November 1, 2010
Almost everyone running for office in Vermont has become a part of the harassment in one way or another, which is too bad.
Kesha Ram and Kurt Wright are not in my district. However, when I was writing about the October 1, 2010 North Avenue News, the Burlington Community Newspaper, on my blog page entitled "From October 14, 2010," I noticed that Ms. Ram and Mr. Wright were in that issue of the newspaper. I didn't talk about them then; I wanted to think about it for a while.
Mr. Wright is now an obvious part of the harassment; you can see that on the Internet. However, he initially went in what I consider the right direction about it, which was to say in his article in the North Avenue News that the Colchester School District had knowingly hired a teacher whose conduct with students had been questionable. Ms. Ram and Mr. Wright were featured on the same page of the October 1, 2010 North Avenue News, and Ms. Ram went out of her way to make harassing references.
Ms. Ram is a Democrat, and Mr. Wright is a Republican; however, Mr. Wright kept to his principles longer than a lot of Republicans in Vermont did, and it doesn't seem to me that Ms. Ram has had many principles at all, about a number of things.
Here are some other people that I think, given the circumstances, might be the best options for the offices for which they are running:
1. U.S. Senator: Daniel Freilich
2. Representative to Congress: Jane Newton
3. Vermont Governor: Dan Feliciano
4. Lt. Governor: Marjorie Power
5. State Treasurer: Jeb Spaulding
6. Secretary of State: Jim Condos
7. Auditor of Accounts: Thomas Salmon
8. Attorney General: Karen Kerin
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I've only provided some of the information that candidates included in their statements in the "Vermont General Election 2010 Statewide Candidate Information Publication." Most of the people that I've quoted here filled up their pages in that publication.
1. U.S. Senator: Daniel Freilich
Daniel Freilich is actually Dr. Freilich. Here's what he said in his "Biographical Sketch" in the "Vermont General Election 2010 Statewide Candidate Information Publication" that the Burlington Free Press, the Caledonian Record, The County Courier, The Newport Daily Express, The Rutland Herald, and the Times Argues published, and that should still be available in all town offices and at the Office of the Secretary of State:
"Dan is a physician, U.S. Navy Captain, Associate Professor, father, and Wilmington resident. Recent career highlights include clinical practice and teaching in Internal Medicine/Infectious Diseases at National Naval Medical Center, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and Uniformed Services University, and directing malaria, bioterrorism, and trauma research--providing invaluable experience with Washington's bureaucracy, budgeting, contracting and personnel management. He attended at UVM/FAHC and Northwest Medical Center (St. Albans) and was in private practice in Jeffersonville. He is the first Leahy Primary challenger to receive "double digits'. Dan is an Independent candidate, advocating for middle class economics, sustainability, and honorable service."
2. Representative to Congress: Jane Newton
This was a difficult decision for me, because she doesn't seem to have the same level of political experience as some of the other candidates do. However, she is a retired nurse, seems committed to the protection of children and minors, wants to shut down Vermont Yankee, and I think would learn how to do whatever she didn't already know how to do in office. Health care is extremely demanding and requires everything from native intelligence to people skills in order to excel at it; the fact that she is a retired nurse means that she had a successful career, has a lot of direct experience interacting closely with all kinds of people, has already heard more life stories than most people ever will, knows how to work effectively and responsibly in a system that demands accuracy, knows how to deal with people for whom and to whom she is responsible, and cares about what she's doing.
3, Vermont Governor: Dan Feliciano
Here's what Mr. Feliciano outlines as his goals:
"1. Cut spending and waste while improving productivity--before we can cut taxes, we need to get our cost structure under control
2. Retain and grow our businesses by creating an infrastructure that enables businesses to grow.
3. Develop a cost-conscious state culture with an emphasis of providing services faster, better and cheaper
4. Cut Taxes after we have right sized the budget
5. Equal rights and equal freedom for all Vermonters, all Vermonters will have the right to marry."
4. Lieutenant Governor: Marjorie Power
Here's what Ms. Power wrote in her Biographical Sketch:
"Attorney in private practice, formerly attorney for the Vermont Division of Rate Setting and the Public Service Board, currently presiding officer of the Vermont Board of Medical Practice, B.A., McGill University, Montreal; post-graduate historical research, University of London, England; J.D. magna cum laude, Vermont Law School.
Civic Service: Chair of the Vermont Commission to Study Preference Voting, Montpelier City Council Member, Montpelier Planning Commission Chair.
Community Service: Board Member of the Onion River Exchange, Older Women's League, Community of Vermont Elders, Barre Historical Society, Officer of the Capital City Grange."
