Jon Margolis is VTDigger’s political analyst.
[U]nder the radar, a political campaign is taking shape in Vermont.
Under the radar is where it belongs.
It will come to nothing, as such campaigns always do.
And yet, considering the weirdness of all politics today – the campaign that culminated in the election of the president of the United States couldn’t succeed either – and considering the numbers, the demographics and the Vermont political situation, one could outline a scenario in which this campaign would pop onto the radar.
A scenario. The dictionary defines that as “a written outline of a movie, novel, or stage work.” So it’s fiction, an outline of something that did not and will not happen in real life.
In real life, write-in campaigns do not win elections. Especially write-in campaigns that have no money, are led by people who have no political experience, and are supporting a candidate who does not campaign.
That’s why the write-in campaign to choose state Sen. John Rodgers of Glover as the Democratic candidate for governor will not succeed.
The two folks in charge of this campaign – Angelo Napolitano of Waitsfield and Richard Ley of Rutland – appear to be (on the basis of some telephone conversations) reasonable and capable gentlemen. But neither claims to be a skilled political operative.
Nor do they claim to have raised much money, apparently not even the $1,000 that would require them to register their organization with the secretary of state’s office as a political action committee. As of Friday afternoon, no such committee had registered.
And while their candidate is doing nothing to discourage his supporters, he’s not doing any campaigning, either. There are three Democratic candidates for governor who have been making speeches, attending forums, sending out press releases. Rodgers – when not required to be in the Statehouse – has been in the Northeast Kingdom building things. That’s how he earns his living.
So – to repeat – this write-in campaign for him will not succeed. Such campaigns do not succeed.
OK, for you nitpicking history buffs, Sen. Lisa Murkowski was re-elected to the Senate from Alaska in 2010 in a write-in campaign after she had lost the Republican primary to a tea party type named Joe Miller. Four years earlier, the people circulating the re-nomination petitions for Democratic Rep. Charlie Wilson of Ohio somehow managed not to get enough signatures to qualify him for the ballot. He ran and won a write-in campaign.
But Murkowski and Wilson were widely known incumbents who raised money, assembled experienced political operatives and campaigned hard.
The other winning write-in campaign was in 1954 in South Carolina. The winner was Strom Thurmond. That was long ago, in another political universe, and, at any rate, the less one knows about and the sooner everyone forgets about Strom Thurmond the better the world will be.
So history does not support the belief that, with only a few weeks to go, an under-funded campaign for a little-known contender led by political amateurs has any chance of success against three active, organized candidates.
But think about those three contenders. Then think of a peculiarity of Vermont politics right now. Then think of some numbers. Then remember that anything can happen.
The three candidates (there’s a fourth, but he’s 14 years old and ineligible to become governor) are – putting it gently here – not political heavyweights. None has held or even sought elected office. None is widely known around the state. Though the campaign has barely begun, none seem to be compelling political performers, a la, say, Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan.
None of this is a character flaw. James Ehlers, Christine Hallquist and Brenda Siegel appear to be intelligent, competent, honorable people. Any one of them might be a good candidate or a good governor. None seem likely to become a political phenomenon.
Meaning this Democratic primary could be a low-turnout affair. It’s on Aug. 14. Enthusiasm for the candidates is thus far minimal. Whoever wins would be unlikely to defeat Republican Gov. Phil Scott in November. Why bother to vote?
Well, maybe if you’re part of what might be called the gun enthusiast constituency.
As was evident last April when Scott signed a package of gun control bills, some Vermonters really care about their guns, both for the guns themselves and because guns have become a symbol of a traditional, rural (and perhaps disappearing) way of life.
The intricacies and the wisdom of that viewpoint are complex, and at any rate are irrelevant to the political fact that some people will vote on the gun issue alone, and that most of those people have not been voting in Democratic primaries.
Suppose 15,000 to 20,000 of them flooded into this Democratic primary to vote for Rodgers, a centrist Democrat who firmly (and articulately) opposes gun restrictions. Two years ago, slightly more than 70,000 people voted in a Democratic primary between three well-known, well-financed candidates. The turnout this year will probably be much lower, perhaps no more than 50,000. Perhaps less.
So 15,000 votes could nominate the Democratic candidate for governor.
Is the gun enthusiast constituency that big?
Nobody knows. The last poll of Vermont’s views on gun control, taken by the now-defunct Castleton Polling Institute in 2016, showed eight percent of Vermonters “strongly opposed” requiring background checks on all gun sales.
But eight percent of what? There are some 470,000 registered voters in the state, but not nearly that many vote in primaries. In 2016, about 110,000 voted in the Democratic and Republican primaries. Eight percent of that is only 8,800 votes. But – again – most of these gun enthusiasts have not been voting in primaries at all. If they flock to the polls, the previous numbers mean nothing.
It’s a scenario. It’s fiction. There probably are not 15,000 gun enthusiasts, and if there are, the moneyless amateur write-in campaign probably lacks the resources needed to reach many of them and get them to the polls. Rodgers said that if he were nominated he would mount a vigorous campaign against Scott. But he doesn’t expect to be nominated.
No one should expect him to be nominated. This campaign should go back under the radar where it belongs.
These days, though, one never knows what will creep out from under the radar.
