Politics
& Government The
State of Things ... Free
Space in DownStreet for Political Candidates It's
hard to find a political candidate who doesn't talk the talk about
campaign finance reform. The difficulty is finding one who'll walk
the walk. ... The reasons given by candidates for
this apparent foot-dragging are many and varied. Some of them are
rooted in legitimate concerns. Others are simply a dodge, or worse,
a sham. Well, here at DownStreet, we'd like to
do our part to support campaign finance reform by making free web
space available to all political candidates who will be appearing
on the ballots of any of the towns in our target readership area, whether
for local, regional, state, or federal office ... viz., the towns of ... We
don't pretend that this can solve the difficult issues of campaign
finance. But we do believe it offers an excellent way for
candidates, even those with fewer financial resources, to address the
voting public. We encourage all DownStreet readers
to check out the Campaign 2000 section frequently. Bernie?
{Did We Miss Something?} As of this writing,
the election's a little more than a month away. The 'time trials'
and 'qualifying meets' and the primaries that led up to them were over
well before the Olympics ever got started. In the race for governor,
we're down to the two top contenders -- Democrat Howard Dean &
Republican Ruth Dwyer -- plus the outside hopeful the Progressives have
fielded in the person of Anthony Pollina. In the
pre-qualifying atmosphere of juggling and tightrope acts, one could see
some interesting alliances shaping up. One of the more interesting
races to watch in this regard was the one between Flannagan &
Backus. It was interesting, not so much to see who would have the
honor of losing to Jim Jeffords, but to see how Dean & Co. lined up
for it. But that's another story. ... More
recently, in the race for governor in which Dean himself is a contestant,
a number of Republicans threw their support behind Dean, saying that Dwyer
was too out of touch with the economic needs & realities of Vermont to
take the reins from her incumbent opponent. They noted that had Meub
been nominated, they would've happily got behind him. The Dwyer
campaign tried to dismiss these defections as relatively unimportant,
nothing more than some old political dogs trying to get back into the
center ring of the political circus. Politics is, of
course, a team sport. And endorsements matter. Some more than
others; that's for sure. And, however you slice it, most of the
who's who of Vermont politics have already suited up for the Big Game. But
wait a minute!?!
Where's Bernie? Anthony Pollina got
enough signatures to make him eligible for public funds for his
campaign. He secured the Progressive nomination a while ago.
He's been in the debates. But conspicuously absent from all of this
has been the voice of Bernie Sanders. ... Where is
Bernie? That's the question we've been hearing round
about ... and not just from curious Progressives either. ... *******
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