Freyne Land

Good Monday afternoon! And the sun is certainly shining bright on Burlington, Vermont. I wish I was out biking. But I’m here...blogging.

About the U.S. Senate race? Are you serious? It’s been over for quite awhile even if whatshisname's commercials go on ad nauseum.

But I don’t decide the Senate Minority Leader’s schedule and if Barbara Boxer wants to come to Burlington, Vermont, heck, come visit!

Standing-room only at Contois Auditorium at City Hall - upstairs and downstairs. A very pro-choice, antiwar crowd as you might imagine. Barbara was here to stump for Bernie Sanders, the soon to be famous Vermont Independent United States Senator.

As someone who was also kicking around City Hall on that March 1981 night Sanders won the mayor's office - by 10 votes - I've  had quite the political life to cover. There is only one Bernie Sanders and the U.S. Senate is in for a treat.

The nooner at City Hall was a well-run pep rally and a very lively one.

Bernie looked into his crystal ball and imagined the changes in the current one-party rule on Capitol Hill November 7 might bring. Vermont’s Sen. Patrick J. Leahy would become chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. And Bernie paid particular attention to the chairmanship of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

“Right now there is a gentleman named James Inhofe of Oklahoma who chairs that committee. And Mr. Inhofe has the profound view that global warming is one of the great hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American people. This is a man who chairs the most important environmental committee in the United States Congress. Well, guess who’s going to replace him?” shouted Sanders. “It’s going to be Barbara Boxer!”

Sen. Boxer told the upbeat audience she can’t wait to hear Bernie’s “sweet tones” in the U.S. Senate next year.

“This is a subservient Congress,” said Boxer. “This is a rubber stamp Congress in the House and Senate,” she said, “and it’s dangerous for America.”

I dare say most Vermonters would agree with her, eh?

Meanwhile did y’all catch the piece on NPR’s Morning Edition about the self-funded Republican candidate in the race whose incessant deluge of negative, grouchy, slanted, insulting attack  ads are driving normal Vermonters on all sides of the aisle nuts?

I know because they call me, or email me, or stop me on the street to voice a complaint.

Can't blame 'em.

Richie Rich, you've certainly made an impression.

*Please note - 2 updates and links added at 5 p.m. Saturday*

Holy mackerel!

No one could possibly have predicted this: that two-term GOP Gov. Jim “Scissorhands” Douglas - a fellow with more than 30 years in some kind of paying political office, would suddenly risk what had appeared his most assured reelection to a third term on November 7 over that Democratic challenger - the ex-minister and renewable energy whiz...whatshisname?

Oh, yeah, Scudder Parker - the only major party candidate for governor since I got here (1979),  who actually grew up on a Vermont dairy farm.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, imagined Gov. Douglas would suddenly publicly align himself with Rep. Rich Pombo, one of the most right-wing, ethically-challenged and anti-environment Republican committee chairman in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Chairman Pombo represents the 11th District of California. It’s near Stockton.

This week, Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas wrote his fellow Republican an absolutely shocking-by-Vermont-standards letter. In it Douglas expresses his “concern” about the pending New England Wilderness Act.  In fact, it’s a very blatant attempt to give Pombo some local cover to kill the Wilderness Act in the House, even though it passed the Republican Senate unanimously after five years of extensive research and public hearings by the U.S. Forest Service.

Our Gov. Jimbo is reaching out to Chairman Pombo to derail a Wilderness Act that will protect Vermont and New Hampshire for our kids and their kids and their kids? Very strange.

So who is Pombo, the new friend of Vermont's governor? The anti-environment committee chairman hasn’t exactly been a household word in Vermont.

"Mr. Pombo's only idea [selling public lands], and it is a terrible one, is to treat this nation the way he treats his Congressional district, as if it were ripe for exploitation." ---The New York Times, 10/30/05

"If there were something called the dangerous species list, Richard Pombo would be on it. He's the misguided California congressman who wants to take a meat ax to the Endangered Species Act." ---Charlotte Observer, 9/29/05

"a virulently anti-environmental congressman" ---St. Petersburg Times, 10/26/05

"Pombo has shown that he's willing to sacrifice our public lands rather than be a steward of them." ---Modesto Bee, 9/28/05

Today, Vermont’s editorial pages had the same view of Chairman Pombo and his new link to the governor of Vermont.

Our Pulitzer Prize winning Rutland Herald published an editorial titled “Wild Politics” :

"In writing the letter to Pombo, Douglas may have been seeking to please the special interests who have opposed new wilderness in Vermont, mainly loggers and sportsmen's groups. But if the bill runs aground among the anti-environmental Republicans of the House, Douglas will have to answer to the vast majority of Vermonters who were pleased to see the Senate advance a plan to set aside wild lands in Vermont forever."

And even the Gannett-chain’s Burlington Free Press editorial was on the same page:

"Ultimately, this is about the future. It is about protecting the land for our children and the children who come after them.

The Green Mountain National Forest, a swath from Addison County to the Vermont-Massachusetts border, represents just 6 percent of the state's total land, but it looms large in the imaginations of Vermonters and many of the 70 million other Americans who live within a day's drive of it.

