In the most recent election Democrats and Progressives slugged it out (at least electorally) in several House races throughout the state — with one particularly charged race in the Queen City.
These races opened up some old wounds, and as a result many Vermont voters, post-election, still want to know whether the parties can work together, or if they’ll remain stuck in a time-warp circa 1981.
Here are a few questions I’ve heard since the election:
- Should the two parties merge?
- Should the two parties create a joint primary system, perhaps utilizing IRV?
- When they do compete, can they do so civilly?
- Has the Democratic Party become a more comfortable home for progressives?
- Has the Progressive Party run its course?
- Should Progressives run in Democratic primaries (or vice versa)?
In the interest of promoting a dialogue about these issues, Seven Days is hosting a public forum. I’ll be moderating a conversation with two Democrats and two Progressives on Dec. 4th at 7 p.m. in the Main Street Landing Film House in Burlington.
As of now, our four panelists will be:
- Rep. Johanna Leddy Donovan, D-Burlington
- Jane Knodell, City Councilor, P-Ward 2
- Jake Perkinson, Chairman, Burlington City Democrats
- Rep. David Zuckerman, P-Burlington
There is plenty of seating at the FIlm House (see the photo), so bring a friend and your questions (no rotting fruit or veggies please). The first part of the forum will feature questions I put to the panelists, and the rest of the questions will come from you, the audience.
Feel free to email me questions in advance as I would be happy to ask yours if you can’t make it. You should also feel free to leave them in the comments section of this post.
As with the event, I’m looking for spirited, but civil, debate and discussion.
We’re also hoping that Channel 17 will be onhand to film the event, and possibly broadcast it live on Burlington Telecom.
This article appears in Nov 19-25, 2008.
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Which would explain why Vermonters — an extremely liberal bunch — overwhelmingly elected Democrats, increasingly their already huge presence in the Legislature, and UN-elected a Prog . . . Bummer, eh?
What’s comical is that health care for all is considered extreme by Democrats. Pick any issue. If you’d like your government to do what’s right, that’s an extreme position to the Democratic Party.
Yeah, this past election sure bears out the above poster’s views. The voters of Vermont sure realized that Dems are “lame.” They reduced the number of Dems in office and voted in more extremists, er, Progs . . .Oops. Nevermind.But good luck with that pendulum thing, though.
The December 4th meeting will accomplish nothing and that’s made obvious by the comments here. Progressive Party, just keep on keeping on. The more lame Dems they elect, the more people will realize that Dems are lame and the pendulum will swing back to the Progressive Party. The Dems need the Progressive Party because the Dems are too timid to be progressive on their own.
McNeil? He forced himself out of his job. No one did that to him.Kelleher? Took two pensions! The rest of us only get one. And it was a Prog mayor who teamed up with Kelleher to pull that fast one.Clavelle? Increased city employee retirement benefits, but never actually *funded* the pension accounts, leaving the City with a massive underfunded debt.Oh, yeah, let’s bring ’em all back.
Most comments are missing the point and this event will be a waste of time if it doesn’t address TODAY’s real issue, which is, we’ve got someone to the right of Kurt Wright running Burlington City Hall right now in Jonathan Leopold. He’s running the city into the ground. Mayor Kiss is utterly ineffective. CAO Leopold runs everything and his politics and management are TERRIBLE. Botched (rigged?) elections. He’s screwed over or chased out a long list of people who worked for years to make Burlington great, like Michael monte, Jo laMarch, Joe McNeil, Brendan Kelleher, Tim Nulty, Adam Cate, Wayne Gross, etc. He’s doing serious damage to Burlington Telecom’s prospects. He’s messing with the schools. He abuses anyone under him… so much so that many city employees now refuse to be in a room alone with him. To his credit, he’s got the city council wrapped around his little finger — dems are impotent, progs are asleep or sold out, republicans, well they’re his best friends. He lords his financial “expertise” over everyone like he’s the only one capable of reading a spreadsheet. Check into his track record: if he’s so smart, what happened to his high-flying career that brought him back to a job he held 20 years ago?Progs should demand that Kiss toss Leopold. Dems should run against Leopold. Republicans-if Kurt wins, he’ll keep Leopold as CAO or appoint him to cushy job running telecoms. Free Press won’t report on this because they depend on Leopold for leaks (McNeil story (again and again), Kelleher story, etc.). Seven days-not likely given Ashe connection. WCAX? Why would WGOP be critical of one of its own. And lots of people are too scared of his retribution to speak up.
“When Clavelle ran as a Democrat, a Progressive (the capital letter does matter as it defines a party position, not an issue position) did not run.”Ha ha. That was intended as a complete and total joke, right? I appreciate your obvious sense of humor.Because you simply cannot be taken seriously when you say that no Progressives ran against Douglas the first three times, and then try to take the position that Clavelle was not a Progressive. Please give us all a big fat break.”A Progressive did not run in any of the first three races with Gov. Douglas.” That statement is just wrong. A 7-term Progressive mayor of Burlington ran for Governor in 2004. Instead of defending that statement, why not just retract it and move on?
If Clavelle wasn’t a Progressive when he ran ,was Anthony Pollina also not a Progressive when he switched and ran for governor this year as an Independent ?