Emerson Lynn On Politics

Accelerators vs the brakes

One of the subtexts in the battle for political leadership in Vermont is how to coral a sense of optimism and hope. Voters, the thinking goes, are weary of the track we are on as a country, and the unhappiness that characterizes the national profile can also be manipulated to advantage here.
    The question is how, and by whom, and then, can it be done honestly.
    It’s a division natural to the political split in Vermont.  The Democrats control the Legislature, the Republicans control the executive branch. What one proposes, the other opposes, or tweaks to their advantage. One is the accelerator, the other the brake, depending on the issue.
    This balance creates a sense of treading water for those who want to push forward, and it is a godsend for those who fear what would happen if restraint were abandoned.

The unrest is understandable. Health care, for example, is an overriding issue. Insurance costs rise as wages stagnate and the answers always seem beyond our political grasp. One side – out of commitment and frustration – opts for a single payer system, essentially saying, look, we’ve tried everything else and nothing works. Let’s do it. The other side argues that the damage done could outweigh the benefits, and add that the purported benefits are imaginary.
    It’s hope pitched against fear.   And it’s a political thread, that when pulled, unravels the curtain behind which most of us hide.  Our natural inclination is to opt for security, which is something we’ve never really had, but something that seems less tangible today than yesterday.
    The question is, does Vermont move toward this security through caution, or bold experimentation?
    The answer is a little of both. 
    There is justification for those who complain that the naysayers are preaching a line that may become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Democrats opine that Gov. Jim Douglas is doing precisely that by complaining that Vermont has a climate not friendly to business. Why focus on the dark lining, when it’s the luminous cloud that should be our calling card, they ask.
    The governor is vulnerable to such inquiries. But not of this variety. He is vulnerable to the complaint that people want to be told what can be done, not what can’t be done. He is doubly vulnerable because the Legislature often puts him in the position where he has no recourse but to reject. That’s his job. He is the brake. Being the brake isn’t as enticing as being the accelerator.
    And that is the argument being posed by Democrat Gaye Symington and Progressive Anthony Pollina. With either, Vermont doesn’t have a brake. With either, everyone in Montpelier would be on the same page.
    Full steam ahead. No barriers.
    Good visual.
    But Vermonters are naturally suspicious of clear sailing. If the governor were to wax Reaganesque and proclaim it’s morning again in Vermont, we’d ask for a medical review.
    Things are not okay. And it’s deceitful to argue otherwise. We have a workforce issue. We have an affordability issue. We have a demographic issue. We are an expensive place to do business. To poke around to find businesses that are still managing to prosper is to play the public as fools. This isn’t about individual businesses, or even individual sectors. It’s about the state as a whole, something that is defined through categorical things as tax receipts, growth rates, and census information. Not visionary, perhaps, but real.
    These issues cannot be addressed if the focus is not there, if we allow our candidates to pretend that the issues don’t exist, or that their effects are minimal. Affordable housing, for example, can’t be properly addressed if we ignore the regulatory hurdles that make housing expensive. We can’t preach the good news about our business environment if, in the same moment, we’re pushing legislation to force up the cost of energy.
    The governor will need to keep preaching these same refrains. Pretending otherwise doesn’t make it so.
    But there is an edge missing to the campaign before us, and it can be seized by either the Republicans, the Democrats, or the Progressives. People want to be convinced that there are answers to the challenges before us and they are better motivated by the lift of a new idea than the leaden gravity of the status quo. That’s the challenge ahead for both parties: to deal with the real world as we live it in Vermont, but to set us upon an entrepreneurial track – intellectually, socially, and economically – that offers the promise of success and, perhaps more important, the fulfillment that comes with the effort.

(Emerson Lynn is editor and publisher of the St. Albans Messenger where this essay first appeared.)

Comments

[Green Mtn Punter]

Emerson Lynn, as usual, nails it right on the head in this piece. But his fellow VT Democrats are not about to start listening to his voice crying in the wilderness.

Vermont Democrats are badly divided and have clearly failed at leadership; they should have discovered by now there is no consensus for their program, whatever it is, not even close.

That leaves the Republicans and, Emerson Lynn, perhaps unintentionally, clearly makes the case here for a return to a Republican majority led by the only man who has the complete set of credentials to do it: Richard Tarrant. Why VT Democrats have not been called to accountability long before now is truly amazing; in no business could management continually lead in the wrong direction for so long and not receive the pink slip.

It is up to VT Republicans to make the case and it is time now to lay the groundwork for the election cycle of 2010.