It would be incorrect to say that VDB always promotes candidates and ideas from the Left. Over the years, we’ve corresponded productively with more than a few Republican candidates, and occasionally (okay, very occasionally) we’ve promoted them. For example, when Martha Rainville took off her uniform to run for Congress, leaving the AG slot open, we lent our support to a would-be General from Franklin County named Judith McLaughlin, aka “Jude.”

Jude was already a Lieutenant Colonel, with serious experience in the U.S. Diplomatic Corps in Eastern Europe. And she was also a longtime reader of VDB, with a pragmatic, non-ideological bent.

The upshot of VDB weighing in on that race? The AG is now named Dubie.

Okay, whatever. Still and all, it turns out that Jude is now back from making peace in Eastern Europe, retired, and looking to get seriously into the politics business: she announced last week that she would be a candidate for Vermont Senate from Franklin County.

As a Republican. And in this case, VDB has no problem with that. Best of luck, Jude. Make peace here too.

The Bush Years activated a generation. And those who were already active became admittedly hyper-active. And with good cause: we saw the Cheney Rumsfeld Gonzalez Axis engaged in a daily, deliberate attempt to wreck the nation’s moral compass, in order to consolidate power in the Executive Branch.

So when Vermont’s Congressional seat opened up in 2005, I had in mind a candidate who would hit the ground running and only pick up speed from there.

Mission accomplished.

Peter Welch rolled over Martha Rainville in that 2006 election, and within weeks secured a coveted spot on the influential Rules Committee. He uncovered, publicized, and closed a major hole in the regulations concerning contracting in Iraq. He quickly formed a tag-team operation with oversight guru Henry Waxman, grilling countless Bush operatives just a hair shy of medium-well.

And given his friendly relationship with the current administration, Welch was pre-positioned to move legislation even more quickly, when Change came to Washington.

At the same time, he’s tended his fences so assiduously back in Vermont that Welch ran more or less unopposed in 2008. The one statistic that says it all: the GOP not only didn’t pour money into a race against this Freshman, they didn’t even run a candidate.

I’m in New York now, about to board for Dulles Airport. The idea is to see Team Welch in their own environment, at their own speed.

Which is to say, fast. More soon.

I suppose I should have realized that with the return of gay marriage as a pressing legislative issue, we’d see the inevitable return of Mark Shepard. After all, along with the occasional symbolic run for Congress, the Bennington Rep is still best known for his adamant opposition to same-sex marriage. But who could have predicted that when Shepard slipped out of the shadows this time, he’d be gunning not for Shap Smith or Peter Shumlin or Euan Bear, but for me?

But there it was in Saturday’s Rutland Herald, a long harangue from Shepard about an interview I conducted with him during his failed attempt to deny Martha Rainville the GOP nomination in 2006.

That interview, for those of you who’ve never read it, I called “The Initially Amusing, Unexpectedly Queasy Interview With Mark Shepard,” because what began as an attempt to let Shepard lay out his Congressional aspirations soon turned into a serious one-on-one over same-sex marriage. Shepard was of the opinion that allowing same-sex marriage would lead inevitably to polygamy and “whatever else.” I disagreed, and we tussled about it over omelets.

Shepard lost to Rainville, and Rainville lost to Welch, and that was that, as far as I was concerned.

But apparently that interview has been sticking in Shepard’s craw for the last three years — or more specifically, the editorial lead-in and lead-out of the interview have been sticking in his craw. In his Herald letter, Shepard calls those 2006 comments “bizarre,” “nonsensical,” and “slander,” which is a good deal more than I’m ordinarily labeled on a quiet Saturday afternoon in March.

So I went back to the interview, and searched that editorial framing, and it’s hard to believe that most of it would find such a firm purchase in anyone’s mind. But if I had to guess I’d say that the following sentence is actually the nonsensical and bizarre material Shepard has in mind:

“Because for all of his pleasant demeanor and entrepreneurial savvy, Shepard strikes me as Vermont’s version of Rick Santorum: ambitious, well-spoken, and more than just a little disturbing when you take the time to really listen to what he has to say.”

Granted, no one wants to be compared to Rick Santorum.

