Will the Real Brian Dubie Please Sit Down

Word is everywhere that Vermont's former Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie may be stirring himself for a second run at governor. The results of a recent Public Policy Polling shows our Dubie losing 40-48 percent in a re-match race with Governor Shumlin. However the same poll shows his favorability rating at 48%- very close statistically but still greater than Shumlin’s 45%.


This despite the notably nasty (for Vermont) 2010 race he ran. Many months later Dubie and his former campaign manager Cory Bliss were forced to issue personal letters of apology to settle a defamation suit. Also his 2010 campaign’s alleged illicit coordination with the Republican Governor’s Association on a campaign commercial is currently under investigation by the Vermont AG, following a complaint filed by the Vermont Democratic Party accusing the Dubie campaign of having directly aided in the production of an advertisement sponsored by the RGA. The filing also charges that former Gov. Jim Douglas "acted as an agent of both the Republican Governors Association and 'Friends of Brian Dubie'.”

As a result, a group of Dubie’s influential Republican supporters (including Douglas) formed Friends of Brian Dubie Legal Defense Fund to pay Dubie’s legal costs from his last campaign.

Since Dubie’s hard-edged campaign and subsequent loss, it’s easy to wonder whether he might have governed like Jim Douglas or more like Wisconsin’s right-wing radical Scott Walker. Dubie certainly didn’t hesitate to jettison large chunks of his renowned nice guy image in search of victory. Many of the new crop of Republican governors are following agendas well to the right of the rhetoric used in their campaigns and the overall political attitude of their states. New York Times data analyst Nate Silver pointed out that the pipeline of moderate Republican governors has run dry. Further, Silver says,

unlike the Democrats, there is no correlation between the ideology of the governors and the ideology of the states. Whether you have a Republican governor in a fairly liberal state like Maine, a moderate state like Ohio, or a conservative one like Idaho, that governor’s agenda is likely to be aligned with the extreme right.

Also highly conservative are Dubie's ‘friends,’ the major funders of the RGA.

Two major players in the RGA are alleged phone hacker Rupert Murdoch and David Koch, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s ultra-conservative backer.

In July 2010 Politico reported the RGA was the recipient of a whooping $1 million donation from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. The RGA’s other seven-figure donor was David Koch. News Corp.’s media outlets play politics more openly than most, but the huge contribution to a party committee is a new step toward an open identification between Rupert Murdoch's media empire and the GOP.


If failed gubernatorial candidate Brian Dubie decides he needs to take another shot at the state’s top office, can we count on legacy media outlets to keep these less-than-flattering facts in front of the electorate next year?

also posted at greenmountaindaily.com