Hillary Clinton’s Quiet Vermont Campaign
by Susan Z. Ritz


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article from this issue.

Nationwide, Hillary Clinton is surging in the polls and seems to be on a straight trajectory to the Democratic presidential nomination. Her strong showing in the first Democratic debate on October 13; her unflappable performance during the October 22 marathon congressional hearing on the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya; Vice President Joe Biden’s decision not to enter the race; and the withdrawal of Jim Webb, Lincoln Chaffee, and Lawrence Lessig from the field have proven to be game changers for the former First Lady, senator from New York, and secretary of state.

Here in Vermont, however, Clinton still lags far behind the state’s favorite son, Senator Bernie Sanders. With five months to go until Vermont’s primary on Super Tuesday, March 1, 2016, Bernie fever continues to rage through the state. Lawn signs and bumper stickers are popping up from Brattleboro to Burlington, while local news media cover every move Sanders makes as he campaigns across the country.

Stories about Clinton, on the other hand, seem to be few and far between, focusing on her fundraising or position in the polls in relation to Sanders (she’s ahead nationwide, holds a 41 point lead over Sanders in Iowa and is 15 points behind in New Hampshire as of this writing); on issues concerning the personal e-mail server she used while secretary of state; contributions from foreign leaders to the Clinton Foundation; or her role in the attack on the US embassy in Benghazi, Libya.

Gathering the Heavy-Hitters

Clinton’s Vermont campaign is, nevertheless, building steam. She has some powerful supporters across the state with endorsements from such heavy-hitters as Governor Peter Shumlin, Senator Patrick Leahy, House Speaker Shap Smith, Burlington mayor Miro Weinburger, and former governors Madeleine Kunin and Howard Dean. Representative Peter Welch is still undecided while gubernatorial candidate Matt Dunne is the only major Democrat to endorse Sanders.

Childcare

Clinton would give money to states to provide preschool for every 4-year-old within a decade. Only a fraction of those children are currently in publicly funded prekindergarten. Clinton and her advisers are considering a mix of tax relief and new federal spending to expand programs for children from birth to age 3. Clinton would also double federal spending on Early Head Start programs. Sanders says he’ll make high-quality childcare and pre–K available to every American, regardless of income.

College

Sanders would eliminate tuition for the roughly seven million undergraduates at four-year public colleges and universities. He wants the federal government to spend $47 billion a year and states to provide about $23 billion. The money would come from taxes on Wall Street stock, bond, and derivatives trades. Clinton would offer a debt-free college education for students, paid for by capping the value of itemized deductions that the wealthy can take on their tax returns. This newly available tax money would fund federal grants to states totaling about $175 billion to guarantee that students would be able to cover tuition at four-year public colleges and universities without taking out loans.

Health Care

Sanders and Clinton both want to repeal a planned tax on high-cost employer-sponsored insurance, known as the Cadillac tax. Both have put forth proposals to reduce patients’ prescription drug costs. Clinton would leave Obamacare in place. Sanders would replace Obamacare with a “Medicare-for-all” single-payer system that guarantees health care to all Americans as a right. He would pay for the program with a higher payroll tax paid by employers and a progressive “health care income tax” that would hit those earning more than $600,000 the most.

Social Security

Sanders says he will fight to expand Social Security benefits by an average of $65 a month; increase cost-of-living-adjustments to keep up with rising medical and prescription drug costs; and expand the minimum Social Security benefit to lift seniors out of poverty. Women will benefit the most by expanding Social Security: more than twice as many elderly women lived in poverty than men in 2013 and without it, nearly half of all elderly women would be living in poverty. Clinton says she will defend against the efforts to privatize Medicare and Social Security and will work to enhance both programs for our most vulnerable seniors.

Prison Reform

Sanders has been a vocal advocate for criminal justice reform and in mid-September proposed a bill that would ban government contracts with private prisons. Until recently, Clinton was receiving campaign donations from federally registered lobbyists or PACs for private prison companies. In late October she announced that she would no longer accept this money and is opposed to private prisons and mass incarceration.

Corporations and Taxes

Clinton and Sanders would both end the “carried interest” loophole, which allows hedge funds, private equity firms, and venture capitalists to avoid billions of dollars in taxes each year.

Sanders plans to stop corporations from shifting their profits and jobs overseas to avoid paying U.S. income taxes. He proposes a progressive estate tax on the top 0.3 percent of Americans who inherit more than $3.5 million and a tax on Wall Street speculators and has said that he plans to increase tax rates for the wealthiest, mentioning that under Eisenhower rates on the wealthiest were 92 percent.

Clinton proposes an increase in the capital-gains tax rate paid by the highest earners on short-term investments to encourage long-term interests and boost worker pay.

She also plans to cut taxes for businesses that share profits with their employees and to enact the Buffett Rule, a minimum tax rate of 30 percent on those making in excess of a million dollars per year.

Wall Street and the Banks

Clinton and Sanders support a financial transaction tax to limit high-frequency trading.

