For months now Democrats have merely been in the speculative phase in terms of having a candidate for governor. First “Young Dunne,” former state legislator Matte Dunne who nearly took down Brian Dubie two years floated his name, but reneged. Peter Gailbraith, a former ambassador had been floating his name, but he was a second tier candidate at best, without any legislative or executive experience to speak of. Meanwhile, “Tony the Prog,” Anthony Pollina, a perennial candidate for the progressive party announced that he was running, and hoped for a two man race. This was a rather sad state of affairs, considering how strongly democratic Vermont is, and the opportunity that a surge of democratic voters in the presidential election could bring us. Then House Speaker Gaye Symington announced that she was going to run, challenging incumbent governor Jim Douglas.
With four years experience as speaker of the house, and a progressive record on health care, the economy, and childcare issues, she is clearly a top tier candidate. Speaker Symington has been a legislator for twelve years, first elected to the house in 1996. During her freshman term as a legislator, she worked to pass Act-60, the plan that funds Vermont’s education system. After democrats lost the legislature following backlash from both the aforementioned Act 60, and civil unions, Speaker Symington helped bring the democrats back into the majority in both the house and senate, and they now enjoy a 2/3 majority in both houses. It is because of this, I am asking the netroots to look into Speaker Symington, and contribute. Her website http://symingtonforgovernor.com/ is a bit primitive at the moment, but should be enhanced soon (at least it better be).
Despite her qualifications, she still faces steep odds, especially in a three way race. Under the Vermont Constitution, if none of the candidates receive a majority of the votes, then the legislature chooses the governor. Jim Douglas was elected in 2002 with 45% of the vote to Doug Racine’s 42%. The democratic legislature chose Douglas as he was the vote leader, despite having the votes to elect Racine. This occurred as many legislators were asked by opponents and constituents to pledge to vote for the popular vote winner. With Anthony Pollina in the race, this will most likely happen again. Symington however, may be planning to just keep Douglas under 50% in an attempt to get the legislature to elect her, who knows?
Currently there are not any polls on the race, but the race will most likely become a fight for moderates. Douglas will keep his base on the right (the 5,000 people who voted for Huckabee in the republican primary) and right of center moderates, Symington will aim for left of center moderates and Pollina will consoldate the far left progressives. Both Scudder Parker in 2006 and Peter Clavelle in 2004 (a former independent mayor of Burlington) aimed for the far left and left of center moderates and couldn’t get better than 41%.
With an expected surge in democratic votes, Symington may be able to benefit in ways former gubernatorial candidates could not. 2006 nominee Scudder Parker (his real name) only managed 41% despite the overwhelmingly democratic year. Others however, were able to capitalize on the strong democratic leanings of the elections. Brian Dubie, the republican LT. Governor barely received a majority of votes (51%). Had he not received a majority, the legislature could have chosen democratic nominee Matt Dunne as LT Governor. Tom Salmon son of a former governor of the same name, managed a narrow victory over incumbent Randy Brock to become the newest auditor of accounts. These democrats were able to utilize the strong democrats tide of 2006, and Symington can and will utilize the democratic leanings of 2008, all she needs to get elected is your support? Will you step up?
I’m a native of Vermont- I’m from the southwestern part of the state, next to western New York where it tends to be a little more conservative. I personally know Gaye Symington and I think she’d make an excellent governor.
I was very excited to see her get into this race, as she is the sort of candidate Democrats needed to get. If Obama can bring some coattails to the Green Mountain State, it could be enough for her. But I have seen wackier things go on within Vermont politics, so you never know. I do encourage people to support her financially, as she does need to raise some substantial funds to be competitive with Jim Douglas.
I think she’s a great candidate and would be a huge improvement over Douglas — but by jumping into the race so relatively late, she has a huge challenge ahead of her. Pollina has been out working the state for several months, and he is clearly committed to staying in the race — I’m afraid he may suck a lot of energy out of Gaye’s campaign. I know in my area (Franklin County) a lot of folks signed on with Pollina before there was a Democratic candidate — I don’t know if many of them will switch to Symington now that she’s entered the race. Pollina is enough of an established statewide figure that I think he will draw 15-20% of the popular vote as the Progressive Party candidate, which would make it almost impossible for Symington to beat Douglas.
That said, Vermont seems to finally be tiring of Jim Douglas’s shallow and ineffective leadership, and folks are beginning to understand that he is much more conservative than his carefully cultivated moderate image. Vermont will be huge Democratic territory in the presidential campaign (especially if McCain chooses a Huckabee type hard core conservative as VP… it would be a huge drag on the Republican ticket here). It could provide a Democratic wave in an already strong Democratic state.
I am concerned that Gaye has been at times an underwhelming media spokesperson while she has been Speaker of the House — hopefully she will be a stronger presence on the campaign trail.
This will be a tough race, but It could happen – like you, I’m looking forward to seeing some polling on the race.
Finally, I find it hard to image that the legislature would do anything other than elect the candidate who won the most popular votes (if it is under 50%). the tradition is pretty strongly established from previous races, and there would be tremendous public pressure on the legislators. (I wish that the Dems and Progs would publicly announce before election that if their two candidates together out-poll Douglas, they would join forces in the legislature to elect the leading anti-Douglas candidate — but that seems politically very unlikely)