Gaye Symington has soldiered on this campaign season, through some tough attacks and hard knocks. But in spite of all her pluck, Gaye’s days are clearly numbered now. For George Kuusela has written a darned feisty letter to the Rutland Herald, defending Jim Douglas’s latest negative ad.

And that’s ball-game, of course.

If you don’t recall this guy’s name, VDB will bet you can’t forget his sweet carefree apple-cheeked face. Kuusela, of Bellows Falls, made his last appearance in the 2006 Rich Tarrant attack ads.

It was a series of ads now infamous not merely as outrageously expensive and ineffective, but for the parade of tight-lipped sourpusses they paraded in front of Vermont voters.

The pricey ads actually lowered Tarrant’s numbers, and that’s saying something. And you can bet your life we had our fun with Kuusela when he was trying so desperately to stick the knife into Bernie. A few phrases from our review of his 2006 work:

George Cuusella’s is a face that will haunt the dreams of a whole new generation of Vermonters, for the rest of their natural-born lives.

Every spokesperson in every Tarrant ad looks like your high school gym coach after a three-day bender; the old woman who lives in the deserted house at the end of the block who chases kids away with a tarnished Civil War saber; or the evil old fart who monitors your apartment from his dank porch in the shade of a diseased elm down the street.

And now, not content to have sent Rich Tarrant’s 2006 campaign careening down in flames, George Kuusela is back, back to help his good friend Jim Douglas secure another term in Montpelier.

Back in the negative ad business.

Beautiful. Help away, George. Not every day the Symington campaign gets a gimme like that.