Just about to get ready and head over to tonight’s benefit at the Main Street Landing Black Box Theater in Burlington. We start at 7 pm, so if you’re reading this, and you’re within a half hour drive, you could still at least theoretically make it. If you drove like an insane person. If you let nothing stand in your way. But if you can’t, I wanted to share Bill Simmon’s new campaign film with you, the film we’ll be debuting tonight. It’s called “Long Race,” and it’s dedicated to my mother, Diane Fountain. Love you very much, Mom.
The logic ran like this: 1) Campaigns run on money; 2) I hate asking people for money; so 3) why not try to do a different sort of fundraiser altogether? Why not, you know, put on a show? Like Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, but with politics? It started out as a fairly modest idea, call a few talented friends, people committed to the campaign, and see if they’d be willing to perform. What we didn’t expect was that those talented friends would call other talented performers, and pretty soon we’d have a major showcase on our hands. But that’s what we’ve got, no question about it.
The central promise we’ve made this cycle is that this campaign, whatever else it may be or not be, will never be boring. Never once. So the show is called Philapalooza (yes, Philapalooza), and it’s designed to be non-stop entertainment.
No boring speeches. No downer discussions of budget deficits and oil spills. This show is meant to celebrate the Vermont arts community, and their support of our campaign.
It’s meant to be fun, in other words.
The key details: this Thursday night, the 22nd, 7 pm, at the Main Street Landing Black Box Theater down on Burlington’s waterfront. (Very generously sponsored by Main Street Landing and Melinda Moulton.)
Headlining for us is one of my favorite performers of all time, legendary Vermont folksinger Patti Casey (above). Not only has Patti agreed to open and close the show, she’s promised to play my favorite song, “Old Man,” a heartrending ballad about a very old dog. It’s a song that takes you right into a life and a relationship, a relationship that’s coming to an end all too soon.
Vermont’s best known and hardest working filmmaker, Jay Craven, will be performing as well. Having taught both Stranger in the Kingdom and Where the Rivers Flow North many times, I’m honored and excited to have Jay on stage. (Let me just add that Tantoo Cardinal completely deserved the Oscar for Rivers, and the fact that she didn’t get it in the end says all you need to know about Hollywood.)
If you’ve never seen Woody Keppel do his thing, prepare to be amazed. Woody, shown here with the late great Anna Nicole Smith, is the consummate postmodern vaudevillian: part juggler, part comic, part master of illusion, and one final part heartbreaker, because his comic characters always have a certain pathos that makes you pull for them.
Now maybe other campaigns could get one or the other half of the performing couple that is Kathy Blume and Mark Nash, the duo that has long been the mainstay of Vermont Stage Company. But only this campaign can bring you both.
Kathy has made an international name for herself as a crusader in both the anti-War and anti-global warming movements. She organized the global Lysistrata Project, back in the day, when we were all determined to annoy George Bush and oust Donald Rumsfeld. And Mark, in addition to running Vermont Stage and bringing an astounding series of dramatic characters to life himself, has done me the favor of reading my contributions to their Winter Tales show for the last several years.
And for Master of Ceremonies we realized that we needed something utterly impossible: a very poised yet very funny performer, preferably someone with an intimate knowledge of Vermont politics.
Which doesn’t exist, of course.
Then we remembered stand-up comic and Burlington House Rep. Jason Lorber, who is at once the state’s go-to guy on the hardcore issues and statistics related to the correctional system, and the guy who stages “Moo Jew Comedy” every year on Christmas in a Chinese Restaurant.
And if that’s not enough, just this past week we had the League of Drag Queen Voters sign on for a special appearance too. Which in and of itself should help us keep the not boring promise.
In short, this event will be amazing, but only if you come to see it, and bring friends. If you plan to help out the campaign at some point, but have been waiting for the right opportunity, this is it. We need you now, but not to go door to door, not to stuff envelopes.
It’s a political year, and the season for political barbeques. But there is no political barbeque quite like the Hamburger Summit, held jointly each year by VDB and the good folks over at Green Mountain Daily. Why exactly is it so special? Is it the succulent meats drizzling fat into a sizzling fire? The politicos trailing over the beach, gladhanding voters and only weakly denying that they really want another Italian sausage and plate of pasta? Seeing J.D. Ryan subject a random statewide candidate to what is now known all throughout the Vermont blogosphere as the dreaded “Ryan Test”? All of the above, and more. Much more.
That’s this Saturday afternoon, July 17, 1-5 pm, North Beach in Burlington. When you hit the beach, head north and look for the spreading Tree of Political Wisdom. Can’t miss it.
And bring the family, and friends of all political persuasions. On Hamburger Summit Day, no man is an island. Even Rick Santorum is welcome. Or Joe Lieberman, even.