Let's protect this great natural resource. Let's allow some of it to just be wild, without our all-terrain vehicles and trucks and general human intrusions."

But we’d suggest that the wisest words of the morning came from an old Capitol Hill source who sent us this insightful email:

“Nice to see [Douglas] got hammered in today’s edits, but my guess is that the Pombo letter idea came from the nasties. I would think the last guy Douglas would want a favor from (sure to be known publicly) is Pombo. Parker should put an ad up tomorrow linking Douglas with Pombo and it would be over.” 

Frankly, we were more than a little surprised Ol’ Scudder, Douglas' Democrat opponent, didn’t call a presser on Friday to highlight all this.

Strange.

And it’s reflected , we’d suggest, in the fact the WCAX Poll (Douglas 53 - Parker 38) found 38 percent had "no opinion" of Scudder Parker - probably because they do not know who the hell he is! Hey, Scudder, it's called "free media."

Of those who knew of Scudder, he was viewed favorably by a 2-1 margin (40-22).

Douglas, meanwhile, was 53 percent favorable and 43 percent unfavorable.

Very interesting.

************************************************

*UPDATE 1*

For the most part, the Freyne Brain is only able to wrap itself around Vermont's political world and that of my beloved United States of America.

So I've been reading up on the guy my governor wants a pre-election favor from. This Salon piece by Michael Scherer titled "The Pombo Mombo" is quite informative - you've just got to view their damn ad to read the whole thing (and all of Salon).

*************************************************************************************************

**Update 2**

Did a spin around Burlap on the two-wheeler. Farmer's Market downtown, Church Street Marketplace, Old North End, Hill Section, UVM and down Spear Street and around behind Pizzagalli and WCAX-TV to Shaw's for the salad bar! You know, the one without the stools to sit on?

Maybe that's why the most frequent personal question I get these days is: "Hey, Peter, have you lost a lot of weight or what?"

Nice question to be getting, eh?

The rain held off - it's was nice. Two basic comments stood apart and I heard them from people I've known for years and readers who know me from "Inside Track" and wanted to say hello and share something that was really bugging them:

1. "Look, I've voted Republican in the past, but I am sick and tired of those Tarrant ads. They insult my intelligence!" 

2. "What was Jim Douglas thinking when he suddenly comes out against the entire Vermont congressional delegation on the Wilderness Act at the last minute?  Just before the election, too."

Thanks, folks, for sharing. Nice to chat.

*Updated 11:30 a.m.*

**Political Birth Announcement Below That**

Actually it’ll officially occur at three minutes past midnight tonight. If spring is your season, you need to think Argentina.

Hey, former Ch. 3 producer/reporter Brian Byrnes is in Buenos Aires - I could hook you up?

Here in Vermont, the equinox is coinciding with an unusual event - Bob Kiss,  the quiet Progressive Mayor of Burlington, Vermont is holding a City Hall presser at 10 a.m.

According to the two-sentence announcement we received in an email yesterday, Mayor Kiss is going “to make an important announcement regarding the city’s finances.”

Treasurer Jonathan Leopold and Chief Accountant John Stewart will be at his side.

I like mysteries, don’t you?

Check back, eh?

***************************************************************************************************

*Update 11:30 a.m.*

Mayor Bob Kiss, the second leftist successor to Mayor Bernie Sanders (1981-89), happily announced, "The City learned late yesterday afternoon that Moody's reconfirmed the city's bond status at AA3. The people of Burlington and the City Council should take pride in retaining the high rating."

That smiling face to da' Mayor's left is City Treasurer Jonathan Leopold. Mayoral assistant Joe Reinert is in the corner.

"This rating," said Kiss, "is a direct result of important steps taken in designing and approving the FY07 budget and reflects Burlington's economic strength and vitality."

The "important steps" include a new city sales tax and a 4 cent increase in the property tax approved by the City Council.

Next Monday the City of Burlington is planning to sell $8.5 million in bonds. The biggest chunk, $3.6 million, is going to give Burlington High School the "sewage-free" athletic field it has long deserved. About time, eh?

**************************************************************************************************

A New Vermonter Along the Potomac!

According to reliable Capitol Hill sources, Democratic strategist and frequent political TV talk-show guest Jenny Backus is no longer pregnant. That’s because John Wallace Pagano has entered the world! Entry weight: 7 pounds ounces and 4 ounces.

Young John’s papa is Big Ed Pagano, chief of staff for Vermont’s senior United States Senator - Patrick J. Leahy. Papa Ed played center on the UVM basketball team (1981-85).

Parents and infant are doing great.

Young John, by the way, has excellent political genes. He is the grandson of former State Senator Jan Backus of Winooski.  Jan of Arc served five terms in the Vermont Senate in two separate tours - one from Windham County and one from Chitttenden County. Grandma Backus had her eye on Washington, too, running twice for the U.S. Senate seat held by Jeezum Jim Jeffords.

Congratulations to Jenny, Ed and Grandma Jan!