But in this case, I stand by those words: Mark Shepard, like Santorum, has tried his best to frighten his constituents and others with talk of a slippery slope, and a running, implicit comparison between same-sex couples and polygamists, not to mention “whatever else.”

Santorum, of course, was impolitic enough to carry that comparison to bestiality, for which he’s been everlastingly and righteously mocked. Shepard has always been a bit more circumspect, but his ideas run down the same muddy trough.

You’ll notice, if you click through to his Herald letter, that in 2009 he’s dropped the polygamy argument, resting his case solely on the inability of same-sex couples to produce children. It’s a weaker argument, one that buckles under even cursory logical scrutiny, given that we routinely wish infertile and elderly heterosexual couples all the best should they decide to tie the knot.

Still, we should note real progress here.

In 2000, Shepard would have gone ahead and run down his more radical arguments for the readers of the Herald, in the same way that opponents of civil unions once flocked to the State House to distinguish “Adam and Eve” from “Adam and Steve.”

But now, in 2009, with legislative approval of same-sex marriage pending, those arguments would sound both out-of-touch and over-the-top. And the hopeful thing is that Shepard has been forced to moderate his rhetoric.

Except, of course, his rhetoric about me. Bloggers are still in season, no matter the year.

Narric Rome’s Vermont State Society event continues to haunt our inbox. Apparently the inauguration of President Obama has swept away the longtime suspicions that have divided the parties, and now Democratic lions are having cocktails with Republican lambs. A nice nostalgic shot: Andrew Savage, once the scrappy 2006 Communications Director for a would-be Congressman named Peter Welch, with Brendan McKenna, Communications Director for Welch’s then-arch-nemesis, Martha Rainville.

Tears are filling our eyes, and we can’t see the keyboard too good right now. Give us a second.

Of course, this isn’t the first time that McKenna got Savaged. No, back in the day, at the Brandon parade, both of these young men, encouraged by their profession to fight to the death with butter knives if necessary, laid down their weapons and came together in the spirit of, well, of the Brandon parade and gave a big clinch for the camera.

But that was then, when both were still hoping to pull out a win, so of course each was stabbing the other with a shrimp fork behind their backs, out of the camera’s eye.

Not at the Vermont State Society party, though. Now they mean it, these two former combatants. For Bush hath hit the road, and all shall work in a spirit of harmony, regardless of ideology or personal interest.

At least for, like, the first three weeks or so.

For those who followed the 2006 Welch/Rainville race, a very interesting tidbit in Chris Cillizza’s influential Post blog, The Fix: Cillizza has set out to compile a list of the best state political blogs, and he begins by tossing out three personal favorites. Only three, out of an entire blogosphere.

One of which turns out to be Green Mountain Politics, run by none other than erstwhile Rainvillian Christopher Potter Stewart, who once cut-and-pasted himself right out of a badly paid gig at the height of a hot campaign. Martha pursed her lips at the time, and made it clear that she was very disappointed.

But look at it this way: Stewart’s got a hot New Hampshire blog and friends at the Post. What’s Martha got?

Exactly.

Like old times.

One of VDB’s favorite targets suddenly wandered back into range yesterday. That’s right: Donald Henry Rumsfeld. Back in the day, we injured our right rotator cuff, banging so hard and so frequently on Rummy, and here he was again, older, grayer, rheumy in the eyes, and trailing the same stale scent of mendacity.

This time it was the Pat Tillman affair: the lies to Tillman’s family, the use of a false narrative of heroism to sell the Global War on Terror, the new suspicions of not merely friendly fire, but all-out fragging.

But Rummy knew nothing, and could be made to know nothing.

And so the whole thing was nearly a wash, until the end of his testimony, when Rumsfeld managed a rhetorical dismount that even Ziegler in his prime might have passed up as too intricate, too risky.

Asked if he had learned the truth about Tillman’s death, and if he and the White House had ever discussed it during the month before the Tillmans were told, Rumsfeld had this to say:

“I can say without qualification that I can’t recall ever having a discussion with anyone in the White House on press strategy relating to the Tillman matter in any aspect of it,” Rumsfeld said

Rummy has, in other words, unshakeable confidence in the extent of his selective amnesia, and he doesn’t care who knows it.

