Vermont is a state that doesn’t get much attention, other than when Patrick Leahy is in the news or a former governor screams something the night of the Iowa caucuses. So it’s easy to forget that Howard Dean was followed as governor by a Republican, Jim Douglas, who won four two-year terms and who is, at least at the moment, likely to be succeeded by another Republican:
Lieutenant Governor Brian Dubie remains ahead of all five of his Democratic opponents in the race for governor of Vermont, crossing the 50% mark in four of the match-ups.
A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Vermont finds Secretary of State Deb Markowitz as Dubie’s closest Democratic rival. Dubie, a Republican, leads Markowitz 47 percent to 40 percent.
He sounds fairly conservative, at least by the standards of a state famous for electing a self-proclaimed Socialist to the U.S. Senate and being home to an ice-cream company that is constantly unveiling flavors like “Yes Pe-can”:
Many national studies have rated Vermont as the most generous state in the country when it comes to our social welfare programs. Vermonters are compassionate by nature, and we expect government to protect the most vulnerable among us. But there must be a balance. State government must live within its means, just like Vermont families do.
We simply cannot continue to increase state spending while we’re losing jobs. And increasing taxes only quickens our downward slide. Most Vermonters have seen their incomes stay the same, or even decline over the last few years, while state government has grown.
We can start with the legislature itself. Our legislature stays in session longer than in many states far bigger than Vermont. Kansas’ legislature meets for ninety days in even years only. In Florida, they meet for just sixty days a year. We could save millions — and sharpen the legislature’s focus — by simply reducing the length of our legislative session. We have to right-size our state government from stem to stern.
Could this guy be the New England Chris Christie?