*End of the Day Update added below*

I’m still hoping to make the Barre Opera House Debates that certain interesting business associations are putting on this evening, but I just got off the phone with someone I haven’t talked to in a while. In fact, I haven't seen him face-to-face since Ronald Reagan was sleeping in the White House.

That someone is Francis my older brother (by 10 years).

He and his wife of 40 years are in Lake George looking for fall color. We’re meeting in Middlebury for lunch. They’re out East from California visiting oldest son Seamus in the Big Apple. I haven’t seen Seamus since he was an infant and we were playing on my parents bed, bouncing around, and all of a sudden he bounced off. There was silence. I thought I’d killed him. I still remember the frightening feeling rushing though my teenage body. But then he started crying and his mom came in and I was able to breathe again.

Seamus did OK. Got his Ph.D. Another sibling did too, And two more became doctors. Hey, a good old-fashioned Irish-Catholic upbringing, eh?

“Bub” is what I called my brother when I was a wee lad growing up on Maple Street in Hartsdale, New York. He and sister Maureen were products of my dad’s (the old IRA squad leader from 1920-21)  first marriage to his sweetheart from back home in Co. Kilkenny, Ireland. Dad had come to America in 1928. Then he went back in 1935 to collect his bride. They settled in the Bronx. She died around 1944. Son Francis went to a nun-run boarding school. Daughter Maureen went to live on Clinton Place in the Bronx with my future mom and her mom (from Co. Mayo). My mom’s dad, a butcher shop owner from Co. Tipperary, had died of a heart attack in the 1930s.

I didn’t arrive on scene until late in 1949. My mom and dad had married the year before, and bought the house in suburban Hartsdale. The former IRA man, captured, sentenced to death and then set free by the 1921 peace treaty had become a CPA. Also taught night school two nights a week at Iona Collage - Irish Christian Brothers were frequent Sunday dinner guests on Maple Street. You can bet the memories are flooding in this morning.

“Bub” was considered a genius by many and an oddity by some. Quiet and studious was he with a voracious appetite for reading. He graduated Iona Prep in New Rochelle in 1956 - first in his class and captain of the track team. Then four years at Manhattan College studying electrical engineering and more track. Then Berkeley on a fellowship for his M.A. followed by UCLA for a Ph.D in physics and a life working on secret things for Uncle Sam.

Incidentally, I remember in the late 1950s he would run daily. In the cold weather he'd wear waffle long johns. At the time, he was the only one in town jogging along the roadside. Most folks thought he had a screw loose. How times change, eh?

I remember about 1959 when he was in college and I was in grade school, Bub took me to a Sunday doubleheader at Yankee Stadium. It was the Age of Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford. The second game went 15 innings and when we got home (via Woodlawn subway and the bus up Central Avenue) my mom was hysterical with worry. Bub hadn’t thought to call home - the game was on WPIX after all. And besides he was busy. Not watching the game or keeping a box score, but busy studying his physics and engineering textbooks and playing with his slide-rule as we sat in the upper deck behind home plate.

Hey, I had a blast.

One other thing - his nickname in the caddy yard at Scarsdale Golf Club - “Swish.” You see, he brought his text books to the caddy yard, too. I had no idea what “Swish” meant back then. At 10, I didn’t even know what straight-sex was. And when I hit the caddy yard in the early 1960s after Bub’s caddying career ended,  Caddy Master Jimmy Rocco started calling me “Little Swish.” He’d giggle and others would join him, but I hadn’t a clue as to the sexual innuendo. I was just happy to get the loop and the cash it produced.

While at UCLA working on the physics doctorate in the early Sixties, Bub joined a Single-Catholics club in Los Angeles. Met Pat, a Santa Monica native, and married in 1965. I was 15 and his best man and it was a great trip.  Visited again for Christmas in 1967. I remember I had a drivers license by then and got to explore L.A. before the smog rolled in. We also visited San Fransico where I spent every free hour walking around Haight-Ashbury, absolutely wild-eyed at what I was seeing, but too scared to participate. Hey, I was in a seminary at the time studying for the priesthood, fergawdsakes.

I graduated college in 1971 - Loyola University of Chicago. By then the Vietnam War had divided the country and divided my family. Needless to say Ol’ Bub, working on secret stuff for Uncle Sam, was not fond of long-haired antiwar protesters who did not go to Mass on Sunday, of which I was one. I recall an exchange of rather snotty letters that year and then a very long silence. Life goes on, eh?

Never saw the California Freynes again until 1986 when they surprised me by popping up in Burlington for my wedding reception. Then two years after that, I saw Bub and sister Maureen at my mom’s funeral in Florida. Since then it’s been Christmas cards. And Maureen, in Santa Fe these days painting, tells me Bub hasn’t kept in touch with her.

Ah, family!

Irish Catholic family. The 1950s. Black and white TV. Priests who spend more time praying than molesting. Looking back, it feels like another age - so much has changed.

I guess that over lunch in Middlebury today, I’ll see how much hasn’t.

