Steve May and Tiki Archambeau were sitting at the Vermont Progressive Party booth at the Champlain Valley Fair, shooting the breeze about Vermont politics, when a man passing by offered up these words of advice, "You need somebody for governor." He thought a Prog should be running for U.S. House too.
The man claimed not to know too much about the details of what goes on politically, but he nailed two offices for which the Progressives aren't fielding candidates.
Politics is alive and well at the fair. Candidates stroll the midway (Democratic congressional candidate Peter Welch and Democratic U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy will be there Thursday afternoon). Party booths dot the exhibition halls, among booths selling mops and birdhouses. Just about every candidate for anything has a brochure for the taking. Stacks of lawn signs and piles of buttons beckon.
You won't see many bumper stickers, though. Bumper stickers are an undercover operation. Because the fair people don't want you slapping them all over the tilt-a-whirl, you can only get a bumper sticker if you promise to tuck it away until you get back to your bumper. It's almost as stringent a process as adopting a dog from the pound.
Fair-goers stroll among the booths, trying to decide whether they want to watch a cooking demonstration or check out the hot tubs. Most of those who stop at a political booth are supporters just looking to share a comment with someone who's like-minded. Not too many people come by purely seeking to be enlightened about health-care reform.
That doesn't mean there isn't lively political banter going on. Burlington Republican Kevin Ryan approached the Progressive booth. The Progs and Ryan don't have a lot in common politically, except that they all love to talk politics. So the conversation was rapid and fluid.
What was on Ryan's mind was the Sunday New York Times article that mentioned IDX Corp. in the same breath as insider trading. He's been looking into it and doesn't buy the accusations.
Out on the midway, at Bernie Sanders' booth, out-of-staters who seemly vaguely familiar with the frizzy-haired independent congressman asked if he was a state senator or what. Sanders, of course, hopes most Vermonters know that he is running for U.S. Senate. Some of his help, though, is coming from out of state.
John Emerson and Alyssa Puretz, who were staffing the Sanders booth, both moved here recently - she from Los Angeles, he from Texas. Emerson is a retiree who said he moved to Vermont specifically to live in state where he could be represented by Sanders. "I love the guy," he said. Emerson's previous congressman in Texas? Tom DeLay.
Parties tap into new and old supporters to keep the booths staffed throughout the fair. Agnes Clift of South Burlington, candidate for state Senate, was pulling a shift at the Vermont Republican Party booth. Rep. Ira Trombley of South Hero was doing the same at the Democratic booth.
Sometimes, they discovered, people are more apt to approach the booths and the spreads of candidate brochures when no one is standing there. They might be curious, but they don't want to commit to a conversation. Or, heaven knows, put their phone numbers on a list.
The network of booths inside the halls at the fair is a tad confusing. Before you know it you find yourself in a room with a bunch of oven mitts and aprons. That's how T.J. Donovan, Democratic candidate for Chittenden County state's attorney, wound up standing in front of the Republican Party booth asking where the Democrats' booth was. We'll never know if they would have sent him on a wild goose chase because I led him to his destination.
Donovan, who is in a three-way primary, said he wasn't sure the fair was the best place for him to campaign. How many fair-goers on a Wednesday afternoon live in Chittenden County and will vote in the Democratic primary, he wondered. Nonetheless, he scrambled to leave his legal work and put in his shift at the booth, where opponent Ted Kenney's brochures were prominently displayed.
All's fair in politics.
- Terri Hallenbeck