Running a long campaign can be tough on your psyche. In a race the size of the Chittenden County Senate contest, there are no polls, no way to know where you stand, no way to know exactly how self-delusional you’ve become over the months. Which made it doubly sweet to open up the Times Argus over the weekend and find a long, trenchant analysis of the current cycle by Peter Mallary. The upshot? He sees us actually pulling this thing out in the end. Many thanks, Mr. Mallary, for making the Trail a little brighter today.
The New York Times runs a pretty tight ship, and their prose is generally clean and correct. Except on that rare occasion when it’s not. And that even more rare occasion when the typo reveals the truth in an entirely new and striking way. Can you spot the subconscious slam on Ben Nelson, petulant Senate “moderate,” who has behaved thus far like a spoiled three-year-old in the current Congressional session? Rock on, passive-aggressive Times headline editors.
Back in 2007, I decided to begin profiling VDB readers, so that other VDB readers could enjoy reading about people very much like themselves, people who also wanted to see Karl Rove frogmarched out of the White House. And so to begin, I picked a longtime reader named Colleen McLaughlin, who had written a series of long, sharp emails about the perils of Bush-era foreign policy. Scathing, detailed, hilarious emails.
Turns out that Colleen is also a singer in a rock and roll band, believe it or not, and when I announced that I was running for the State Senate, she offered to rope in the band for a gig to benefit the campaign.
Were we overjoyed? You betcha.
And all of that pre-planning comes to fruition tomorrow night, when Colleen’s band Unusual Suspects will be playing at the St. John’s Club, on the lake in Burlington, 7 pm, with the $10 cover charge to benefit Baruth 2010. And these folks rock, from what we understand. If you’re free, we’d love to see you, and talk about the sprint to August 24th.
Oh, and apparently the band covers Train’s “Hey Soul Sister.” So the event’s got that going for it too, which is nice.
So yes, this State Senate campaign has been underway for a good fourteen months thus far, which has made our campaign folk true battle-hardened veterans when it comes to kick-offs and teach-ins and tweet-ups. But the fact is that until this past Fourth of July, we were Parade Virgins. And we had chosen maybe the County’s most demanding and celebrated route: the Richmond Fourth of July Parade.
Anyone with experience on the Trail could have sensed the possibility of danger. But we were just apple-cheeked kids who’d never yet Walked the Route with the professionals. And it was a hard lesson we would learn that day.
Reaffirming and sustaining, but a hard lesson still and all.
We formed up around 10 am, dodging the ATV’s and the horse carts and clowns, and it was a stalwart group: Allen, Jay, Dana, Mary Lou, Mikki, Kathy, Matt, and young Noah. Wonderful people, who would march with you into the jaws of Heck. We laughed and joked innocently, unaware of what was to come. We kidded around with other candidates, and all seemed right with the world.
Except that it was very sunny, and about 900 degrees. But still, a gorgeous beginning.
And then it was time to head out, which we did, in pretty stylish formation. Heads held high, ready to gladhand every man, woman and child in Richmond.
But almost immediately, we noticed something: young Noah began giving candy to every child he passed, every single child, although we’d tried to impress upon him that we had only three baskets of candy for the entire route. But he was listening to some inner voice of fairness, a voice that told him each child must have candy. In hindsight, we should have seen what would come of this, but again, at this point we were blissfully ignorant.
So blissfully ignorant, that when I went over to encourage Noah to save some of the candy, to hold some of it back for the future, pretty much the reverse happened: I could see how deeply happy the candy was making all the kids on the route, and how happy it was making Noah to give it away to every hand outstretched.
So I started doing it too. And it was a revelation: never had more fun than wading into the crowd and delivering sweets to people with huge smiles on their faces. But it was a rush that needed candy to fuel it, and of course, the candy was quickly dwindling. Very quickly.
But by this time I was too euphoric to care: drunk on the beauty of the place and the generosity of the people, drunk on the actuality of America.
All too quickly though, reality set in. The candy was nearly gone, and we rounded the corner onto Bridge Street to find the bulk of the crowd, a crowd that was perfectly willing to embrace any act or float or candidate. Provided they threw candy. Noah put his basket on his head. Suddenly, for a moment, it was every man/woman for him/her self.
Dana ran into the convenience store on the corner and came back with two bags of hard candy, a valiant effort, but in another hundred yards we’d thrown all of that, and waving and handshakes only go so far for the kids in the audience. Not to mention the thirty-somethings who were doing The Wave on a hillside, pretty elaborately, and who wanted something in return from the parade.
Up we went, over the new bridge, and on toward one of Richmond’s claims to fame: the Round Church, one of the prettiest sights in all of New England. But beauty doesn’t make you cooler, really, and by now we were broiling like lobsters. Lobsters without candy.
Which is when, out of nowhere, we were rescued by the Welch contingent. The Congressman and his people have been down this parade route many times, and they’d packed accordingly: out came their emergency stores of candy from bags and belly-packs, and so we just closed ranks with them for the final quarter mile of the route.
Did people on the last quarter mile of the route mistakenly believe that our campaign was throwing candy when in fact we weren’t? They may well have done so.
