PUTNEY — I am truly enjoying the campaign trail this election season, even with the task of coping with an uninterested press. Unfortunately, our democracy is ruled by whatever choices the press will offer.
In Vermont, the press will say that poll numbers decide their interest in covering the candidate. It must be obvious to any thinking person that poll numbers can only be honestly developed after public scrutiny, not before; in article after article, the press frames the election for governor as a challenge to Peter Shumlin's seat by one person: Randy Brock.
I have, of course, peppered the state with letters to the editor and often have been granted editorials, but really, unless the press creates numerous angles of perspective in the various ways they are best suited to do, my platform delivered in bullet points within 500-word limits digests like a compact army k-ration meal. Keep in mind that each publication wants a unique letter, and that task takes enormous time away from public outreach.
Similar to a doctor operating on himself, candidates shouldn't be forced to do the job. The press does much better. It takes teamwork to keep our democracy open and refreshed.
Can a governor make unbiased and solid decisions while concurrently accepting campaign donations? I challenge that they can or have. Just about everyone I meet wants money out of politics; certainly, they're happy that I do not ask for or accept money to get elected.
Towns everywhere in this state have passed resolutions decrying the Citizens United decision, including Putney, whose voters amended and then passed the resolution that I proposed.
The vision of electing a governor of Vermont who does not accept campaign donations is a happy one for the majority. Imagine what strength Vermont can give to all the people of our country by doing just that.
But maybe the press has yet to recognize this mood in Vermont. At two months into the race, with 1½ months to go, reporters have yet to reach out to me for interviews, with the exception of two cable access shows. Steve West has interviewed my campaign supervisor and me on his Live and Local radio show on WKVT once at my request.
Judging from experience, chances are when it does come, the press coverage will be minimal and dismissive. In the last election cycle, Seven Days in Burlington, for example, described me, along with other independents as “fringe candidates.”
Vermonters are by majority registered as unenrolled, yet the press and the election system fails to recognize the meaning of this choice. The majority might want an independent, but independents are not permitted into forums, into debates, or into the media to allow for real public scrutiny of their alternative visions of leadership.
Vermonters have abandoned the two-party system even as the press force-feeds it to them. It's time to stop.
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It would be fair and appropriate at the outset of the election cycle to give each candidate basic press and enhanced public scrutiny and, from that attention, establish the interest for further coverage based on polls.
Instead, the press waits until the very last minute of the election, after exhaustive coverage of two candidates, and then publications toss in the color of the “fringe” candidates.
In this way, they claim to be allowing fair and equal coverage, although with every mention of Brock's name comes more name recognition, and thereby a free advantage.
While there is the “equal time rule” for fair broadcast coverage in theory, in practice, independent candidates fall through the statute like it's a sieve.
The Burlington Free Press, for no other reason than his presence, gave Brock a six-page candidate profile article in June, and has not to my knowledge published my name in any article about the gubernatorial race, much like the rest of the press.
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This shunning of candidates is most damaging to the process of democracy. I have spent too much time reaching out to the press, meeting with them in person and imparting to them my respectful expectation that my comprehensive platform come up for public scrutiny.
I do so because I have faith that it contains the best policy for the good of Vermont's future. I believe I am the best person to remove selfishness from Vermont's government, that I would be the most competent leader to bring truth and consent into the process of government. To have such a gift to offer Vermont rendered purposefully invisible is difficult to bear.
Of all, Vermont Public Radio has been the most troubling of offenders, framing each segment without mention of my challenge to Shumlin's seat, even barring me from speaking during call-in Vermont Edition segments.
At every turn, VPR reporters fail to name or cover my platform in segments that specifically deal with topics where my leadership will lead Vermont in a new direction, such as shows covering the F-35s, hemp, public banking, climate change, taxation, the public right to health insurance, and much more. I believe that local television news operations have yet to mention my name on air as well, despite many behind-the-scenes appeals.
Their successful hindrance of fair public scrutiny of my platform is so deliberate that I publicly charge them with willful manipulation of the outcome of a public election.