What helps Vermonters evaluate candidates for governor is usually a complicated stew of the personal, intellectual, and political. But no ingredient may be more important than the X factor, a candidate's ability to persuade voters he or she can be trusted to get the big job done: the job of competently governing pesky, contrary Vermont.
If a candidate can forge that connection of trust, he or she will more than likely raise the most money, see their issues gain the most traction, and ultimately - with a little luck - win.
This may be true to a degree everywhere, but in Vermont, where retail politicking still matters a lot, it's crucial. Sooner or later, every Vermonter's mind's eye will picture each candidate up there on the fifth floor of the Pavilion State Office Building governing Vermont when tough times come - as they always do.
Gov. Philip Hoff, elected in 1962 as Vermont's first Democratic governor in 108 years, didn't know all the ways he was about to bridge the gap between rock-ribbed Republican Vermont of old and the more liberal, progressive Vermont of now. But he and his fellow Democrats had an inkling, and Hoff didn't waste his chance. He confronted bigotry when it reared its ugly head, invited black urban kids to share summers with mostly-white Vermont households, liberalized welfare and took on some of the most powerful corporate interests of his time in what was, to date, Vermont's most prolonged knock-down, dragout struggle over the merits of private vs. public electrical power generation. Hoff didn't always win, but he governed.
Gov. Deane Davis, a lifelong conservative Republican and businessman, didn't set out to be a conservationist and environmentalist. He became one in a hurry, though, when raw sewage started running down southern Vermont hillsides into pristine streams from unregulated development. He didn't set out to fight for a state sales tax, either, but he did it anyway when Vermont's budget sprang a leak. He governed like a businessman, but he didn't let business run away with the store.
At the start, Democratic Gov. Thomas Salmon often sounded liberal themes (“Vermont is not for sale”) and pushed hard for a statewide land use plan. But he had to check some of those freer-spending liberal impulses when a recession struck. His gas-tax bailout plan ran aground, and opponents of bigger government successfully denounced his land use efforts as top-down, statewide zoning. But he also made good on other environmental efforts, and he won landmark property tax reform that, for the first time, based property tax bills on a homeowner's truer ability to pay. He governed.
Gov. Richard Snelling started politics as a haughty lecturer, lost his 1964 bid for lieutenant governor, then listened more, persuaded more patiently, and proceeded to be elected five times as governor. Like no other recent governor, he demanded detail, sound financial planning and, above all, competence in government. When it came to fiscal responsibility, he set the bar in countless ways for those who followed.
Gov. Madeleine Kunin governed more quietly and collegially. With consensus-building, she won important advancements for women, children, health care and the environment. She spent a lot of her political capital and a pile of state and federal dollars on helping kids with special needs get a better education. Never as liberal as Vermont liberals demanded or Vermont conservatives feared, she governed best - most comfortably and competently - from the middle.
Democratic Gov. Howard Dean, Vermont's doctor governor, was both a prickly fiscal conservative and a passionate social liberal, especially when it came to children's health. He was part consensus builder, part persuasive badgerer, part tedious public speaker. Hard to believe after Potomac Fever struck, but he was never the wild-eyed liberal most of the national media made him out to be in his run for the presidency. Most often, he governed Vermont the way good umpires do, calling them the way he saw them-impartially and decisively.
In his four terms as governor, Republican Gov. Jim Douglas has given credence to what is usually seen as a political liability: a cautious, caretaking style of governing. Not doing nothing, but not doing everything, either: smaller promises, steady gains, governance with care, a tortoise, not a hare - an interesting idea. We won't know for some years if his government reform efforts launched this year in alliance with the Democratic Legislature will turn out to be substance or smoke. But he has attempted something rarely done-cajoled state agencies into at least trying to operate more frugally and competently.
All made mistakes, of course; all had their controversies. But their common, unifying strength has been remarkably the same: a clear commitment to good governance.
Not a bad yardstick for judging candidates in the upcoming 2010 campaign for governor.