We hadn’t thought far enough ahead, true, but we were right behind a campaign that had, and some days that’s good enough. Double thanks to the Welch crew.
And then the Parade was over, and everyone dispersed into the big field beside the river, and ate hot dogs and drank Fanta and talked about the race for Governor. Just the way you always thought a parade should end, back when you were a kid, and you used to stand on top of a high hill overlooking the route and yell as hard as you could, and hope the beauty queen riding in the candy-apple-red convertible would somehow, against all odds, reach you with a miniature pack of Milk Duds.
Thanks again, Richmond. And many thanks, as always, to Kathy FitzGerald for the beautiful photos of the day.
Some fairly heavy news just broke: DailyKos is disavowing their standard polling outfit, Research 2000, as a result of an investigation conducted by several outside researchers, an investigation which determined that the firm’s conclusions could only have relied on fabricated data.
Markos, while clearly in damage control mode, makes it clear that he’s thought through the implications and is more than ready to let the chips fall where they may.
Preferably on the heads of those running Research 2000.
A shock wave, given that I and millions of others relied on the DK/Research 2000 tracking poll through the last election cycle. As a blogger myself, I took a small but measurable bit of pride in the idea that a national left-wing blog had reached the point where it could field polls where they were needed, for all the world like the Chicago Tribune or the New York Times.
But here’s the deeper shocker. In pointing out that DailyKos wasn’t the only outfit duped by Research 2000, Markos notes the firm’s reputation for veracity and accuracy:
“I want to feel stupid for being defrauded, but fact is Research 2000 had a good reputation in political circles. Among its clients the last two years have been KCCI-TV in Iowa, WCAX-TV in Vermont, WISC-TV in Wisconsin, WKYT-TV in Kentucky, Lee Enterprises, the Concord Monitor, The Florida Times-Union, WSBT-TV/WISH-TV/WANE-TV in Indiana, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Bergen Record, and the Reno Gazette-Journal.”
That’s right: WCAX, right here at home.
Now, couple of things: WCAX does not rely exclusively on Research 2000, and their association with the firm was never as tight as was the relationship at Daily Kos. Still, WCAX will be obliged to note the problem, and announce it to their viewers.
But to my mind, it raises a further question, and one more pressing in the current cycle. Thus far, Rasmussen polling has utterly dominated the news in the 2010 six-way gubernatorial race. Sure, the news accounts have qualified Rasmussen’s Right-leaning results by noting the thoroughgoing skepticism with which the firm is viewed on the Left.
But frankly, that’s just not good enough.
Rasmussen’s polls have allowed Brian Dubie to claim frontrunner status for the last six months or better. No single sentence disclaiming their well-documented tilt to the Right can match the import of a winner’s headline.
Especially a headline repeated at regular intervals.
So in the wake of this Research 2000 story, which is only now breaking in Vermont, I think it’s fair for the larger state media outlets, which have been having great fun sniping at the candidates and their gaffes and stretches and foibles, most especially in the gubernatorial race, to ask themselves some genuine, deep and searching questions regarding the nature of polling in a state the size of ours.
Fair is fair, folks.
As a candidate this cycle, I’ve taken my share of probing and ribbing in the media, but it’s been nothing compared to what the Democrats running for Governor have taken, and all five of them have kept smiling. Dubie, pumped up by Rasmussen’s questionable numbers, has stiffed both the press and voters interested in debate, yet the press has more or less allowed Dubie to do so because, in a strangely circular logic, that’s what Dubie does.
But turnabout is fair play.
This story is the mainstream media’s own moment of transparency and full disclosure, journalism’s own test of vision and honesty and fire in the belly. Will the Research 2000 melt-down lead to a reassessment of polling in the state? Will Rasmussen continue to write the cycle’s gubernatorial narrative almost single-handedly?
Tough to say at this point. But one thing is clear: if nothing comes of this revelation, and polling in Vermont maintains its current flabby, know-nothing quality, the voters won’t get a say in the matter come August, or November.
A quick update, for those of you who don’t follow the news out of the Secretary of State’s office quite as religiously as VDB: this past Thursday at 5 pm, the window for this election cycle closed, and the field for the 2010 State Senate race is now set.
The upshot for our campaign? Only six Democrats filed for six spots on the November ballot, meaning that the August 24 primary is now more or less pro forma, with all six candidates moving automatically to the general election.
How psyched are we? Pretty psyched.
Primaries have their value, and they give Party faithful a much stronger hand, which is fitting, given that the faithful nearly always provide the winning margin. But it’s a lot tougher to run a marathon if you have to sprint twice before you’re finished, rather than once, in the home stretch.
So a brief moment to give thanks, to the political fates and to all of you who have been helping us raise this barn now for well over a year. It doesn’t get any easier from here on out, but it gets lots more interesting.
Lots more. Stay tuned. And thanks again.
Late Emily Litella Update:
Apparently the Secretary of State is inclined to allow a late filer onto the primary ballot, which would pretty much rewrite the jubilant state of affairs outlined above.
