Thursday, August 13, 2015
Though he continues to play coy about his political future, House Speaker Shap Smith (D-Morristown) has already filed paperwork indicating he's running for governor in 2016.
Those who raise or spend $500 in pursuit of public office must register as candidates with the Vermont Secretary of State's Office. Smith did so Tuesday, according to the office's online database.
In his filing, Smith said he was seeking the Democratic nomination for governor. He listed Sen. Claire Ayer (D-Addison) as his treasurer and former KSE Partners lobbyist Liz Sortino as a contact. Sortino, who briefly led the House Democratic political action committee last year, has been rumored as a likely campaign coordinator for Smith.
The registration form asks, “Running in this election?”
Smith wrote, “Yes.”
According to Ayer, Smith reached out to her more than a month ago to solicit her support. He called her “a couple weeks ago” to ask her to serve as his campaign treasurer, she said.
“I really think he knows how to lead,” she said. “He knows how to inspire action.”
Tags: Shap Smith , governor , Image , Web Only
Sunday, July 26, 2015
In the two months since Gov. Peter Shumlin said he would not seek reelection, Lt. Gov. Phil Scott has been cagey about his electoral intentions.
"I am considering it," he said last month of a potential gubernatorial run. "It doesn't mean that I'm going to do it. It just means I'm considering it."
That consideration appears to have grown more serious. In a fundraising letter that arrived in mailboxes around the state Saturday, Scott signaled that he has his eye on higher office.
"Vermont families are still struggling, which means we have more work to do, and I am preparing to step up and lead," he writes.
Tags: Phil Scott , gubernatorial campaign , fundraising letter , Image , Web Only
Thursday, July 23, 2015
According to spokesman Scott Coriell, the governor's position is nothing new.
“Had he been asked before all this, I’m sure he would have supported it as well,” Coriell told the Associated Press' Dave Gram, who first reported the development Wednesday.
"As best as I can recall, this is the first time the governor has been asked about this," Coriell told Seven Days in a separate written statement.
But Shumlin has been asked before — and declined to endorse the idea.
Tags: Peter Shumlin , ethics commission , Campaign for Vermont , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
When Tasini interviewed Sanders for the October 2013 edition of Playboy, the senator said it "would be tempting" to bring his platform to the presidential race, despite all the drawbacks. Asked whether he was ruling out a run, Sanders said, "Absolutely? 100 percent? Cross my heart? Is there a stack of Bibles somewhere? Look, maybe it’s only 99 percent."
Back then, that qualified as news.
Now that Sanders is a little more than one percent running for president, Tasini's offering another first: an election-season book about Vermont's two-term senator.
Chelsea Green, the White River Junction publishing house, has ordered up a 50,000-copy print run of the book, called The Essential Bernie Sanders and His Vision for America (192 pages; $14). According to Chelsea Green spokesman (and former Seven Days political columnist) Shay Totten, it's scheduled for release September 8.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , Presidential Campaign , Jonathan Tasini , Playboy interview , Image , Recommended Reading , Web Only
Thursday, July 16, 2015
Green Mountain Power spokeswoman Kristin Carlson will end her run hosting a new interview show on Vermont PBS after just two episodes, according to station CEO Holly Groschner.
Vermont PBS has faced blowback since it announced last week that Carlson, a former WCAX-TV reporter and anchor, would lead the half-hour program, called "Connect ... with Kristin Carlson." Critics questioned whether it was appropriate for a corporate spokesperson to fulfill a journalistic role at the publicly funded station.
After hearing from viewers, staff members and board members, Groschner said, she and Carlson discussed the matter Thursday morning and decided to part ways. Both characterized the decision as mutual.
"We agreed that probably the best approach is to look at other opportunities of how to accomplish our mission of connecting Vermonters with Vermont stories," Groschner said.
Tags: Vermont PBS , Kristin Carlson , Green Mountain Power , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
A novice politico raised nearly $103,000 for his lieutenant gubernatorial campaign in the first half of the year, though much of it came from his own pockets and those of his family members.
Brandon Riker, a 28-year-old Marlboro Democrat, donated nearly $60,000 to his fledgling bid, according to a disclosure filed late Tuesday with the secretary of state's office. Eight family members donated another $32,000.
"This is about building a grassroots campaign and engaging people in the process," Riker says. "The idea is going around the state talking to people one-on-one, and the money is just a part of it."