Her pictures shows that she's no older than U.S. Senator for Vermont Patrick Leahy.
5. State Treasurer: Jeb Spaulding
Mr. Spaulding is the State Treasurer now, and you can see if you look through his website that he is part of the harassment. However, he's taking the election seriously in other respects; he has a lot of credentials and in every other way besides the harassment, he's professional.
6. Vermont Secretary of State: Jim Condos
This decision is not that difficult; there are only two other choices, and I'm afraid that voting for Leslie Marmorale, who's listed as a member of the Liberty Union party, would take votes away from the Democratic Party and Ms. Marmorale wouldn't win anyway.
I'm not going to say that Mr. Condos is completely out of the harassment; however, as much if not more so than Jeb Spaulding, he obviously takes the election seriously, has experience, and even when other Democrats in the same publication made as many harassing references as they could, for example using Peter Shumlin using the word "leak" as many times as he could fit into a sentence, Mr. Condos focused on a different issue, one which is not immediately obvious as a big, harassing joke.
Here's what Mr. Condos wrote in his Biographical Sketch:
"Raised in Vermont, I am considered a strong leader with a common-sense approach to issues. I have a unique and relevant background for the Secretary of State position:
--20+ years of elected public service, 18 years on South Burlington City Council, 8 years as a Vermont State Senator
--30+ years of private sector business experience.
As an elected leader, I focused on issues important to working Vermonters, including economic development; health care; education, child protection; protection of civil/employment rights; open/transparent government; accountability; improving our election process; voter participation; affordable housing; transportation, and support for public services."
7. Auditor of Accounts: Thomas Salmon
The contrast between Mr. Salmon's statement in the Candidate Information Publication and the statement made by his opponent Doug Hoffer is striking, to say the least. Mr. Salmon filled the page with qualifications and goals. Mr. Hoffer has a half page which barely has one complete sentence on it, and apparently had assumed that highlighting the phrase "The Leaky Bucket" would guarantee him election.
It's my understanding that the original difference between the Democratic and Republican parties was of theory about finances. One of my main objections to what seems to be a Republican view is that I believe that it's unrealistic to expect that any society will ever be able to completely grow out of having a population that needs government support. In every society that has ever existed, there have always been people who either can't or won't take care of themselves, and if you don't have government support for those people, you will have criminals and completely helpless people instead of people on welfare.
One of the ways to help any society grow out of having an overwhelming number of people who can't or won't take care of themselves is to invest seriously in education and employment training programs, including teaching more comprehensive self-care skills in the schools from the moment children can understand speech. That means teaching children how to balance checkbooks, save money, invest, job search, get into college, it means classes in fundamentals of psychology and sociology so that they can understand themselves and the world around them sooner, it means a lot of things in addition to making the classes that they have in subjects that are already being taught more challenging. There's no reason to wait until people get to college to teach them those things, or not to teach them at all; people in general can understand a lot more than a lot of very educated people think they can, and they can understand it sooner and better than anybody thinks they can. There's also no reason why public grade schools shouldn't make it easy for people who are of legal working age to have part-time jobs in their communities along with academics and other activities. There are some ways in which the sooner people grow up, the better.
In any case, I don't know that it's a bad thing, in the event that there is no qualified Democrat to hold an office such as Auditor of Accounts, to have Democratic or Independent policymakers working with Republicans who are watching the money and the distribution of funds. That seems as if it would be a de facto if unofficial system of checks and balances, which is what our government is supposed to be based on.
8. Attorney General: Karen Kerin
This woman is so educated that I was amazed. She also demonstrates understanding of what a lawyer is supposed to do.
Among other things, she has an engineering degree, several law degrees, has worked with the public defender's office in Rutland, and has worked as a consultant in Human Rights and International Law.
Here is one of the goals that she lists in her statement:
"Efficiency in the office: Currently there are 80 attorneys general, either assistant or deputy, scattered in every department of the government. Considering that the state only has 630,000 people, that is one AG for every 7875 persons. Having been a manager for many years, I would bring all attorneys general into one office where allocation of resources could be better assigned in this time of stressed state budgeting. It might mean fewer staff are needed. This would ensure more consistent advice and better law enforcement."
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November 2, 2010 @ 12:53 a.m.
I've taken a look at some of the candidates for Vermont State Senate over the past few weeks, and tonight I looked again at what they were doing online:
For Vermont State Senator, Chittenden 3-10. It says "Vote for NO MORE than 6"
Democrat Philip Baruth is consistently, obviously and unapologetically terrible about the harassment; he's the only one of the 6 Democrats running for Vermont State Senate who is brazening out every last second of the harassment in 3-10 on his official website.