***********************************************************************************************

*Update 9:30 P.M.*

There they are - three of the California Freynes: Brother Francis, his daughter Brigid the doctor and wife Pat. We met at Tully's & Marie's. It was sunny as you see and we sat on the deck for almost two hours. A little catching up to do.

A special moment on a special day. Forgive me if I don't have a lot of words right now. There was just so much going on feeling-wise.

And I did make it to the Barre Opera House tonight. Missed the Peter Welch v. Martha Rainville debate, but caught Rich Tarrant's act. He debated solo since Bernie Sanders stayed in Washington where Congress is in session. Nonetheless, given his glibness and lack of depth, it's tough to call Richie Rich the winner.

And the finale, the Jim Douglas v. Scudder Parker debate, showed quite the contrast between the two. It didn't come up in tonight's 30-minute event, but the breaking story of the night  is about how Jimmy D. contacted Republican House Committee chairs to kill the bipartisan New England Wilderness Act that the Senate approved Tuesday without objection. This could be the opening Ol' Scudder has been dreaming of.

A Vermont governor opposing the state's congressional delegation on wilderness protection?

Amazing!

If only Vermont's Republican governor was also against tapping wind energy to fill a potion of the state's energy portfolio, Scudder might have a real upset chance, eh?

What?

Gov. Scissorhands is already against wind energy?

This is getting interesting.

*Correction added at the end regarding Thursday's Opera House Debate Sponsorship (12:45 p.m.)*

It’s a Seven Days Wednesday, but I’ve got to tell you, this is one political columnist who’s glad he’s got a blog.

Catch the Vermont Public Radio debate last night?  Republican Gov. Jim Douglas' first campaign face-to-face with the opposition: Democrat Scudder Parker and that Liberty Union guy.

About 15 minutes in, I realized I was feeling relieved that I had not written Ol’ Scudder’s political obituary in this week’s Seven Days column. Not quite. Left a door open, as they say.

My Scudder moment, described in the column,  was in the barber’s chair on lower Main Street on Monday. Terry and Sue’s place - Main Street Barbers (for years they were Ron Corey’s A-Team over on College Street - we’re talking back to he Mayor Sanders days of the 1980s, folks. Hair was brown).

Sue is married, lives in Essex Junction. Dare we describe her as "middle-of-the-road" (by Vermont standards) mainstream America? And she talks to a lot of heads with hair on a regular basis.

But Sue the Barber told me she has never heard of Scudder Parker! Ever! And she has absolutely no idea what the guy stands for. None!

Folks, if it’s 50 days before the November election and a Main Street, Burlington, Vermont licensed barber has never heard of the Democratic candidate for Vermont governor, wouldn’t you say it’s over?

But I held off, knowing Ol’ Scudder’s first TV spot was about to air and the first face-to-face debate was about to happen (Tuesday evening on VPR after “Inside Track” went to press.)

Glad I held off, because Ol’ Scudder was right in Gov. Scissorhands face and scored some points in that VPR debate. Wait till he really starts nailing him on his antiwind power position, eh?  Parker, you see, is no lightweight in the knowledge and experience department. But it is his first run for statewide office, something Jimmy D's been doing since 1980 (secretary of state).

The Sanders for Senate weekend tracking poll that Republican Richie Rich Tarrant’s fans dispute (Tarrant was at 27 percent approval after almost nine solid months of expensive and delusional TV commercials), tells a very different story in the Guv’s Race.  Republican Douglas widened his lead over Democrat Parker (54-31). However, the Douglas folks did not question the poll’s accuracy like the Tarrant folks did. Those numbers were just fine with them.

Of course, the 54-31 number came after a week of Gov. Scissorhands running a nasty ad attacking Scudder. The Douglas crew  had a camera guy video Parker speaking to a Community College class. Then they slo-moed the tape to make him look stupid. Folks, Scudder Parker is a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them.

Tuesday night's VPR debate has postponed any early Scudder Parker political-obituary writing. In fact, after what we heard last night on the radio, this baby could get very interesting. And I swear I detected a little nervousness in a few of the Guv's responses. The next debate is Thursday evening at the Barre Opera House at 7:30. It's just a half hour. A pro-Douglas, anti-Democrat business PAC is sponsoring it and taping it for airing on WVNY-TV on an upcoming Sunday morning in October. They're also taping a congressional debate at 6 P.M. and a Senate one at 6:45. Organizer Joe Sinagra just told me he's not sure Bernie can make it. The Sanders folks, he said, have not confirmed yet.

Hey, I have never been to the Barre Opera House, how about you?

Post Script:  Thank you for yesterday’s “Tuesday Feedback” and suggestions. I agree with those who say let’s keep things wide open and not require ID and registration to post comments. Hey, who reads the comments anyway?

Just kidding.

Like in life, I’m still learning as I go. And after Tuna’s comment (aka UVM’s Dr. Alfred Snider, on sabbatical in Europe) I checked the site-meter in the lower left corner (you can, too) and learned we’ve got a few international “Freyne Land” readers clicking in from Paris, France to Seoul, Korea to Moscow, Russia, Lisbon, Portugal and Vienna, Austria and more.