Riker’s hefty haul was one of the few surprises to come out of Vermont’s first campaign-finance filing deadline of the 2016 election cycle. Candidates who raised or spent more than $500 this year were required to disclose that information by midnight Wednesday. Another surprise was former Democratic state senator Matt Dunne’s announcement that he’d raised nearly $134,000 for his all-but-certain gubernatorial campaign.
As Seven Days reported in this week’s Fair Game column, Dunne accepted donations from more than 100 donors over the course of 10 days — including some from top Vermont Democrats and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. The Google executive, who lost a 2006 lieutenant gubernatorial race and a 2010 campaign for governor, claims he still hasn’t decided, for sure, whether he’ll run again.
Tags: Brandon Riker , Vermont , lieutenant governor , Image , Web Only
Sunday, July 5, 2015
Eleven-hundred miles west of Warren, Vt., Sanders and nearly three dozen supporters marched past low-slung, brick buildings in Creston, Iowa — a railroad depot with a population of 7,887 — and waved to the Union County residents crowding its sidewalks.
"In many ways it's similar," Sanders said when asked how the parade compared to those of his home state. "Very nice people. Yep."
"It's different. I mean, everybody knows him there," she said. "But there's a lot more folks that know him now."
Indeed. As Sanders marched by in a blue dress shirt, chinos, sneakers and a New England College cap, several spectators murmured, "Is that Bernie?" Others weren't as enthused.
"Hey! Socialism doesn't work, buddy!" one man yelled from a camping chair set up on a well-manicured lawn. "Give it up!"
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , Presidential Campaign , Iowa , Council Bluffs , Denison , Creston , Waukee , Storm Lake , campaign trail , Recommended Reading , Image , Web Only
Friday, July 3, 2015
"I don't actually have a question, Mr. Sanders. I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart," the Morningside College student said. "I'm [from a] third-generation union family. My 1-year-old son's on WIC. My two autistic siblings are on Medicare. And for the first time in my life, I honestly feel a candidate is worthy of my admiration and truly and politically who I am. I just want to thank you for that."
As the audience of more than 400 clapped its approval, Sanders sought to bring his supporters back to Earth.
"When you say that, it is very moving to me, but I have to repeat something. I want to make this clear: Guys, we are in this together. OK? I can't do it alone," he said, invoking the specter of capitalist forces he said were working against him. "These guys are just too powerful. But we can beat them when we stand together."
As Sanders works his way across the Midwest this week, evidence is mounting that a sizable portion of the Democratic electorate is standing with the 73-year-old presidential candidate. After 10,000 people showed up to a rally Wednesday night in Madison, Wis., Quinnipiac University released a poll showing that he'd more than doubled his support in Iowa since May, and trails Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton by just 19 percentage points — 52 to 33 percent.
And as he traveled from a 600-person gathering in Rochester, Minn., Thursday morning to the campus of Iowa Central Community College in Fort Dodge that afternoon, Sanders' campaign announced he had raised more $15 million in his first two months as a candidate.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , Presidential Campaign , Iowa , Sioux City , Fort Dodge , town meeting , campaign trail , Recommended Reading , Image , Web Only
Thursday, July 2, 2015
But Sanders himself wasn't eager to discuss his fundraising haul. Speaking at a town hall meeting in Fort Dodge, Iowa, the candidate upbraided the media for focusing on "gossip," not policy.
"Will the media allow a serious discussion about the issues? Maybe they will. Maybe they won't. I'm not sure that they will," he told an audience of more than 150 people at Iowa Central Community College Thursday afternoon.
"We need a massive jobs program. We need to raise the minimum wage," he continued. "Do you think those will be the issues that the media will talk about? Or will they be polls? And we're doing pretty good in the polls. That's good. But that's not the major issue facing America. How much money we raise — we're doing OK in that — but that's not the important issue."
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , presidential campaign , fundraising , Iowa , Fort Dodge , Recommended Reading , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
“In case you haven’t noticed, there are a lot of people here,” he said.
On the day his chief rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, broke an early-campaign fundraising record, Sanders broke one of his own.
“Tonight we have made a little history. You may know that there are some 25 candidates running for president of the United States,” he said. “But tonight we have more people at a meeting for a candidate for president of the United States than any other candidate has had.”
Those people were definitely feeling the Bern.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , Presidential Campaign , Madison , Wisconsin , Scott Walker , Recommended Reading , Image , Web Only