From One Blue State to Another: Voters Are Angry

Emerson Lynn on Politics

The deep blue state of Massachusetts Tuesday sent a message to the deep blue state of Vermont. Voters are angry. They are frustrated with the political inertia that piddles around the edges of issues that matter most. They may not have precise answers to the problems, but what they see before them doesn’t work and they will respond at the ballot box until things change.

This message of voter outrage is not being driven from the left, or the right, but from the political middle. It was the independents in Massachusetts who provided the ballast necessary to overcome a 30-point advantage Attorney General Martha Coakley had six-weeks ago, choosing instead Republican upstart Scott Brown. Voters want things to work, and they don’t.

That same frustration grips Vermont. Voters want fiscal responsibility restored. They want their leaders to focus on the economy. They want their lost jobs back and they want their leaders to be honest enough, and bold enough to set the state’s course for a brighter, more secure future.

This isn’t a new message, but it has achieved a political maturity in Vermont that almost no one denies. A year ago, the Legislature could have followed the governor’s lead and reduced spending, which would have made the cuts proposed for the next fiscal year less draconian. But last year people were more frightened than they were angry. We were in the midst of an economic freefall and we were gripping the rails not knowing how far the fall would be. People were just trying to hold on, as was the Legislature. That’s past. We’re inching our way forward, which has given people the time to assess the damage. Now, people are angry.

And they should be.

That was the not so subtle message delivered Tuesday by Gov. Jim Douglas. His proposed budget pulls no punches. As he said, it was the most difficult of his eight years. He had a $150 million hole to fill and he had no intention of allowing the challenge to fall to his successor, or Vermont,  unaddressed. The proposed cuts are to fall across state government, and they are deep.

The difference between this year and last is the Legislature’s belated recognition that the alternatives are few.

The various legislative committees will begin to parse the governor’s proposals in more detail and obviously what emerges will differ from what the governor proposed. The democratically-controlled Legislature will need to put its own stamp on what is ultimately passed. There are also five Democrats running for governor, three of whom serve in the Senate, and how they respond to the state’s budget needs will, in large part, serve as the blueprint for their campaigns.

But for the moment, the voices of opposition are running still. There is the understanding – at least initially – that if someone is to oppose the governor’s proposed cuts, they’d better have an idea of their own. This isn’t a can to be kicked down the road. The stimulus money is about to run out. Tax revenues will not rebound fast enough or far enough to bridge the gap.  One way or another, the state’s budget has to be realigned to match the state’s revenue.

If not the governor’s proposal – then what?

It’s an issue that cannot be papered over with false expectations. This week, for example, the Legislature is playing host to a jobs forum. They want to know what the state can do to bring more jobs to Vermont. They want to know what they can do to help existing businesses expand. But paying lip service to the issue doesn’t work and voters are weary of politicians who suddenly rediscover the political religion that appeals to voters.

Expanding the state’s economy is also a slow process, and we don’t have the luxury of time to wait to see if something works. The budget is before us, and as the governor says, it needs to be dealt with now, and it needs to be dealt with in a manner that leaves us stronger, not weaker. And stronger doesn’t mean leaving us mired in millions of dollars in red ink.

The fact that the governor’s proposals were not immediately rejected, as they were last year and in years prior, is encouraging. How long this lasts will become more apparent as the legislative committee process begins. But the message offered Tuesday in Massachusetts rings true here as well: Voters want their leaders to accept responsibility. They want things to work again.

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

Comments

[Tom Licata]

Emerson writes:

"That same frustration grips Vermont. Voters want fiscal responsibility restored. They want their leaders to focus on the economy. They want their lost jobs back and they want their leaders to be honest enough, and bold enough to set the state’s course for a brighter, more secure future."

Here's where Vermonters could have and will continue to find the kind of leaders Emerson writes of:

http://www.vteh.org/content/candidates

[Vermont Woodchuck]

Tom, I know several of the candidates personally and of their commitment.
The problem is in what you show: numbers.

The recurring image is horses, lots of indians, few calvary, big sky...

Vermont is overrun by people trying to escape the high taxes and disasterous policies from where they came, brought those same ingredients here and now are wondering what happened to Vermont.

Only when Vermonters vote for considerably less from Government in social areas, letting that money go to infrastructure, will the state become liveable again.

[G. Cross]

Tom presents interesting data. It appears that his group supported 38 candidates. Seventeen were elected; however, this is a giant however, 12 of those were incumbants and we all know that incumbants are seldom tossed out of office in Vermont. Thus only 5 of the 26 non-incumbant "pledgers" were elected. That is a success ratio of 19%!! Not very good no matter how you "slice it and dice it." If performance counts, how do we judge this performance

[Tom Licata]

Vermont Woodchuck, This Daniel Henninger article in today's WSJ outlines the problem perfectly for both Vermont and our nation:

"The central battle in our time is over political primacy. It is a competition between the public sector and the private sector over who defines the work and the institutions that make a nation thrive and grow.