It’s worth remembering that three things cost Martha Rainville the seat in Congress she so desired: 1) she refused to overtly criticize the progress of the War; 2) she refused to promise that she wouldn’t vote to return Dennis Hastert to the Speaker’s Chair; and 3) she refused, again and again and again, to call for the head of Donald Rumsfeld, even when events like Abu Ghraib showed his heart to be shriveled and smudgy black.

And now he is gone. And so is she.

We like to think that they meet occasionally for lunch, at some Red Lobster out in Maryland, where they have an Early Bird Special, and Don picks up the tab and always wears a bit of extra BrylCream and his one decent Italian suit.

We like to think that they have a few Manhattans and talk about what might have been.

And each gets a little lit near the end of the lunch, and tears come to their eyes when they consider the vast unfairness of it all.

But mostly we like to think about the part where they each get back into their cars, and they each head back to their own custom-made Beltway purgatories.

Bad as it is, Rumsfeld has it easier: he returns to an empty, loveless condominium in the wasteland of Northern Virginia, and there he has only to deal with recriminations, the scorn of his colleagues, and the collective disapproval of humanity.

Martha, of course, punches back in at FEMA.

We joke around a lot here at VDB. In fact, some people feel that we joke around too much: people like Paul Wolfowitz, and Dick Cheney, and Rich Tarrant and Martha Rainville and yes, the evil beetle-browed Rick Santorum and his entire frightening clutch of children.

But sometimes it’s time to be serious, and this is one of those times. The online polls for Seven Days 2007 Daysie Awards close at 5 pm today, a little under six hours from now.

We asked a few weeks back for your nod in the Political Blog category, but for some reason you haven’t voted yet. And sure, we understand: we blow stuff off too, lots of stuff, everyday.

Some days we devote entirely to blowing stuff off.

Seriously.

But if you have a minute, and you like this site for whatever reason — the satire, the cartoons, long sit-downs with interesting politicos, the breaking news — please vote.

The link to the rules and the ballot is here.

Just two tricks to it: you have to vote in at least 23 categories, and you have to use our URL (vermontdailybriefing.com) for the ballot to count.

Why go to the effort? Why deal with the pressure? A couple of reasons, but here’s one especially good one: every night, while you sleep, we’re banging on the Bush Administration with all of our might. All day, and all night, 24/7/52. And we don’t get paid a dime, either. VDB is purely a labor of love.

And it’s always brilliant when love is a two-way street.

Let’s begin with a very deep political and philosophical question: having once gone over to the Dark Side, is it possible ever to come back?

The Karl Rove School has always said no. In the Rovian mind-set, Bushies are defined not merely by the unlikeliness of their changing their minds or parties, but by their inability to do so.

But VDB lives on hope.

Which brings us to one Brendan McKenna.

During the 2006 cycle, McKenna unexpectedly left the Rutland Herald to become Martha Rainville’s campaign spokesman. It was a move that puzzled more than one analyst.

Why? Take another look at the photo above.

That’s McKenna mugging with Andrew Savage, his counterpart at the Welch campaign, at the Brandon parade. When we first ran that shot, more than one reader experienced profound cognitive dissonance.

Puzzled email flowed in: how in God’s name, they wanted to know, could McKenna — the Republican spokesman — look so much gnarlier, hairier and just plain headier than Savage, the Dem?

McKenna looked as though he’d stopped in Brandon on his way to Glover for an eight-day bender at Bread and Puppet.

Most pundits reached the same conclusion: McKenna was a natural Leftie drawn to the Dark Side by the formidable wiles of Martha Rainville. And McKenna wasn’t the only one; Rainville’s camp counted quite a few centrist Democrats among its converts.

In any event, we always thought the day might come that McKenna would re-see the light.

Fast forward to yesterday, when Brendan sent in a small treasure trove of Obama photos from a recent event at H20, a hot club in D.C.

According to media reports, Obama “enthralled” the crowd, and although McKenna was there covering the event for Medill, the School of Journalism he currently attends, there is evidence to suggest that McKenna actually experienced the Obama Effect himself.

