Vermont Political Round-up - 8/21/08

Here in Vermont, our gubenatorial race is heating up. It's a three-way race, with Democrat Gaye Symington and newly-independent Anthony Pollina (formerly of the liberal Progressive Party) challenging incumbent Republican Jim Douglas. As you might expect, the mud-slinging is just hitting high gear.

Governor Douglas and challenger Pollina have taken Symington to task for her recent financial disclosures. Seems that while the candidate was willing to make her finances public, she was not willing to air her husband's finances. Now, I agree that we should expect transparency from candidates for public office, but something about Pollina and Douglas's criticism strikes me wrong. Her husband isn't running for office. Shouldn't he have some kind of privacy? I suppose that if your spouse is running for office you should expect to have your life exposed to the public, but where's the limit?

But Symington isn't the only one with money troubles. A few weeks ago, Pollina dropped the Progressive Party and decided to run as an independent. That's fine. What's not fine is his refusal to return $27,000 in campaign contributions from 34 supporters, a result mandated by Vermont elections law. In Vermont, major-party candidates, those candidates who face primaries, can collect up to $2,000 from each contributor. Minor-party and uaffiliated candidates - independents like Pollina - can only collect $1,000 per contributor because they don't face a primary. Pollina decided to run as an independent, and now refuses to give back some of the money he collected. The State Attorney General is investigating.

As Vermont Daily Briefing puts it, Pollina has "jumped the couch." So much for Vermont's Mr. Campaign Fiance Reform.

Lastly, Republican Karen Kerin is challenging incumbent Democrat William Sorrell in the Vermont Attorney General race. Kerin, of Royalton, comes across as the tough-on-crime candidate, criticizing Sorrell for spending too much time on environmental and other non-criminal matters. So, what are her ideas for enhancing Vermont's criminal justice system. Well, for one, she's all for expanding Vermont's DNA database. By taking DNA from underage rape victims' aborted fetuses.

Not touching that one with a ten foot pole.

SCOTUS and Hillary: The Movie

Just in time to coincide with what's turn into our weeklong critique on the theatre of the absurd known as the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election, there's news out of the Supreme Court that Citizen's United, a conservative advocacy group, is seeking an expidited review of a recent D.C. Court of Appeals decision in the Supreme Court. The group has put together a film called Hillary: The Movie, which tries to explain all the reasons why Hillary Clinton is not fit for President. Rumor is that if Obama wins the nomination, another film is in production.

The legal question here is whether campaign finance laws apply to promotional ads for this kind of film. Clearly, if the race comes down to Hillary versus the Republican nominee, that nominee will benefit from the film. Of course, there have been a lot of subtle and not-so-subtle political movies in the last few years, from SiCKO (never sure how to spell that), to Bowling for Columbine, and even an Inconvenient Truth, so how the Supreme Court decides this case could have broad ramifications. But, aside from that, this kind of film raise some pretty serious questions about our electoral process. As others have said on this blog in more artful ways, we've reached a point where ideas and policy don't matter.

What seems to matter is which candidate is willing cut deepest in Slanderfest '08, both now during the primaries and later in the general election. You've got Clinton and Obama slugging it out over who has the most experience while our boy John Edwards is actually putting some ideas forward. On the other side, there's a race to see who would kick out the most illegals, kill the most terrorists, and cut the most taxes. And all of it boils down to a growing cabal of personality cults. It's no longer what we believe in so much as who's side we're on.

And that's the deal with this movie. It's about hatred of a person, not the person's ideas. All legal questions aside, it represents an approach to politics that we must reject. The best possible outcome with Hillary: The Movie? Total box office flop, with terrible critical reviews.