Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DavesM who wrote (11093)	10/7/2003 4:40:23 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793809

Burlington Bashing By Howard Kurtz Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, October 6, 2003; 9:18 AM Repeat after me: "Failed governor of a small state." That was the first Bush administration's mantra against the 1992 Democratic presidential nominee. The Bush team's strategy was to paint Arkansas as a sad, pathetic backwater, thereby casting Bill Clinton as a small-time rube who would be out of his depth in the Oval Office. It did not succeed brilliantly. Here's the spot George H.W. threw up in the closing days, with ominous sound effects and a shot of a lone buzzard in a barren tree: "In his 12 years as governor, Bill Clinton has doubled his state's debt, doubled government spending and signed the largest tax increase in his state's history. Yet his state remains the 45th worst in which to work, the 45th worst for children. It has the worst environmental policy, and the FBI says Arkansas has the biggest increase in the rate of serious crime. And now Bill Clinton wants to do for America what he has done for Arkansas. America can't take that risk." Well, it's happening again. Not about Arkansas. This time, it's Vermont. The first glimpse of the strategy appears on the cover of National Review, against an autumnal backdrop of a rural farmhouse. The headline captures the nuances of the argument contained therein: "HELL." Author Jonah Goldberg basically indicts the Green Mountain State. Now there's plenty to criticize in Vermont: it is small, predominantly white and decidedly not like the rest of America. And there's plenty to criticize in Dean's record as governor. But this piece is as much a cultural argument as it is a political one: He says he met "plenty of folks who looked like liberal foundation officers, university administrators, or editors of poverty magazines, all on their day off. Meanwhile, in Burlington, the state's largest city (pop. 40,000), drug addicts and facially pierced ne'er-do-wells are certainly easier to find than flinty yeoman farmers." As for Vermont's "Sweden-like economy," its "onerous tax burden" means "the only businesses that aren't leaving the state are the ones that have to remain -- i.e., ski resorts, boutique 'Made in America' franchises, nutty liberal law firms." It's also a state where kids are "indoctrinated into environmental wackiness" and which produces such politicians as socialist congressman Bernie Sanders. As an unnamed Vermont GOPer tells Goldberg: "It's not the least bit surprising that such a candidate would have been the governor of Vermont for 12 years. Dean's attitude toward Bush -- arrogant, snide disgust and condescension -- is an act performed thousands of times a day in Burlington. Liberal Vermonters feel superior to the rest of the country." Will Rove & Co. take a page from Poppy and trash Vermont if Dean wins the nomination? Will the good people of Vermont grab their lattes and rise up in self-defense? All I can say is: You haven't heard the last of this subject. washingtonpost.com