Tim Ashe has been pretty bad; I'm not psyched about him, but there IS NO WAY I'm voting for Philip Baruth.
I just went through the Democratic candidates for that office again and categorized them with "Bad, Good, Could Be Worse" in terms of the harassment.
Sally Fox: Her website doesn't look too bad, but I know she's been involved and her ad with the lake behind her is still in the papers, so she gets a "Could Be Worse."
Virginia Lyons: She looks ok, and she has a very interesting story. She got a letter from the Chinese government a couple of years ago telling her what to do as a Vermont State Senator: the Chinese government found her FAX number and FAXed her a letter expressing its wishes. You can read the letter that the Chinese government sent her at www.worldtradelaw.net/chinavermont.pdf.
Hinda Miller: Her websites look ok; she's also one of the inventors of the Jogbra and she's on the board at Green Mountain Coffee. Whatever else might be going on with Green Mountain Coffee, I had noticed a few times that they were advertising for "K-Cups" in the papers, and now apparently they're having a "Perfect K-Cup Sweepstakes." Now THAT is funny. THAT is cute; I can live with it.
Andy Montroll: His website is somewhere between "Good" and "Could Be Worse." However, he's very educated and is definitely qualified.
You can't vote for more than 6 candidates for Vermont State Senator, but that doesn't mean that you have to vote for 6.
One thing that I want to strongly caution people about is just picking another person out of the list. I looked at what some of the Republicans running for state senate are doing; it's awful, and the independents seem to be a mix. Their information is so scattered that some of it looks fine and some of it looks terrible.
Charlie Smith is dangerous; you can see that from what I wrote in my blog page "From October 14, 2010." Annette Roque Renaud is also dangerous; she just got endorsed by the Vermont Police Association, and in her October 24, 2010 statement to the Burlington Free Press about that endorsement, she said "Our voice has been drowned out by the established political elite. It is time that our...." She's scary.
Diane Snelling is a Republican running for re-election for State Senate. She is BY FAR the best choice of the Republicans, and I think of everyone who's left on that list.
That's 6.
I was planning to vote all Democrat and not go too much into examining the other options, hoping that I could negotiate about the rest of the harassment and other issues after the election. However, I finally realized that there was no reason to do that.
Kesha Ram and Kurt Wright are not in my district. However, when I was writing about the October 1, 2010 North Avenue News, the Burlington Community Newspaper, on my blog page entitled "From October 14, 2010," I noticed that Ms. Ram and Mr. Wright were in that issue of the newspaper. I didn't talk about them then; I wanted to think about it for a while.
Mr. Wright is now an obvious part of the harassment; you can see that on the Internet. However, he initially went in what I consider the right direction about it, which was to say in his article in the North Avenue News that the Colchester School District had knowingly hired a teacher whose conduct with students had been questionable. Ms. Ram and Mr. Wright were featured on the same page of the October 1, 2010 North Avenue News, and Ms. Ram went out of her way to make harassing references.
Ms. Ram is a Democrat, and Mr. Wright is a Republican; however, Mr. Wright kept to his principles longer than a lot of Republicans in Vermont did, and it doesn't seem to me that Ms. Ram has had many principles at all, about a number of things.
Here are some other people that I think, given the circumstances, might be the best options for the offices for which they are running:
1. U.S. Senator: Daniel Freilich
2. Representative to Congress: Jane Newton
3. Vermont Governor: Dan Feliciano
4. Lt. Governor: Marjorie Power
5. State Treasurer: Jeb Spaulding
6. Secretary of State: Jim Condos
7. Auditor of Accounts: Thomas Salmon
8. Attorney General: Karen Kerin
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've only provided some of the information that candidates included in their statements in the "Vermont General Election 2010 Statewide Candidate Information Publication." Most of the people that I've quoted here filled up their pages in that publication.
1. U.S. Senator: Daniel Freilich
Daniel Freilich is actually Dr. Freilich. Here's what he said in his "Biographical Sketch" in the "Vermont General Election 2010 Statewide Candidate Information Publication" that the Burlington Free Press, the Caledonian Record, The County Courier, The Newport Daily Express, The Rutland Herald, and the Times Argues published, and that should still be available in all town offices and at the Office of the Secretary of State:
"Dan is a physician, U.S. Navy Captain, Associate Professor, father, and Wilmington resident. Recent career highlights include clinical practice and teaching in Internal Medicine/Infectious Diseases at National Naval Medical Center, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and Uniformed Services University, and directing malaria, bioterrorism, and trauma research--providing invaluable experience with Washington's bureaucracy, budgeting, contracting and personnel management. He attended at UVM/FAHC and Northwest Medical Center (St. Albans) and was in private practice in Jeffersonville. He is the first Leahy Primary challenger to receive "double digits'. Dan is an Independent candidate, advocating for middle class economics, sustainability, and honorable service."