And this “unknown country” keeps popping up. I’ve always suspected it’s a certain old regular  “Inside Track” reader and former column character by the name of Gasoline Vallee - the Bush administration’s current U.S. ambassador to Slovakia! Do check out the Bratislava embassy website and you can see and hear the man who made a name for himself by putting fresh flowers in the clean bathrooms of his Maplefields convenience store/gas stations.  Cool!

Some will say Ol' Skip bought his ambassadorship and indeed a case can be made and is made at opensecrets.org. He was after all, a Bush Ranger in 2004. But as far as we know ambassadorships have been bought for a long time under Democratic administrations and under Republican ones, too. It's just that the Bush Team has been a little more up-front about it. They don't hide the "For Sale" signs.

As we wrote in a Track column back in early 2005 before he landed the ambassadorship to Slovenia, oopsie, Slovakia: Gasoline Vallee told Seven Days that his personal generosity sets a good example for fellow Republicans. "When I call and ask people to give their dollars," he explained, "it assists my entry to say I've done it myself."

And he really is a nice guy, too. Ex-hockey player from St. Albans.

************************************************************************************************

*Correction Regarding Barre Opera House Debate Sponsorship:

The official debate sponsor is an outfit I never heard of before called the “Vermont Coalition for Employment & Prosperity.” Unlike the spanking new Vermont Business Coalition Political Action Committee that formed just one month ago, VCEP does not have a website, according to its spokesman Joe Sinagra of the Vermont Homebuilders, who is also the spokesman for VBC and our debate contact, too!

VCEP, said Sinagra, is a business association that's been around, he guessed, "about six years." It’s made up of member business associations:  Realtors, Homebuilders, Grocers, Auto Dealers, Forest Products, VT Chamber, Petroleum, Farm Bureau and Fuel Dealers etc. They are also members of the new VBC PAC of which Mr. Sinagra is also our contact person. That’s where things got confusing. One guy - three hats at once!

Not in the VBC PAC but in VCEP, said Sinagra, are the Burlington-based Lake Champlain Chamber, the Vermont Hospitals Association and the Vermont Retail Association.

Got that?

The VBC PAC has targeted 56 House Democrats and 1 Prog under Montpeculiar's Golden Dome. In the process the new biz pac has pissed off a whole lot of Ds, the vast majority of whom are assured reelection. VBC PAC members will likely have a real fun time lobbying the Democratic majority next winter as a result. Maybe that’s why the Lake Champlain Chamber, the Hospitals Association and the Retail Association stayed out of it?

Also, Big Joe told us the price tag to produce and air the Opera House debate is $14,000.

Good morning!

Today, Tuesday, is the day I spend writing "Inside Track" for the Seven Days print (and online edition). It'll be out and up tomorrow morning. So newswise, that's where my mind will be today.

But I wanted to write this "Big Picture" post to get some feedback from you guys and gals. Until a few weeks ago, the blogoshpere was virgin territory for me.

Look, I love criticism. "Inside Track" started in the Burlington-based Vermont Vanguard Press back in 1981, a couple months after Bernie Sanders won the mayor's race by 10 votes over the incumbent Democrat Gordon Paquette. Those who recall those days will remember the column was not popular with da' mayor nor with his Prog supporters who vented their anger regularly in Vanguard letters-to-the-editor trashing yours truly.  In the 1990s we zeroed in on the Self-Righteous Brothers. Anyone remember them?

Unlike blog responses of the present, folks put their names on what they wrote. Some have done so here, too, but most use fake-IDs. Hey, believe me, after doing this for the last quarter century, I've got a pretty thick skin. Besides, getting called every name in the book is what real columnists want. Trust me.

Flashback - Summer 1976.

Location -  Southbound on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. "The Magnificent Mile" as it's known.

Transport - Behind the wheel of Cab 2706,  a leased red-white-and-blue American-United    taxi.

Time - About 5:30 P.M. Evening rush hour.

I'm stopped at the southbound lights at the crosswalk between the Tribune Tower to my left and the Wrigley Building to my right. (The pic at right looks northbound) In the back seat, a businessman-type heading for Northwestern Station and the commute home to lovely DuPage County (western suburbs). About a $1.50-run in those days.

A crowd of pedestrians surges across in both directions as the light turns red. Suddenly the silence is broken as Mr. Commuter mutters, "Look at that goddamn piece-of-shit drunk."

"Excuse me, sir?"

Mr. Commuter leans forward (there were no bullet-proof shields in American-United Cabs - mostly Ford LTDs) and points to a figure in the crosswalk moving left-to-right with the flow of people.

"See," he says, "Right there, There's Royko, that goddamn drunk."

Mike Royko, then with the Chicago Sun-Times had won a Pulitzer a few years earlier for his memorable bio of the first Mayor Richard Daley. It was called Boss. He was not stumbling as he walked. In fact, he looked perfectly normal.

I read Royko's five-day-week column religiously as did so many Chicagoans. Along with incidents like the angry Royko reader above, I came to realize that  the front seat of that cab was my journalism school..

And a damn good education it was.

