Upcoming Events
-Summer BBQ and Candidate Forum
Saturday, August 22nd at 12noon, Arlington Recreation Park
-30th Annual John Bloomer Golf Tournament
Thursday, August 27th at 12:30pm, Neshobe Golf Course, Brandon
Recommended Reading
—State Taxpayers Picking up the Tab for Burlington Policing
—Two House Dems Lose Primaries, Senate Dems Survive Challenge
—ER Violence Becoming Dangerous and Demoralizing
—Newport’s EB-5 Pit to change Hands
VTGOP on WDEV - Tuesdays 9-11am
Last week [LINK]: Chairman Dame welcomes Rep. Ken Goslant of Northfield from the House Judiciary Committee to talk about Public Safety policy. And Vermont Republicans are aiming to add at least 7 more candidates to the November ballot.
This week: Chairman Dame welcomes the winners of two important Vermont Republican Primary races. First is Andy Klein running in the Addison Senate Seat, followed by Gerald Malloy running for U.S. Congress. During the second hour we’ll take listener calls, questions and reactions to last week’s other primary races.
Burlington’s Hopelessness Problem
The very first weekend after State’s Attorney Sarah George won her county race, the criminals in the city she lost seemed to celebrate with what could have become a triple homicide. Two stabbings and a shooting all occurred in downtown Burlington so close together that you could have missed all three if you were watching a Christopher Nolan movie. While no one was hospitalized after the reported gunfire, both stabbing victims went to the hospital, one of whom died there. It never used to be like this. The crime in Burlington is getting more frequent and more severe.
And it’s not just violent crime. Burlington was recently featured in an Atlantic article that highlighted the Queen City’s desire to implement explicitly progressive policies, and the difficult living environment it has created in the downtown area. Permitting and even enabling unrestricted drug use downtown has created an atmosphere that continues to drive out the kind of economically productive visitors the city needs to thrive, while attracting people into our most prominent places who make the city feel increasingly unsafe.
I used to love living and working downtown when I was in my 20s, and there was never a thought or concern that it was an unsafe place to be. Sure, there have always been panhandlers, but today’s crowd has a darker, grittier feel that makes Church St. feel more unapproachable and more unsafe than it ever was. The kinds of videos shown from cell phones in California, where people looked like actors from a zombie movie, were novel when filmed in entirely unfamiliar settings in San Francisco or Los Angeles. But when the same bizarre behaviors are observed around landmarks in the town many of us went to college in—it hits different.
Any city can have a crime problem. The real test is what, if anything, our elected officials do about it. Painfully, Sarah George seems to be committed to doing very little. In almost every news story she gets quoted in, she seems to sound preoccupied, or completely oblivious to the experience many people in Burlington are having. In the aforementioned Atlantic article, she was quoted saying, “I’m very frustrated with this narrative that City Hall Park is the end of the world. That park is still a very safe place to be.” But remarks like that seem to be common for Sarah George and also seem to be completely disconnected from how regular residents feel about the city they call home.
In an even further act of frustration, Sarah George seems to be acting like a teenager in response to the new policing policy that the City Council is taking. At first, she makes a point to say that she wasn’t invited to that party, and then also says that the meeting and proposal were useless. It’s hard to imagine what kind of public policy process would leave her unsupportive of the press conference announcing it, while also bitter about not being included in it.
But most troubling of all was the response that Sarah George gave to Vermont Public when reflecting on her win. She said, “these contested elections are an opportunity for someone to take advantage of the misinformation in the community, and I need to figure out how to keep that from happening.”
Despite the fact that incumbents rarely lose in Vermont, Sarah George nearly lost in her primary. I think most people would expect a little more self-reflection and humility. She has obviously lost support from where she was in the last election. And her opponent Bram Kranichfeld earned over 450 write-in votes in the Republican primary, which would have cut the gap in half if it had been a general election. I think that’s a pretty remarkable thing to take notice of. How often do Republicans WANT a Democrat to win their nomination?
The State’s Attorney race is one where Republican voters put partisanship aside and focused on what they thought was best for the community. And it seems clear that just about half of the primary voters did not want four more years of Queen George.
Since Bram was the outright winner of the Republican nomination, he has until Friday to decide if he is willing to continue to fight for the people of Chittenden County—or if he will reject the nomination and the thousands of people who wanted him to win on Tuesday. Because Bram won the nomination by winning the primary, the so-called “sore loser” laws do not apply, because they are not restrictions on voters, but only restrictions on party members working to thwart the will of the people. In this case, it’s clear that a majority of Republican voters wanted him on the ballot in November so that we don’t have to endure yet another four long and disruptive years of Sarah George.
The reasons for Bram to decline the nomination are all political. If he is primarily someone who wants to appease the people in his political party, then he may choose to quit the race. This might help him look good on paper as a future Democrat candidate—but it could also leave him feeling empty if the next four years continue to unravel, and he knows that he could have stepped in and done something to make it better.
If it’s about the politics, he would be smart to sit it out. But if the core of his work in the justice system is about people—then continuing to run would be the way that thousands of people would be heard. It’s clear that Sarah George has her focus set on making sure that voters stop thinking poorly of her. Her response to VPR demonstrated hubris over humility, and the fact that her margins of victory are large enough that she doesn’t have to listen to voters—she wants us to listen to her. If the people in Burlington are struggling to feel seen, heard and cared for under George’s tenure, they will have little hope over the next four years.
Bram has already won the Republican nomination. If he keeps it and expands his voter base to cut across party lines and focus on just doing the job of keeping people safe, and putting partisan considerations aside—he’ll have the best chance to win, and give the people of Burlington what they were asking for on Tuesday. But if he decides to step aside, it’s possible that Republicans could find another candidate. But if Republicans were to appoint a different candidate, it would be infinitely harder for that candidate to win over some of the Democrats who supported Bram last week.
If you think about some of the most iconic political figures from Vermont in the past few decades, they have all won the hearts of Vermonters by trying to sidestep the typical partisan games and just focus on doing what they think is right. Gov. Scott is applauded by general election voters when he breaks from his party regarding national issues, like Canadian tariffs. Lt. Gov. John Rodgers holds the same values he did when he served as a Democrat—but now he’s doing the right thing for the people of our state with an R after his name. Even Bernie Sanders won his first election to federal office defeating an incumbent whose base was starting to question him—and Bernie even used the support of the NRA to win the seat. Instead of those partisan-blurring tactics and opportunities creating problems for the candidates, general election audiences have rewarded them all for thinking outside the box and bending the partisan system in a way to do what’s right for every citizen—not just what’s right for the partisan players. If Bram was willing to buck the trend, the same way our current Senator, Governor and Lt. Gov have - it might put him on the same kind of unique and remarkable path that Independent-minded Vermonters have appreciated for years.
Paul Dame
VTGOP Chairman