Sanders has argued for breaking up the nation’s largest banks and for restoring the Glass-Steagall Act, which had separated commercial and investment banking. Clinton has argued for imposing a “risk fee” on the largest financial institutions, and although she would give regulators more authority to break apart big banks, she has stopped short of calling for the reinstatement of Glass-Steagall. (This act was repealed in 1999, under President Bill Clinton.)

Jobs and Infrastructure

Both candidates have called for increasing the minimum wage. Clinton supports a $12 an hour minimum; Sanders goes further, proposing $15 an hour. Promising to create 13 million jobs, Sanders has proposed a $1 trillion infrastructure plan to improve or rebuild roads, bridges, and other transit systems over the next five years, in an effort to battle income inequality and create more jobs for lower- and middle-income workers. He would raise the money by closing tax loopholes that corporations use and by overhauling taxes on inheritances and the oil, gas, and coal industries. Clinton has promised to create an infrastructure bank and sell bonds to pay for improvements to roads, bridges, railways, and other job-generating projects.

Trans-Pacific Partnership

Sanders opposes TPP, saying that the agreement would be bad for American workers. Clinton championed the pact when she was secretary of state. She had avoided taking a position on the completed agreement until recently, when she announced that she was against it.

Immigration

Sanders and Clinton support the DREAM act and a path to citizenship for immigrants and have said they would go beyond the president’s actions, including shielding parents of young immigrants from deportation. Sanders has been critical of guest worker programs, saying that allowing more temporary foreign workers drives down wages for American workers and hampers efforts to reduce unemployment.

Gun Control

Sanders and Clinton support closing the so-called gun show loophole that allows people to purchase guns online or at gun shows from a private seller without a background check. Sanders has called for a ban on assault weapons. Clinton favors overturning a law that shields gun manufacturers and dealers from lawsuits. Sanders, who has had a mixed record on guns, voted for that shield law in Congress.

Climate Change

Sanders and Clinton oppose drilling in the Arctic and the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, though Clinton did not come out against it publicly until September. They also support eliminating tax breaks for fossil fuel companies. Sanders has proposed taxing carbon emissions. Clinton wants renewable energy to account for 33 percent of all energy produced in the US by 2027 and proposes installing half a billion solar panels by 2020. As a senator, Sanders has introduced a number of bills aimed at ending tax deductions and credits for fossil fuel producers, creating green jobs, and making alternative energy more affordable, most recently the Low-Income Solar Act.

Foreign Policy

Sanders and Clinton support the nuclear deal with Iran, though Clinton expressed skepticism about Iran’s intentions. Sanders opposes a no-fly zone over Syria, which he believes will lead to escalation in war. Clinton has called for a no-fly zone over Syria and has advocated arming moderate Syrian rebels. Sanders has said that war should be a “last resort” and has called on Muslim nations to lead the fight against the Islamic State.

An impressive campaign leadership group was assembled in June when Clinton’s national campaign manager, Robby Mook, visited Burlington and Norwich, his hometown. Democratic National Committee member and superdelegate Billi Gosh of Brookfield; Stowe businesswoman Lisa Hagerty; Allyson Laakman, former chief of staff to Michelle Obama; Carolyn Dwyer, consultant and Leahy campaign manager; and former Shumlin chiefs of staff Bill Lofy and Liz Miller are among those on the team.

Why are all these Vermonters lining up behind Hillary instead of Bernie, the home state favorite? Party politics plays a role. Though Sanders is running as a Democrat, he holds office as an Independent, and he has never been a member of the of the party, making it hard for stalwart Dems to offer their allegiance, especially for those with national political ambitions and ties to the Clintons.

However, Clinton’s big-name backers have voiced more personal reasons for their support. In his endorsement Tweet for Clinton (poorly timed to coincide with Sander’s campaign launch in Burlington in May), Governor Shumlin hailed her as “a lifelong champion for everyday Americans.” In a follow-up e-mail to the Burlington Free Press, his spokesperson Scott Coriell explained that though the governor has “tremendous respect” for Senator Sanders and the issues he is fighting for, the governor believes Hillary Clinton is “the right person to lead America as the next President of the United States.” In his endorsement, House Speaker and Vermont gubernatorial candidate Shap Smith acknowledged that Sanders will help bring the right issues into the Democratic primary, and then went on to note that he was a Clinton delegate in 2008, “and it’s hard to get off that bandwagon.” Former Shumlin chief of staff Bill Lofy, who earlier worked for the late progressive senator from Minnesota Paul Wellstone, also expressed admiration for Sanders and his campaign, hoping “his presence in the race will draw more attention—and candidates—to the state.” But Lofy went on to say, “I’m supporting Hillary because I believe she’ll be a champion for progressive values in the White House. She’s spent a lifetime working on the issues I care about: kids, economic fairness, and international security.”

Kunin, who has been a longtime, tireless Clinton supporter, said in her endorsement: “My heart and my head are focused on Hillary.” In an interview with this reporter, she said, “Regardless of gender, Hillary is the most qualified of all the candidates, Republican or Democrat. We have to ask ourselves, who do we want making tough, potentially dangerous decisions a president has to make? In the end, who do you trust to send troops and make other decisions that will directly affect our lives?”

