My 11 a.m. class today was economics with Professor Douglas. My classmates and I listened attentively while the professor wrote out on a flip chart the ways in which his economic plan is better than THEIR economic plans.
I felt like I had already taken that class, but apparently the professor thought I and the others needed remedial lessons.
He picked apart his opponents' plans line by line. Douglas charged that half of Democrat Gaye Symington's ideas are already in the works and the other half won't work. As for independent Anthony Pollina, all his ideas fall in one category: more debt and taxes.
A couple of interesting side notes from the class:
- Douglas said he doesn't know how many jobs his plan would create or how long it would take to create them. This is the frustrating thing for the average voter, I think. One can't help but have the feeling that no candidate for any office has a plan that will truly make any difference.
- Douglas has increasingly focused criticism on Pollina. This means either: that he has a poll showing Pollina picking up votes; he wants to give Pollina more name recognition so he takes votes from Symington; or he is really hoping to lump them together so that anybody who has decided they don't like one won't like the other either.
- Douglas has not yet finessed his criticism of Pollina's plan to close the capital gains loophole. Douglas' argument is that there won't be much of a capital gains, but Douglas himself was promising to use that same closing of the loophole to offer tax cuts. Were those tax cuts that shaky a promise?
- Douglas said Symington's campaign is calling for a boycott of Essex Junction businesses that have campaign signs in front of them. Faithful readers will recall that the Free Press reported Saturday that Rep. Peter Hunt of Essex Junction called for the boycott, even though the signs are posted on the right-of-way, unconnected to the businesses in the plaza. Hunt is Symington's driver for the campaign, as in he drives her to and fro. Now I think we can all agree that the call for a boycott was odd at best, but can one really say that Peter Hunt=Gaye Symington? If a Republican legislator were working on Douglas' campaign would everything that person did and said be tantamount to the governor doing/saying?
- Terri Hallenbeck
