BARRE — As he chatted with old friends outside the polls in Barre on Tuesday, Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Milne criticized Gov. Peter Shumlin for “running the state like it’s a political campaign.”
Milne, who is seeking the Republican Party nomination to challenge Shumlin this fall, won the primary race Tuesday against Emily Peyton and Steve Berry. Milne was also being challenged by an aggressive write-in campaign by Libertarian Dan Feliciano, who has the support of some in the GOP who are unhappy with Milne’s bid.
Milne had 10,410 votes as of last night, while Berry and Peyton each had fewer than 1,000 votes. It appeared that Feliciano garnered about 2,000 ballots cast. (Write-in results likely won’t be available until next week, according to the Secretary of State.)
Shumlin, too, faced a primary against H. Brooke Paige and a late write-in effort by supporters of Doug Racine, who was fired by Shumlin from his job as Secretary of the Agency of Human Services this month. Racine narrowly lost a five-way Democratic primary race to Shumlin in 2010. Progressive Dean Corren has also mounted a write-in campaign to win the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor.
Shumlin received 14,499 votes as of Tuesday night, while Paige had 3,085. There were 1,105 write-in votes cast in the Democratic gubernatorial primary.
Write-in results from Tuesday’s primary could take a week to tally, Secretary of State Jim Condos said, leaving at least a little mystery in an otherwise tepid off-year primary.
Other races to watch include the battle for Windham County Senate, in which four Democrats are squaring off for two seats. Four states attorney races and about a dozen House races also have contested primaries.
Standing outside Barre Auditorium, Milne mingled with people who have known him and his family for decades. Milne grew up in the Barre area and runs the travel agency founded by his late mother, former state Rep. Marion Milne.
Milne criticized Shumlin’s administration Tuesday for trumpeting Vermont’s heroin addiction treatment around the nation this year while actually doing little on that front and ignoring the state’s larger problems, such as health care.
Milne said he is skeptical that the state will successfully create a single-payer health care exchange because it “so badly botched” Vermont Health Connect, the online health insurance marketplace Vermont is building.
Milne called into question Shumlin’s line that he has the “smartest team in the nation” working on programs such as Vermont Health Connect, saying what the governor actually has is people who will do what he tells them.
It was good to be first in the nation on some issues, such as environmental protection laws (Act 250) and civil unions, he said, but a state with the population of a mid-sized city doesn’t necessarily need to be first in the nation on everything.
People who aren’t happy need a voice, Milne said, and he wants to provide it.
“If I’m alive tomorrow, politically speaking, people need a more balanced and a moderate course,” he said. The governor should have to justify his thinking on programs, rather than hide details until after the fact the way Shumlin has done with single-payer, he said.
Milne, who now lives in North Pomfret, also said he believes decisions should be made on the most local level possible. Using school choice as an example, he said communities should be able to decide for themselves whether it makes sense to consolidate small districts.
“The more locally things can be done the better,” he said.
Milne said if elected, he would wait for the Legislature to come up with a plan for reforming the school district system this session and if lawmakers can’t come up with one, he would propose one the following year.
As Milne shook hands with people outside the polling place, he knew many of them. Among them was Claude Savoie, who knew him since he was a child.
“I got a life I’m totally happy with before I decided to do this,” Milne said, adding that he’ll have one to return to if he is unsuccessful.
