Vermont lite: Race for lieutenant governor heats up among Democrats

By Shay Totten | Vermont Guardian

Posted September 1, 2006

MONTPELIER — If there is one thing that both Democrats running for the chance to take on incumbent Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie agree on, it’s that the current officeholder hasn’t done enough to challenge what they deem to be bad policies emanating from Washington and the Bush administration.

Whomever wins the nomination — Rep. John Tracy of Burlington or state Sen. Matt Dunne of Windsor — he will face Dubie, a Republican, and Progressive Marvin Malek in the general election.

In each of the past two elections, Dubie has faced a Progressive and a Democrat, and each time he has won the majority. In 2002, Dubie won with 41 percent of the vote, but increased that to 56 percent in 2004.

Tracy served as majority leader in the House during the civil unions debate, as well as during some of the post-Act 60 reforms to education funding. He was appointed to chair a special health care commission charged with shepherding a reform package through the House this past session.

Despite gubernatorial objections, the bill was signed into law.

Before the bill became law, however, Tracy took the special health care commission on the road to discuss with Vermonters some of the options on the table.

If elected lieutenant governor, Tracy said he would engage Vermonters in similar ways around other thorny issues, including energy, farming, and college tuition, in an effort to find common solutions.

Dunne has been tapping into a new realm to attract people to his campaign — service politics. This type of retail politicking is an attempt to bridge the world of community service and community organizers with the policy or political world.

Dunne, who was national director of AmeriCorps/VISTA during the Clinton administration’s expansion of the national service program, is also the founder of the Rockefeller Center for Community Service at Dartmouth College.

So far, Dunne and his supporters have painted the inside of a Boys & Girls Club in Bellows Falls, pitched in at a food shelf warehouse in Brattleboro, built a bike trail in Montpelier, and helped to clean up Leddy Park in Burlington.

“I have come to believe that service politics may well be the future of grassroots progressive politics in this state and in the country,” said Dunne. The process allows people involved in a campaign to learn more about the nonprofits in their community, and it helps give nonprofit organizers access to the political system.

Given the many challenges facing the state, Dunne said there needs to be more efforts to bring people together to stand up against Washington.

“There are many, many issues that are coming down from Washington that now require all of our legislative officials to push back and stand up for Vermont values,” Dunne said. “We are seeing cuts in everything from [Community Development Block Grant] funding and food stamps to police resources, not to mention the wiretapping of Vermonters without a warrant.”

Like Dunne, Tracy said Dubie has been too quiet while Vermonters have been harmed by Washington policies, from the war in Iraq to tax cuts.

“Douglas and Dubie have been silent on the war, and silent on the tax policy; they have not led,” said Tracy. “I like Brian, but he’s been a co-pilot without a stick and he is just being a good soldier for George Bush.”

On the issues

Both Dunne and Tracy believe the state should be doing more to invest in renewable energy, and that Vermont should not relicense Vermont Yankee. Neither supported the 20 percent power uprate at the plant.

Both believe the state should spend more on efficiency measures, and should invest resources in renewable sources, such as hydro and wind.

“I happen to think public power is a good idea,” Tracy said, noting that there is no reason the state couldn’t invest in a commercial windfarm and see multiple returns on the investment — both environmental and financial.

Investing in these power sources would also create jobs, something that both candidates admit the state needs to do better if it hopes to raise the wages of many Vermonters.

But, Tracy adds, the state cannot lure businesses to Vermont while its top officials grumble about how hard it is to do business in the state.
“It’s like saying our restaurant’s open, but the food is lousy,” Tracy said.

Dunne, too, believes that the state is spending millions on advertising schemes to lure corporations to Vermont, but isn’t focusing its resources on the next “Hinda Millers or Rich Tarrants.”

While they mostly agree on issues, and differences may be more about style than substance, there are some areas where the pair part company.

On health care, Dunne and Tracy disagree about how far forward a step Catamount Health was for Vermonters.

“No one should be putting up a banner that says mission accomplished,” said Dunne. Overall, it was a good piece of legislation that will provide insurance to as many as 30,000 people, he said, but it may not yet do enough to contain cost.

“I won’t wait until 2011 to make sure that all Vermonters have universal coverage,” he adds.

Tracy said Vermonters won’t have to wait that long. In fact, they will know by 2008 some of the inherent administrative costs of the private insurers, which was included in the law. If the private insurers cannot make the program work by then, the state can step in and begin phasing in a single-payer system, he noted.

In Vermont, he says more needs to be done to educate residents about how much of their tax dollars are already paying for public health care — from teachers and firefighters to the president and governor.

“The Republicans are good at dividing us, but we have a lot more in common than we do differences,” said Tracy.