Anyway, back to the present. Like to know the thoughts of the intelligent readers of this blog. How's it going so far?  What do you think of the posts? The comments?  Should posters register?

I can't help but think of the local state social worker who got busted a while back at Leddy Park having a rendezvous with a 14 year old girl he'd been talking to anonymously online from work. She turned out to be a Vermont State Trooper.

Some of the blog comments to date sound like their writers are also inhabiting a similar power-tripping fantasy world. Hey, it's a free country, but some "Freyne Land" readers may find that stuff juvenile, useless and boring. I don't know.

You tell me.......please!

And thanks for stopping by Freyne Land.

The Sanders for Senate Campaign was in the field polling over the weekend. And unlike the American Research Group poll which Ch. 3 and the Freeps reported on last week without identifying who paid for it, we do know who paid for this one. In fact, the Sanderista Senatorial operation is using longtime Leahy pollster Geoff Garin over at Peter D. Hart Research Associates. A proven winner, eh?

According to Sanders Campaign Manager Jeff Weaver, 500 likely Vermont voters were surveyed.

Guess what?

Ol' Bernardo's incredible lead over the richest capitalist in Vermont history is widening.

Sanders - 66 percent
Tarrant -  27 percent

Bernie from Brooklyn's favorability was: 64 percent favorable v. 27 percent unfavorable.

Meanwhile Richie from New Jersey, king of the yuckiest, most twisted, negative attack ads Vermont has had the displeasure of viewing, is becoming even less popular. Tarrant's is currently viewed favorably by only 24 percent of Vermont likely voters. Richie's Rich, a first-time candidate starting at the top, has already dropped $5 million of his personal fortune to get to 27 percent support and says he'll spend at least another $2 million.

“Rich Tarrant negative attack ads are cleary backfiring,"  Weaver, the former Marine from St. Albans, told"Freyne Land" over the noon hour. "Tarrant’s negatives are now at 54percent and two-thirds of Vermonters believe that Tarrant is running anunfair negative campaign.”

Can't say Rich Tarrant isn't getting results from his huge personal investment in the power of advertising, can you?

But seriously, if anyone knows why he's doing this, please, please contact "Freyne Land!"

Other races:

U.S. House:
Peter Welch - 47
M. Rainville - 41

Governor:
Douglas  - 54
S. Parker -  31

*Afternoon Update Below*  2:30 p.m.

Had to wonder last night at the Sheraton GOP banquet, whether I and the 400-plus mostly Republicans in attendance (I saw a couple Democrats and even one Progressive!), were watching the next president of the United States. Regardless, just knowing there will be a different president of the United States in office in 2 years and 4 months is reason to lift one's spirits, eh?

Sen. John McCain crushed Gov. George W. Bush in the 2000 Vermont Presidential Primary. The Arizona senator swept 60 percent of the Vermont vote, and you bet he remembered it Sunday. If only the nation would see it our way, eh?  Plus he's a much better after-dinner speaker than the current prez.

"We have had a lot of speakers tonight," said McCain as he rose last in the line-up after dessert. "I feel a little bit like Zsa Zsa Gabor’s fifth husband who, on their wedding night said, “I know what I’m supposed to do I just don’t know how to make it interesting.”

He also mentioned former Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona who was the GOP presidential candidate in 1964 (backed by Howard Dean’s conservative Republican Wall-Street dad!).

McCain told the Vermont crowd about how on Election Night in 1986 when he succeeded Goldwater as senator, the old conservative icon got a little nostalgic.

"Barry said, 'If I had been elected president in 1964 and beaten Lyndon Johnson, you’d have never spent all those years in a North Vietnamese prison camp.'

"And I said, 'You’re right, Barry, it would have been a Chinese prison camp!'"

Old Jokes, but funny ones.

Earlier, at the Hinseburg Volunteer Fire Department, where he took questions from local press for 2-3 minutes,  McCain gave great bite when it came to capturing Marvelous Martha Rainville in a soundbite.

"One thing I know about Martha is that she has had command. She’s an Independent thinker. She has a base of knowledge. She has lived here long enough to know and understand the state of Vermont. I would welcome her expertise in the Congress concerning military issues.  We need a lot more people who’ve had the military experience she’s had as adjutant general of the state of Vermont. Her views would give her instant respect in the United States Congress."

And yes, a campaign video guy was there to get footage for upcoming TV spots. Hey, they'd be crazy not to use him. This Vermont House race is still very much in play and the boys in D.C. know it.

And..... Marvelous Martha's following up quickly on the McCain visit with a 10 A.M. presser this morning - word went out late last night. No topic given.  Interesting.

Looks like we'll have an update Monday afternoon.....

*****************************************************************

Afternoon Update*

Martha started with a call for "term limits." She'd like 12 years for both House and Senate. That's six terms in the House or two in the Senate. Gonna have to figure out a way to eliminate seniority first, eh?

Sen. Patrick Leahy's last run would have been 1980!  Jeezum Jim Jeffords' last race would have been 1994. Bernie would have had to retire after the 2002 race.