2. Representative to Congress: Jane Newton
This was a difficult decision for me, because she doesn't seem to have the same level of political experience as some of the other candidates do. However, she is a retired nurse, seems committed to the protection of children and minors, wants to shut down Vermont Yankee, and I think would learn how to do whatever she didn't already know how to do in office. Health care is extremely demanding and requires everything from native intelligence to people skills in order to excel at it; the fact that she is a retired nurse means that she had a successful career, has a lot of direct experience interacting closely with all kinds of people, has already heard more life stories than most people ever will, knows how to work effectively and responsibly in a system that demands accuracy, knows how to deal with people for whom and to whom she is responsible, and cares about what she's doing.
3, Vermont Governor: Dan Feliciano
Here's what Mr. Feliciano outlines as his goals:
"1. Cut spending and waste while improving productivity--before we can cut taxes, we need to get our cost structure under control
2. Retain and grow our businesses by creating an infrastructure that enables businesses to grow.
3. Develop a cost-conscious state culture with an emphasis of providing services faster, better and cheaper
4. Cut Taxes after we have right sized the budget
5. Equal rights and equal freedom for all Vermonters, all Vermonters will have the right to marry."
4. Lieutenant Governor: Marjorie Power
Here's what Ms. Power wrote in her Biographical Sketch:
"Attorney in private practice, formerly attorney for the Vermont Division of Rate Setting and the Public Service Board, currently presiding officer of the Vermont Board of Medical Practice, B.A., McGill University, Montreal; post-graduate historical research, University of London, England; J.D. magna cum laude, Vermont Law School.
Civic Service: Chair of the Vermont Commission to Study Preference Voting, Montpelier City Council Member, Montpelier Planning Commission Chair.
Community Service: Board Member of the Onion River Exchange, Older Women's League, Community of Vermont Elders, Barre Historical Society, Officer of the Capital City Grange."
Her pictures shows that she's no older than U.S. Senator for Vermont Patrick Leahy.
5. State Treasurer: Jeb Spaulding
Mr. Spaulding is the State Treasurer now, and you can see if you look through his website that he is part of the harassment. However, he's taking the election seriously in other respects; he has a lot of credentials and in every other way besides the harassment, he's professional.
6. Vermont Secretary of State: Jim Condos
This decision is not that difficult; there are only two other choices, and I'm afraid that voting for Leslie Marmorale, who's listed as a member of the Liberty Union party, would take votes away from the Democratic Party and Ms. Marmorale wouldn't win anyway.
I'm not going to say that Mr. Condos is completely out of the harassment; however, as much if not more so than Jeb Spaulding, he obviously takes the election seriously, has experience, and even when other Democrats in the same publication made as many harassing references as they could, for example using Peter Shumlin using the word "leak" as many times as he could fit into a sentence, Mr. Condos focused on a different issue, one which is not immediately obvious as a big, harassing joke.
Here's what Mr. Condos wrote in his Biographical Sketch:
"Raised in Vermont, I am considered a strong leader with a common-sense approach to issues. I have a unique and relevant background for the Secretary of State position:
--20+ years of elected public service, 18 years on South Burlington City Council, 8 years as a Vermont State Senator
--30+ years of private sector business experience.
As an elected leader, I focused on issues important to working Vermonters, including economic development; health care; education, child protection; protection of civil/employment rights; open/transparent government; accountability; improving our election process; voter participation; affordable housing; transportation, and support for public services."
7. Auditor of Accounts: Thomas Salmon
The contrast between Mr. Salmon's statement in the Candidate Information Publication and the statement made by his opponent Doug Hoffer is striking, to say the least. Mr. Salmon filled the page with qualifications and goals. Mr. Hoffer has a half page which barely has one complete sentence on it, and apparently had assumed that highlighting the phrase "The Leaky Bucket" would guarantee him election.
It's my understanding that the original difference between the Democratic and Republican parties was of theory about finances. One of my main objections to what seems to be a Republican view is that I believe that it's unrealistic to expect that any society will ever be able to completely grow out of having a population that needs government support. In every society that has ever existed, there have always been people who either can't or won't take care of themselves, and if you don't have government support for those people, you will have criminals and completely helpless people instead of people on welfare.