How do we know? Because in addition to taking the photos above and below, Brendan worked the whole set into a dynamite slide show VDB is currently unable to bring you.

But it’s killer. And no one takes that kind of time unless they’re some kind of intrigued.

Welcome back, Brendan. It’s a big tent. And if you’re wondering, yes, we saved your seat.

Spotted a promising bit of property browsing the Picket Fence Preview this morning, for sale by owner. A Williston address, it seems:

“Carriage home on quiet cul-de-sac. 4 bedroom, 2.5 baths, office, laundry, deck, basement walkout to patio and hot tub. Cathedral ceiling and gas fireplace in greatroom. Granite counters in kitchen. Hardwood/tile floors, berber carpet in bedrooms and family room. Many custom features. Home backs to woods and is convenient to schools and golf course. Tennis courts and swimming pool in neighborhood.”

What made it particularly interesting was the name imbedded in the HTML code: MRainville. And a recording at the number listed sounds an awful lot like a certain former Adjutant General just recently turned FEMA-flak.

Hot tub? Berbers in the bedrooms?

Who knew? The Rainville ads all seemed so homey and girl-next-door.

Of course the 2006 cycle is but a memory now, and VDB believes in reconciliation and healing. So we’d like to offer a hand in selling the Rainville homestead, especially in this tepid market.

So the link is here, househunters. To-die-for photos above.

There are many things to dislike about political advertising, many things to despise, in fact. We are usually at our very worst as a society in our campaign ads: we deliberately distort, we call names, we insinutate the unthinkable.

All of this we accomplish by selling access to our elected officials in order to pay for it. [Photo Courtesy of the Burlington Free Press]

The coming Presidential election will eventually cost more than a billion dollars, maybe two, the lion’s share consumed by sixty-second advertisements.

And that torrent of advertising will turn off far more voters than it turns on, very effectively depressing voter turn-out.

But if this is usually the case, it isn’t always so. There are relatively clean campaigns, and there are good-hearted, even beautiful campaign ads.

The 2006 Congressional campaign is a perfect case in point. To her credit, Martha Rainville pledged to run a clean campaign against Peter Welch, and she kept her word even as the race moved down to the wire.

The national GOP playbook, as written by operatives like Lee Atwater and Karl Rove, would certainly have called for Rainville to rough Welch up: a trial attorney, and one without military experience, Welch was at least potentially vulnerable to attack. Especially by a female Adjutant General.

But Rainville didn’t go for the jugular. And that decision allowed Peter Welch’s campaign the breathing room to produce one of my favorite campaign ads of all time.

It was an unassuming little sixty-second radio spot, nothing glamorous, called “Two Voices.” And that’s pretty much it in a nutshell: the spot is just two voices, one the wife of Vermont’s longtime Democratic Senator, and one the wife of the state’s famous Independent.

Just Marcelle Leahy and Liz Jeffords, talking about how long they’d been friends, and the candidate they’d both decided to support for Congress:

LEAHY: When you’ve been friends for over 30 years . . .

JEFFORDS: . . . and this is Liz Jeffords. Our husbands Jim and Patrick never shared the same party. But they’ve always shared a commitment to protecting the environment, improving education and putting Vermont first.

It was a genuinely brilliant bit of political speech, that ad, and when I first heard it, I thought for the very first time: this election is over.

Liz Jeffords, of course, died just a few days ago at the Jeffords’ home in Shrewsbury, following a recurrence of ovarian cancer.

The “Two Voices” was one of her last bits of political activism in a life filled with good works.

But the more I think of it in the days since her passing, I can’t help but be struck by the grand irony of it all: for most Vermonters, the “Two Voices” ad will be the last words they ever hear Liz Jeffords speak.

And in a very strange, bittersweet way, then, the normal grind of campaign getting and spending and attacking and wasting managed — in this one case — to produce an unexpected miracle: it brought the voice of Liz Jeffords, and her dear friend Marcelle, to the four corners of the state, for all of us to hear and linger over.

All sixty precious seconds of it.

[This piece aired originally on Vermont Public Radio. An MP3 is available here. Many thanks to Chris Klose for technical assistance, and for writing the advertisement in the first place. ]