Rainville also unveiled a snappy new TV spot that hits the screen tomorrrow. Plays on her recent job experience. In particular, her speaking up back in 2003 to ensure there'd be proper body armour on a group of about 45 Vermont Guard troops heading to Afghanistan.

Meanwhile her Democratic opponent Peter Welch has a nice new ad. Looking into the camera and talking. And saying what his side believes is the only thing voters need to know - a vote for Martha Rainville is a vote for George W. Bush!

This one will be a nailbitter.

Damn clouds are lingering over the Champlain Valley Sunday morning. Let’s hope for a little sun by late this afternoon when U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona hit’s the Burlington, Vermont tarmac. There’s a big GOP fundraiser at the Sheraton in South Burlington this evening, but a McCain photo-op pit stop at the Hinesburg Volunteer Fire Department has been scheduled for 5:15 p.m. At the moment, that’s looks like where the only brief “press availability” of Sen. McCain’s Vermont visit will occur.

Bummer.

If ever there was a politician you’d like 10 minutes with, heck, an hour with, it's McCain.  Remember his visit to Burlington back in January 2000?

It was a Sunday. pre-New Hampshire Primary, last-minute kind of thing. Frosty. frigid. cold. sunny Sunday morning. And more than 650 people packed, and I mean packed, themselves into Contois Auditorium at Burlington City Hall to see McCain: Republicans, Democrats, Progressives and Independents. More than triple the fire code. McCain’s appeal crosses party lines. For folks my age (56), the Vietnam thing is a big part of it.

When I see John McCain it’s a little like seeing former Georgia U.S. Max Cleland. Know what I mean? On behalf of the government of the United States of America, they paid a very painful and visible price for their service in uniform. And every time I see them, I am reminded that they,  like the American people - and the 58,000-plus other young Americans of my generation who paid with their lives -  were lied to by the White House about the reasons our country had to launch a war in Vietnam in the first place.

Just like our current Iraq War, eh?

In fact, just caught Sen. McCain on ABC This Week with George Stephanopolous. At issue, President Bush’s bold, brazen, anti-American and utterly stupid attempt to override the Supreme Court and push through legislation that would “modify” the Geneva Convention on prisoner treatment. More than two-dozen former top generals and admirals, including former Bush Secretary of State Colin Powell strongly oppose the White House on this one. Wrote Powell to McCain this week:

“The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of out fight against terrorism.”

Beginning to doubt?

As the former military commanders put it in a letter this week to Chairman John Warner and Vice-Chairman Carl Levin of the Senate Armed Services Committee:

“If any agency of the U.S. government is excused from compliance with these standards, or if we seek to redefine what Common Article 3 requires, we should not imagine that our enemies will take notice of the technical distinctions when they hold U.S. prisoners captive. If degradation, humiliation, physical and mental brutalization of prisoners is decriminalized or considered permissible under a restrictive interpretation of Common Article 3, we will forfeit all credible objections should such barbaric practices be inflicted upon American prisoners.

“This is not just a theoretical concern. We have people deployed right now in theaters where Common Article 3 is the only source of legal protection should they be captured. If we allow that standard to be eroded, we put their safety at greater risk.

McCain says it's an issue of conscience. Already the loud-mouthed right-wingers like Joseph McQuaid at the Manchester Union Leader are condemning him.

At times like this I get the fleeting thought that perhaps human beings were smarter, and got along better, in the Stone Age?

O.K. How about in the Rock & Roll Age?

*Updated at bottom at 5:50 P.M. Friday*

*Updated CIRC SECTION  7 P.M. (good link)*

Candy Page’s juicy “Manure World” feature in today’s Burlington Free Press Living Section got my juices flowing this Friday morning.

Never really took a moment before to realize a dairy cow pumps out 21 tons of manure in a year. For the 64 Fairfield, Vermont milkers Ms. Page focused on in her piece, that’s 1300 tons in a year. For the 37,000 cows in the Missisquoi Bar watershed, that’s about 775,000 tons or 1.5 billion pounds of manure a year.

Holy shit!

The phosphorous in the manure run-off does wonders to keep the algae blooming in Lake Champlain.

I’ve been reading about the problem since landing here for good back in 1979. At least there’s finally a little federal funding to help Vermont farmers clean up their acts on this one, eh? Imagine one day the headline: “Lake Champlain Getting Cleaner!”

Dream on, right?

Trying to look at the bright side. It ain’t easy as some of you may know. Especially if you caught our president’s Rose Garden presser this morning. The bad movie at the top continues, folks.

Speaking of manure, we got this press release earlier today from the Rich Tarrant for Senate Campaign:

TARRANT TO SANDERS:  LET’S DEBATE

The Tarrant for Senate campaign today called on Congressman Bernie Sanders to debate.
Now that the primary is over it’s time for Congressman Sanders to start talking about the issues.  We’ve been in touch with the Sanders campaign to set up a debate schedule, but have not heard back,” said Tarrant campaign manager Tim Lennon...

The Tarrant campaign has received numerous debate requests from organizations around the state.

