign , Image , Recommended Reading , Web Only
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Milne spends the first half of the 30-second spot attacking Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin over jobs, taxes, poverty, health care and the incumbent's out-of-state travel. He spends the second half pledging to clean up the mess.
Milne's campaign posted the spot online Tuesday afternoon and said a two-week, $79,000 ad buy would hit Vermont's four network television stations on Wednesday. Here's what it looks like:
Thursday, October 16, 2014
But it turns out the good people at Comedy Central are paying attention to Vermont, after all. They simply chose another bizarro campaign moment from Milne's growing catalogue of gaffes.
Last night's 'The Daily Show with Jon Stewart' ended with a clip of Milne stumbling to remember where he was born during last week's debate on Vermont PBS.
"Third generation, born in Vermont," Milne said, then paused awkwardly to amend his statement: "Ah, take that back, I was born in Brooklyn."
In all, it's been a banner week for mocking Vermont politicians. Numerous media outlets, including the Washington Post, and random people on the internet had a good old time skewering some of the lesser-known candidates, their outfits and the crazy things that they had to say during the Vermont PBS debate.
Everyone still convinced there's no such thing as bad publicity?
Tags: Politics , Scott Milne , Jon Stewart , Moment of Zen , Image , Video , Web Only
The vast majority of the two-term Democrat's $236,000 in spending went toward television advertising. In the first 15 days of the month, he paid $160,000 to run the ads, $44,000 to produce them and another $22,000 on polling.
Neither Republican Scott Milne nor Libertarian Dan Feliciano bought a single commercial. The former spent nearly $18,000 during the two-week period, while the latter spent just $3,451.
The two leading candidates in the race for lieutenant governor also amped up their spending. Incumbent Republican Phil Scott spent more than $73,000 — $50,000 of which went toward television advertising and nearly $18,000 to mailings. His Progressive/Democratic opponent, Dean Corren, spent $45,000 — $35,000 of it on television, radio and online advertising.
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Thursday, September 4, 2014
The conversation was not for public consumption. Held Thursday at the Hilton Hotel in Burlington, the lunch was an invitation-only affair. Left off the guest list? The press corps.
Seven Days obtained a copy of an invite sent out by David Sunderland, chairman of the Vermont Republican Party, and showed up to the event, but Sunderland did not allow the reporter to enter the room.
"Don't take it personally," he said. "It’s a private event for individual supporters of the party, and we wanted to be able to have open and frank discussions with our supporters as well as chairman Priebus, and we thought that would be better served in a private environment."
Who made that call — Priebus or the Vermont party? "It’s a good question," Sunderland said. "I need to refresh my memory and think if that was requested by them or by us. I don’t think that it was ever, I don’t want to misstate something. I guess you could say that the Vermont GOP decided it would be closed."
Tags: Republican National Committee , Reince Preibus , Scott Milne , David Sunderland , Michelle Obama , Burlington , Politics , Image , Web Only