I realize just about everyone is focusing on the New Hampshire Primary. Even Mark Johnson's taken his WDEV morning radio talk-show to Manchester, New Hampshire for Monday & Tuesday!
However, for mental health reasons, yours truly has tuned it all out. Life's too short. Had more than enough of the presidential pack, though I could not avoid Sam Hemingway's piece in the Freeps about our ol' pal, Mad Dog Jim Barnett of Barre. Mad Dog's about to do for John McCain in New Hampshire what he and The Boy Wonder Neale Lunderville did for Jim Douglas in Vermont back in 2002.
Gov. Douglas was the guest-of-honor at Monday morning's Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce breakfast. Good turnout - 300-plus. Maybe I'm just getting old, but it sure sounded like all previous the gubernatorial legislative kick-off Chamber Breakfasts I've had the pleasure of covering since the early 1980s.
Filed a story for WDEV News off this one, as well, BECAUSE, Gov. Scissorhands made no bones about it - he will be proposing that the Democratic Legislature lease/sell the Vermont Lottery to Wall Street for $50 million.
"I think it’s a good idea," said Gov. Douglas. "I think it makes a lot of sense."
AND one of the attendees in the packed audience listening was none other than Progressive gubernatorial candidate Anthony Pollina.
Said Pollina to Freyne Land afterward:
The only idea that I heard was to sell the lottery to a hedge fund, someone who would give us a one-time payment in exchange for taking away an asset the state of Vermont has. In a couple months maybe we’ll hear about selling the local fire departments or the state police?
It’s an idea that makes you think the governor is grasping at straws. It’s an idea that Vermonters I talk to think is just off the wall and inappropriate and not good policy.
That's Democratic State Sen. Hinda Miller over Tony the Prog's shoulder. Did not get the name of the gent he's talking to. Sorry. Nice tie on Tony, eh?
He'll be wearing more of them in the months [and years?] ahead.
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