Did y'all watch last night's gubernatorial debate sponsored by the Vt. NEA teachers' union and broadcast on Vermont Public Television from Randolph? If not, read about it
HERE. Here are a few thoughts on it:
- Republican Gov. Jim Douglas made no effort to fashion his answers so that they might please members of the teachers' union. He seemed instead to be trying to win over taxpayers watching from home. He made no attempt to offer assurance against job cuts in schools.
- If the union was looking for somebody who says everything they want to hear, independent Anthony Pollina was more in line on that. He was quicker to blast the two-vote mechanism for schools that want to spend more, No Child Left Behind and other items that the union hasn't favored.
- Democrat Gaye Symington must have mentioned about a half-dozen times that when she's working with President Obama ... . At some point does making that link look trifling?
- Asked if their opponents had mischaracterized the, Pollina said that his opponents hadn't but he thought the media had by focusing on his campaign finance issues. What he didn't say was that his opponents hadn't mischaracterized him because they have resolutely refused to acknowledge his existence. At one point, Symington referred to her opponent, Douglas, in the singular even though Pollina was standing there between them.
- Douglas wanted both to say that Symington's Bridge to Opportunity plan unveiled yesterday that offer college support to those unlikely to go otherwise was too much like his Promise Scholarship plan and too pathetic. Hmm, what's that say?
What did you all think?
- Terri Hallenbeck
