Phil Scott’s 20-20 Trust

(This one is about two months overdue. Your Minor Heretic has been busy, alternately cajoling and hammering on large machinery. I’m happy to report that the floggings did increase morale and that the machinery is now running.)

If you’ve been following Vermont political news at all you know that Lieutenant Governor Phil Scott is officially in the race for governor. I listened to an interview with him on Vermont Public Radio back in mid-September. One of the topics was the problem of Scott’s ownership of DuBois Construction, a company that does business with the State of Vermont. As governor this would present a conflict of interest.

Actually, as Lt. Governor it presents a conflict of interest, so there’s another story. For the moment I’ll focus on the potential problem.

Scott explained that he would solve the problem by turning over the operation of the company to a blind trust. This makes no sense at all.

People who hold public office sometimes put their financial holdings in a blind trust. An investment advisor takes over the holdings and buys and sells stocks, bonds, and other assets without informing the public official what is in the portfolio. Thus the official’s self-interest is generalized to a healthy economy. There is no reason for the official to favor one business or business sector over another. At least, that’s the theory.

Let me emphasize before going further that conflict of interest is always judged on appearance. Absent mind reading abilities, nobody can tell whether an official’s actions are influenced by an investment. In this particular case, we might assume that Phil Scott is honorable and still raise objections to an appearance of conflict of interest. The same rules apply to everybody.

That said, the idea that Phil Scott could put a single company into a blind trust goes against basic logic. Despite his absence from day to day operations at Dubois, he would still know that he owns the company. He has stated that he intends to go back to running the business after eventually departing politics. He would have a definite interest in the continued prosperity of the company. Decision makers throughout the state government would also know this. How screamingly obvious. It’s not a blind trust if you know what’s in it.

I don’t know whether to question Scott’s judgment or question his opinion of average voter intelligence. Wherever the non-baked idea of a single-asset “blind” trust came from, he should drop it. Getting back to the present problem, if the governor running a business that contracts with the state government is a conflict of interest, how is the lieutenant governor in the same situation not a conflict of interest? Phil Scott needs to remove Dubois Construction from the business of government contracts.

The Crushing Handshake

I just read a piece in the Rutland Herald about Joe Trippi coming to work for Doug Racine in his gubernatorial bid. Trippi gained fame as the new media genius behind Howard Dean’s insurgent run for the Democratic presidential nomination. Dean did better than expected, raising a lot of money outside the normal DNC channels.

Some have noted that Racine has a nice guy image and might lack the teeth for hardball campaigning. This has been a failing of most recent Democratic contenders for the Vermont governor’s office. In contrast, Peter Clavelle, former mayor of Burlington, came across as combative and sour. I watched Clavelle in a debate against Jim Douglas at the Renewable Energy Vermont conference. Clavelle scored all the points on a factual basis, but Douglas had on his usual Teflon suit and engaged in genially vague deflection. Talking with a few other renewable energy professionals afterward, we agreed that Clavelle would get our votes, but that the public in general would be turned off by him. Apparently they were.

The secret of success in Vermont politics is the crushing handshake. Metaphorically speaking, the two (or more) contenders walk up to each other, smile broadly, and shake hands. They hold the pose for the cameras. In reality, each is squeezing as hard as possible, attempting to reduce the other’s metacarpals to chalk dust. Neither is allowed to show the least hint of anger or pain. They just smile, a sheen of sweat on their brows, perhaps a bit of moisture in their eyes, squeezing with all their respective strength.

In practice, this means saying that your opponent is a lying ignoramus, and supports policies destined to bankrupt the state or reduce us to slavery, without seeming to be angry, accusatory, or unpleasant. Jim Douglas’ success can be attributed to just this skill. What I hear people say about him is that in person “..he’s a really nice guy!” No doubt.  His public persona is bland to the point of unflavored oatmeal, a kind of Rorschach blot in gray. I’ve never heard the man raise his voice. And yet, with this low-affect voice he has criticized his political opponents to great effect. I should say, because of this low-affect voice – it’s his secret weapon.

Which brings me back again to Trippi and Racine. As noted, Doug Racine already has a nice guy image. He needs to use it like a spiked club. An odd simile, but that’s Vermont politics. Trippi and Amy Schollenberger (Racine’s campaign manager) need to manage the content and imaging of Racine’s statements to bust Brian Dubie’s chops – in an easygoing manner. Douglas has managed to make right wing myth and the usual hortatory blather sound like common sense. Dubie will try to follow his lead. Racine should be able to start with rational policy and make it appealing. It’s all in the presentation.

It may all be useless at this point. I recently spoke with a Vermont Democratic Party insider who had serious doubts about the ability of any of the Democratic candidates to beat Dubie. In his opinion, any one of them could have beaten Dubie if there hadn’t been a primary. With a primary, however, all five have been busy jockeying with each other instead of focusing on the general election. The real money is tied up until after the primary, and meanwhile Dubie is organizing. Another factor he mentioned was that more and more people are voting early (if not often). Almost a quarter of voters are voting with absentee ballots, which can be sent in the day after the Democratic primary. A double digit percentage of the votes could be cast before the Democratic candidate could even put out a press release.

As far as the Minor Heretic is concerned, any of the five Democratic candidates would be far superior to Brian Dubie. Doug Racine, Deb Markowitz, Matt Dunne, or Peter Shumlin would be perfectly satisfactory. Susan Bartlett less so, but I wouldn’t whine. The question for me is which one has the greatest political grip strength. Who among them can latch on to Brian Dubie and make him lose his cool? The race is his to lose at this point, and we need a forced error.