Last summer, Rep. Sam Young (D-Glover) was preparing to run for a fourth term representing a small swath of the Northeast Kingdom in the Vermont House. His girlfriend, opera and theater director Heidi Lauren Duke, came up with a plan to produce a series of low-budget videos.
“The idea was, ‘Why don’t we just show you doing things in everyday life and let your personality shine through?’ I guess,” Young recalls.
What exactly is the 38-year-old web developer’s personality?
“I think I’m a little quirky,” he says. “But it’s like, ‘What does Sam love about the Northeast Kingdom and what do we love about this place?’”
Former governor Howard Dean at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia
As Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump sniffled away Monday night during the first debate of the general election, former Vermont governor Howard Dean posited a theory as to what was causing all the nasal activity.
"Notice Trump sniffing all the time," he wrote on Twitter. "Coke user?"
Rather than apologize for the off-color tweet the next day, the former practicing physician doubled down on it Tuesday afternoon in an appearance on MSNBC.
"Well, you can't make a diagnosis over the television," he said. "I would never do that. But he has some interesting — that is actually a signature of people who use cocaine. I'm not suggesting that Trump does, but—"
"Well you are suggesting it, actually, in a tweet," MSNBC host Kate Snow interjected.
"No, I'm suggesting we think about it," Dean said. Then he rattled off a list of symptoms he said Trump shared with cocaine users, ranging from "grandiosity" to "delusions" to "trouble with pressured speech."
A new TV ad produced by a Republican Governors Association super PAC.
Following Tuesday’s primary, the Republican Governors Association wasted little time jumping into Vermont’s gubernatorial race.
Seven minutes after the Associated Press declared Lt. Gov. Phil Scott the GOP nominee, the RGA hailed him in a statement as a “leader who can restore trust in state government and solve the challenges facing [Vermont] families.”
As he waited for a ride to Philadelphia's Wells Fargo Center on Monday afternoon, Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, took a moment to discuss the start of the Democratic National Convention.
At a rally an hour earlier, Sanders delegates had booed the senator when he uttered presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's name. But Weaver said he didn't expect the episode to repeat itself when the convention formally began.
"There were a lot of other people besides our delegates in the room today, so it was not clear to me who it was that was doing it," Weaver said of the booing. "But I expect all of our delegates to handle themselves with decorum inside the Wells Fargo Center."
Asked whether he worried Sanders supporters would refrain from supporting Clinton, the Highgate and St. Albans native said, "No, I think people in the end will realize the danger that [Republican nominee] Donald Trump poses."
Six of them couldn't decide whether to support Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) or former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.
It took the undecideds 12 minutes to make up their minds. During that time, Sanders and Clinton precinct captains lobbied them individually, answered their questions and delivered brief speeches seeking to persuade them. All the while, reporters swarmed around them and activists on either side of the room chanted their respective candidates' names.
Here's what it looked like:
In the end, the six undecideds split evenly between the two Democratic candidates.
Overall, 196 people at the New York-New York caucus site supported Clinton, while 97 supported Sanders. Clinton earned 23 county-level delegates, while Sanders picked up 11.
Sanders starred in just one sketch, but it was pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good. Here it is:
Earlier in the show, David appeared as Sanders in a "Curb"-style digital short called, "Bern Your Enthusiasm." Though the candidate himself was absent from the sketch, David more than filled his shoes.
Vermont Public Interest Research Group executive director Paul Burns, Sierra Club Vermont conservation program manager Robb Kidd, Congressman Peter Welch and dairy farmer Bill Rowell
After the ethanol lobby aired a television advertisement slamming him, Congressman Peter Welch (D-Vt.) called it a "corporate-funded, deceptive attack ad" financed by "out-of-state, subsidized corporations."
"The corn ethanol industry is spreading a Washington-sized load of manure across Vermont," he said in a written statement released Saturday.
But at a press conference Monday in Barre, Welch conceded that the ad's central claim — that he signed a letter drafted by an oil industry lobbyist — is true.
The dustup comes as the Obama administration finalizes regulations governing how much ethanol must be blended into gasoline. The corn and agribusiness industries have lobbied for the Environmental Protection Agency to increase those levels, while the oil and restaurant industries have lobbied to decrease them.
For years, Welch has taken the latter position, arguing that ethanol mandates drive up corn prices for farmers and food producers, hurt the environment and damage small engines. Two weeks ago, he and four other members of Congress, including Rep. Bill Flores (R-Tex.), authored a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy calling for stricter limits on biofuels. Another 180 members signed the letter.
As of this writing, Sanders' presidential campaign hadn't yet sent a fundraising solicitation asking for "vacuum pennies," but we're confident it will soon.
Watch the sketch below (and skip ahead to 4:04 if even a parody of former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley bores you):
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