Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin and his Republican rival for the state’s top job, Sen Randy Brock (R-Franklin), met for their second debate of the season Wednesday morning — and it was a feisty affair.
Hosted by WDEV-FM and moderated by Mark Johnson, the hour-long debate was held at the Red Hen Bakery in Middlesex. The candidates spent much of their time discussing what seems to be the defining issue of this race — their competing health care plans — but touched on a number of other topics as well, including industrial wind, the lottery, taxes, jobs and, um, pot.
Click here to listen to a recording of the debate and read on for seven lessons we learned from it. (Photo of Brock and Shumlin courtesy of WPTZ-TV’s Stewart Ledbetter.)
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“Except Shummy didn’t quite nail the carefully-rehearsed rejoinder today.
Instead, he summoned up the rather frightening image of Putney Pete
running for president.”
Whoa! That is totally a frightening prospect. This is a guy who can’t control his mouth (and maybe other organs as well). A guy who struggles with any self control at all. A guy who says whatever comes into his head, like unsolicited and unwanted stories about being naked and confronting bears. Who can’t stop himself at a parade from literally jumping onto the VPIRG bandwagon. Who can’t stop himself from going to a military funeral in St. Albans and using that solemn occasion to inappropriately gladhand votes for Governor. Who can’t resist the urge to foolishly attempt to belt out “Here Comes The Sun” at a videotaped conference. This guy running for President would make the Dean Scream look like a model of self-control. This guy as President would make Clinton’s Lewinsky Affair look dignified.
“All I ask is that we not politicize Irene.” Fair enough Pete, but how about your administrations incompetence in possibly losing out on 80 million dollars? Can we politicize that, because God knows you would if the shoe were on the other foot.
Funny how the man that took donuts and a bunch of “businessmen” over to Dubie’s HQ’s for a political stunt is now trying to take the high road.
The problem in this race is that Brock really isn’t doing much to help himself. And that is frightening. If I had the choice of either having Obama or Shumlin get re-elected I would have to choose Obama. Schummy just needs to go.
On the rebuilding the state complex front: I’d like to point out that the Shumlin team did not “lose out on $80 million.” They are dealing with a very difficult and arbitrary Federal agency – FEMA – that has given wildly differing answers on the rebuilding “rules” depending on who’s speaking, what day it is, and – I don’t know – their reading of animal entrails? What I know for sure is that our folks are working their butts off to go through FEMA’s hoops, which change every day.
So let’s stop saying we’ve lost this one. We’re in the game, we’re playing by the rules, we’re playing as hard as we can, and we have referees who are very hard to read and might be a touch arbitrary. By no stretch can you blame that on the Irene team.
Point
2: Sorry, but Brock and Johnson were right. ACA and GMC are intertwined, and
were tied together purposely by the Shumlin Administration. As reported by
Vermont Digger right after passage of H.559, “The Shumlin administration
plans to use the exchange [ACA] as a stepping stone toward financing a
single-payer health care system [GMC].†Shumlin et al are taking that ACA money
to pay for the groundwork for his single payer plan. Maybe it SHOULDN’T be the
same thing, but it is. Shumlin was not honest about that in the debate, and
Heinz doesn’t seem to know enough about the issue to call the gov on that.