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy planted the seeds that grew the modern Democratic Party. That year, JFK signed executive order 10988 allowing the unionization of the federal work force. This changed everything in the American political system. Kennedy's order swung open the door for the inexorable rise of a unionized public work force in many states and cities.

This in turn led to the fantastic growth in membership of the public employee unions—The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the teachers' National Education Association.

They broke the public's bank. More than that, they entrenched a system of taking money from members' dues and spending it on political campaigns. Over time, this transformed the Democratic Party into a public-sector dependency."

[Tom Licata]

George, "How do we judge this performance?"

No problem, George.

Vermont's projected $470 million budget shortfall through fiscal 2013 says it all.

Says it all, George, that Vermont voters put their markers down on failed candidates.

Pay to play, George.

Voters now pay.

You're right about one thing, George, "performance counts."

$470 million and counting.

[Skeptical]

But the Democrats won and that's all that matters isn't it George?

[GreggB]

And the Demospenders will continue to win in VT. Look at the Brown map- Take blue Boston/Cambridge call that Chittendon county, take the blue Berkshires call that the rest of VT. Game, set, match. The folks that are willing to mix things up are the suburban dwellers, not the chic urbanites or the organic dirt farmers. VT is a bit short on proper suburbs. Those evil, evil suburbs.

[Dan Allen]

On Tuesday, Massachusetts sent a message. In Massachusetts, the message means, "a Republican Senator." In Vermont, what it means is anyone's guess.

Here is some data about Massachusetts on Tuesday:

60% of Massachusetts voters who voted for Obama in 2008 and Scott Brown in 2010 said the Senate healthcare bill "doesn't go far enough."

80% of Massachusetts Obama voters who stayed home Tuesday agreed.

80% of Massachusetts voters still want the choice of a public option.

A Republican won the election.
source: Democracy for America/Research 2000 poll http://trunc.it/4ykmr

For all we really know, Tuesday's message might someday be seen as a wake up call to what had become a complacent base for Obama's vision of America. It might mean people now see the error of electing Obama. It might mean it gives the right encouragement in a futile attempt to turn back humanity's march toward equality. It might mean any of the rationalizations developed for the purposes of any given commentator. We all think we are right, and none of us is smarter than all our critics.

On the topic of last year's budget fiasco, the biggest problem was the failure of the legislature and administration to work together. One of the few things agreed upon at the outset of last year's session was that Vermonters wanted to see our government working together. That did not happen, at least not on the budget. Arguing now that everyone should have listened to one side or the other belittles the overarching need for unity in a time of crisis. Last year was a sad year for Vermont politics, not because we did not do what the Governor said, but because the Governor and the legislature could not work together. Both sides are equally at fault, regardless of the merits of the cases they made last year.

[Daniel Foty]

Well, at least now we know where Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu's "pollsters" found re-employment....

As well as their "speechwriters"....

[Tom Licata]

Dan, Check your facts:

"An astonishing 56 percent of Massachusetts voters, according to Rasmussen, called health care their top issue. In a Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates poll, 78 percent of Brown voters said their vote was intended to stop Obamacare. Only a quarter of all voters in the Rasmussen poll cited the economy as their top issue, nicely refuting the Democratic view that Massachusetts was just the usual anti-incumbent resentment you expect in bad economic times.

Brown ran on a very specific, very clear agenda. Stop health care."

Read more:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/01/22/the_meaning_of_brown_99990.html

[Daniel Foty]

Tom, never forget to get a few laughs out of that stuff - since the rapid descent into an alternative reality of self-delusion is indeed spectacularly comical.

I wasn't kidding with the comparison above. Right up until the very end, the worst despots in eastern Europe had functionaries and "journalists" around them telling them that there was nothing to worry about; other than a few mentally-ill malcontent counter-revolutionary CIA-funded bandits, all of the people were unified in their joy for The Party and looked to the Dear Leader as the father of his people. (E.g., "Don't worry about that trouble out in Timisoara, Nicolae.")

The "pollsters" and "journalists" who once served the Ceausescus have indeed apparently found new jobs putting out "polls" like those and writing up "articles" about those "polls." So we can enjoy a few belly-laughs about how with near-unanimity the militant proletariat of Massachusetts is for all those things.... yet somehow went to the REAL polls and solidly voted for someone who was explicitly opposed to it all. Paging Occam and his razor.

And when you see flatulence about "the march of humanity to equality" that's just 19th century marxist boiler plate that's thoroughly encrusted in mold and rust. Think of it as a leak through a worm hole from some parallel universe.

[T. Shea]

Mr. Foty, I was going to ask the other 'Dan' how he made up his numbers, but you said it more succinctly.