“Congressman Sanders has accused our campaign of lying about his record.  We hope he will stand up and have an honest dialog about his record and not run a campaign on 30-second sound bites or photo ops,” Lennon said.

The Sanders response?

“I don’t know what Rich Tarrant’s talking about,” Sanders’Campaign Manager Jeff Weaver told Freyne Land. “We’ve already agreed with debate organizers to attend at least 10 debates with Mr. Tarrant.”

He didn’t have the schedule in front of him, but he said he thought the first one was on September 30 at Champlain College, to be hosted by Christopher Graff. The topic: U.S. foreign policy.

“I don’t know what Mr. Tarrant’s is complaining about,” said Weaver. “That’s far more debates than most people who are doing as poorly as he is doing in the polls would get.”

Asked if  Sanders would agree to more than 10 debates, Weaver replied, “Look, we have always wanted this to be a campaign about the issues because we know, not think, we know that when Vermonters see the difference between Bernie Sanders and Rich Tarrant on the issues, this race will be over.”

Ouch!

Caught a bit of the Peter Welch v. Martha Rainville debate this morning on WDEV’s “The Mark Johnson Show” - live from the Tunbridge World’s Fair. Didn’t catch any blockbusters in between incoming phone calls here at the ranch. But I liked the audience question about what was the favorite book each candidate had read?

Martha went first and said “The Bible.”

Peter kinda chuckled and said he couldn’t let Martha take the Bible all by herself, after all, there was his Roman Catholic schooling to acknowledge. So he claimed a piece of the Bible, too. Then he added War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. Perfect pick when running against the former head of the state’s National Guard during wartime, eh?

As they say in French “Twoshay!”

This just in: Peter & Martha go at it again Monday night at 7:30 PM at the Doubletree Motel on Williston Rd. in South Burlington (the old Ramada). It’ll be broadcast live on VPT. VPR’s Steve Delaney is the moderator. It’s sponsored by AARP and the public is invited. No admission charge and FREE BEER!

Just kidding about the beer.

And continuing with our Friday “manure” theme, this just in from Jim Douglas Central Montpeculiar:

MONTPELIER – The State of Vermont and the Federal Highway Administration today filed a notice of appeal from the May 2004 United States District Court decision finding insufficient the environmental documentation supporting construction of segments A and B (Williston and Essex) of the circumferential highway...

****************************************************************************************

Updated CIRC SECTION  7 P.M. (good link)*

Holy shit! The Douglas administration lost that case two years ago over in U.S. District Court! Our governor, you'll recall, had used all his good connections with the Bush White House to speed up the CIRC's construction after years of delay. Got it on the fast-track just days before the 2002 election. Only problem was, the speed-up was illegal. The Douglas Team unsuccessfuly tried to rush past the need for an up-to-date Environmental Impact Statement as required by federal law. And they did it with Bush White House connections and a straight face.

Instead, they ran in 2003, Jimbo first year as governor,  with a EIS done in the old days of the mid-1980s when I was an editor at the now-defunct (but memorable) Vanguard Press. They ran on a 1986 EIS, a study from a time without cell phones or grape tomatoes or email and people smoked cigarettes in restaurants. Attorney Judge William Sessions simply wasn't buying it.

Supposedly, the Douglasadmonsitration has been working on a new EIS that allegedly will examine all transportation alternatives to the CIRC Highway's constuction. Things like roundabouts and actual public transit. Or is the one-human-per-car, bumper-to-bumper crap, the way we all want it to be in 10 years, too?

I thought the Guv's Transportation Team (now headed by former political Boy Wonder and advisor Neale Lunderville, who gave up a Pfizer sales job after about three months to return to Vermont to replace whatshername as Gov. Douglas Secretary of Transportation) was looking at alternatives to the old sure-fired sprawl builder?

Live and learn.

VPIRG’s Paul Burns had this emailed reaction:

“Seems as though they are willing to explore  'all available avenues' in order to AVOID having to investigate the real transportation needs and options available to the people of Chittenden County.

"How exactly does wasting more money on unnecessary litigation like this fit into the "affordability agenda?"

Good question.

**************************************************************************************************

*UPDATE*  5:50 P.M.

Two things:

1. Democrat Scudder Parker will be launching his first TV spot next week.

2. The Sanders' Campaign forwarded this list of 10 debates with Tarrant that Mr. Weaver said they have agreed to so far, including VPT, WCAX-TV and WPTZ-TV.

*Champlain College & VT Council on World Affairs 9/30   7:00 to 8:30 PM
*Association of VT Credit Unions 10/10  11:00 AM to 12:00 PM
*Candidates Forum with a focus on disability issues 10/11  7:00 to 9:00 PM
*League of Women Voters 10/12  7:00 to 9:00 PM
*AARP 10/13  7:30 to 9:00 PM
*VT Law School Debate 10/17 6:30 to 8:15 PM
*WCAX 10/22 or 10/29 TBD
*VPT "Super Tuesday" 11/5 "around 6:00ish" PM
*WPTZ 10/23
*Williston Central School Candidates Forum 10/6 9:30 to 10:30 AM