One of the ways to help any society grow out of having an overwhelming number of people who can't or won't take care of themselves is to invest seriously in education and employment training programs, including teaching more comprehensive self-care skills in the schools from the moment children can understand speech. That means teaching children how to balance checkbooks, save money, invest, job search, get into college, it means classes in fundamentals of psychology and sociology so that they can understand themselves and the world around them sooner, it means a lot of things in addition to making the classes that they have in subjects that are already being taught more challenging. There's no reason to wait until people get to college to teach them those things, or not to teach them at all; people in general can understand a lot more than a lot of very educated people think they can, and they can understand it sooner and better than anybody thinks they can. There's also no reason why public grade schools shouldn't make it easy for people who are of legal working age to have part-time jobs in their communities along with academics and other activities. There are some ways in which the sooner people grow up, the better.
In any case, I don't know that it's a bad thing, in the event that there is no qualified Democrat to hold an office such as Auditor of Accounts, to have Democratic or Independent policymakers working with Republicans who are watching the money and the distribution of funds. That seems as if it would be a de facto if unofficial system of checks and balances, which is what our government is supposed to be based on.
8. Attorney General: Karen Kerin
This woman is so educated that I was amazed. She also demonstrates understanding of what a lawyer is supposed to do.
Among other things, she has an engineering degree, several law degrees, has worked with the public defender's office in Rutland, and has worked as a consultant in Human Rights and International Law.
Here is one of the goals that she lists in her statement:
"Efficiency in the office: Currently there are 80 attorneys general, either assistant or deputy, scattered in every department of the government. Considering that the state only has 630,000 people, that is one AG for every 7875 persons. Having been a manager for many years, I would bring all attorneys general into one office where allocation of resources could be better assigned in this time of stressed state budgeting. It might mean fewer staff are needed. This would ensure more consistent advice and better law enforcement."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
November 2, 2010 @ 12:53 a.m.
I've taken a look at some of the candidates for Vermont State Senate over the past few weeks, and tonight I looked again at what they were doing online:
For Vermont State Senator, Chittenden 3-10. It says "Vote for NO MORE than 6"
Democrat Philip Baruth is consistently, obviously and unapologetically terrible about the harassment; he's the only one of the 6 Democrats running for Vermont State Senate who is brazening out every last second of the harassment in 3-10 on his official website.
Tim Ashe has been pretty bad; I'm not psyched about him, but there IS NO WAY I'm voting for Philip Baruth.
I just went through the Democratic candidates for that office again and categorized them with "Bad, Good, Could Be Worse" in terms of the harassment.
Sally Fox: Her website doesn't look too bad, but I know she's been involved and her ad with the lake behind her is still in the papers, so she gets a "Could Be Worse."
Virginia Lyons: She looks ok, and she has a very interesting story. She got a letter from the Chinese government a couple of years ago telling her what to do as a Vermont State Senator: the Chinese government found her FAX number and FAXed her a letter expressing its wishes. You can read the letter that the Chinese government sent her at www.worldtradelaw.net/chinavermont.pdf.
Hinda Miller: Her websites look ok; she's also one of the inventors of the Jogbra and she's on the board at Green Mountain Coffee. Whatever else might be going on with Green Mountain Coffee, I had noticed a few times that they were advertising for "K-Cups" in the papers, and now apparently they're having a "Perfect K-Cup Sweepstakes." Now THAT is funny. THAT is cute; I can live with it.
Andy Montroll: His website is somewhere between "Good" and "Could Be Worse." However, he's very educated and is definitely qualified.
You can't vote for more than 6 candidates for Vermont State Senator, but that doesn't mean that you have to vote for 6.
One thing that I want to strongly caution people about is just picking another person out of the list. I looked at what some of the Republicans running for state senate are doing; it's awful, and the independents seem to be a mix. Their information is so scattered that some of it looks fine and some of it looks terrible.
Charlie Smith is dangerous; you can see that from what I wrote in my blog page "From October 14, 2010." Annette Roque Renaud is also dangerous; she just got endorsed by the Vermont Police Association, and in her October 24, 2010 statement to the Burlington Free Press about that endorsement, she said "Our voice has been drowned out by the established political elite. It is time that our...." She's scary.
Diane Snelling is a Republican running for re-election for State Senate. She is BY FAR the best choice of the Republicans, and I think of everyone who's left on that list.
That's 6.
I was planning to vote all Democrat and not go too much into examining the other options, hoping that I could negotiate about the rest of the harassment and other issues after the election. However, I finally realized that there was no reason to do that.