Gosh agrees that Hillary Clinton is by far the most experienced of all the candidates. “She’s been First Lady, so she knows the physical and emotional demands of the job. She also worked on policy issues at the highest level. As senator from New York, she understands how legislation is passed and how important it is to work across the aisle. As secretary of state, Hillary met with and gained the respect of leaders around the world. She knows what it takes and she’s ready to lead.”

Gosh is adamant that the nation is ready for a woman president. “After 240 years, we have evolved to realize that a woman offers all that a man does. We just bring different experience to the job,” Gosh said. “We’re collaborative by nature and, as caregivers and nurturers, we have the compassion to understand people’s situations. And we need so much compassion in Washington right now.” As a superdelegate, Gosh will once again be in the stands at the Democratic convention in 2016. In 2008, she stuck with Clinton to the bitter end, giving her vote to Barak Obama only after Clinton released her delegates on the second day of the convention.

Vermont Support Lacking

Though many well-known political allies are lining up behind Clinton, the rest of Vermont presents a contrasting picture. A poll released by the Castleton Polling Institute in September showed Clinton lagging behind Sanders—at least in Vermont. The national picture is different. According to an October 20 Washington Post–ABC News poll, Clinton held a commanding 31 point lead over Sanders even though Biden was still in the picture with 16 percent of respondents pulling for him. Now that he is no longer a potential contender, most assume that much of his support will go to Clinton, pushing her even further ahead nationally.

But among Vermont voters polled, Clinton received only 11 percent to Sander’s 48 percent, with Donald Trump coming in third, pulling 6 percent. Among Democrats she came in with 22 percent to Sander’s 57 percent with 10 percent still undecided. (Another 5 percent went for Biden.) When asked, however, who they thought would be the eventual nominee, 46 percent said Clinton, while only 27 percent thought Sanders would come out on top. In local fundraising, Clinton is not faring any better. Though overall Clinton has raised more than twice as much as Sanders (currently $97.7 million versus Sander’s $41.4 million), a Federal Election Commission report, released October 15, showed that, in Vermont, Clinton has raised only $20,880 to Sander’s $236,090 in the quarter from July to September.

 

A Quiet Campaign

Despite Clinton’s poor showing in Vermont, the campaign in the Green Mountain State is quiet. Gosh noted that “the campaign is feeling hesitant about being too obvious in Bernie’s home state out of respect for our senator.” Presently there are no plans for Clinton to visit the state for a variety of other strategic reasons: Vermont has never been a key state for the primaries, nor is it a power player in the general election, with only three electoral votes. And the state reliably votes Democratic.

Kunin said people stop her on the street asking how they can help, but, she noted, “it’s still very early in the campaign.” According to Tyrone Gayle, Clinton’s Northeast press contact in her national headquarters in Brooklyn, the campaign focus is now on Iowa and New Hampshire. Once the early states are done voting, things will pick up here in Vermont. Since July, Vermont has relied on grassroots volunteers who have put on a number of events around the state, including parties to watch the first Democratic debate in October. Paid staff return early in 2016 to pick up the pace.

Not only is the campaign quiet, so are many of Clinton’s Vermont supporters. Ann Fielder of Brattleboro, retired after a long career at Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, is an ardent Clinton fan. “She’s my hero,” said Fielder. “Her husband has an affair and instead of going off to the Betty Ford Clinic, she became senator!” But, she said, it’s lonely being for Clinton. After too many confrontations with friends who are going with Sanders, she has decided to keep her opinions to herself until after the primary when she will speak up for her hero.

On National Coming Out Day, October 12, Coleen Kearon in Montpelier posted “I’m coming out for Hillary” and received comments that cheered her on for her courage in claiming she was a Hillary supporter.

Meanwhile, other strong feminists remain on the fence, among them Elayne Clift of Saxton’s River, a writer and contributor to this paper and longtime advocate for women’s issues. Clift writes, “I’d love to see a woman president in my lifetime... but like a lot of other politically active liberal Democrats, I’m in a preprimary quandary. Hillary or Bernie? One day I’m for one candidate, the next I’m leaning toward their contender. Both make a lot of sense to me and represent my worldview. But both have done things (or not) that make me wonder about their ability to lead the country (and the world) in a way that makes me feel totally comfortable and confident.” 

Trine Bech, a “mother” of Vermont’s family court and lifelong advocate for children and families, remains an outspoken Clinton supporter. She, along with her husband, Beach Conger, joined around three dozen other like-minded supporters, such as Shumlin and Kunin, for the first grassroots organizing meeting in Burlington in June. She said Clinton has always been for women and children, unlike Sanders who has never considered family issues a priority in Bech’s experience, working with his office over many years. She thinks Sanders has done a great job pushing Clinton to the left, but she likes Clinton’s pragmatic approach to issues, though the candidate is more hawkish than Bech would like. She hopes the campaign will pick up, because she’s ready to work for Clinton.

Overall, those Vermonters who long to see a woman at the helm of the nation but who also admire Sander’s outspoken support for economic justice and equality have a tough choice to make in the upcoming primary. For many, Conger’s approach may make the most sense—

“Cheer for Bernie, but vote for Hillary!”

 

Susan Z. Ritz lives, writes, and teaches in Montpelier.