(Host) Former Brattleboro Representative Tom Costello defeated Northfield businessman Nate Freeman to win the Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor in yesterday’s primary election.
Costello garnered roughly 60 percent of the vote in this race and he says he believes voters responded strongly to his call for new leadership in the Lieutenant Governor’s office.
VPR’s Bob Kinzel reports.
(Kinzel) Costello has served in the Legislature on two separate occasions. He represented Rutland in the Vermont House in the late 1970s and in 1994 he was elected to the first of 3 terms from Brattleboro.
During his second stint in the Legislature, he chaired the House Judiciary committee and the House General Affairs Committee.
Costello says he thinks voters have responded to his call to end the partisan bickering that he says has developed at the Statehouse in recent years:
(Costello) "I heard today a commitment and desire from the people that they wanted a Lt. Governor who is committed to this job a Lt. Governor who had a record of solving problems a Lt. Governor who had a dream and the courage to fulfill it and I think it’s those elements that I heard today and a expression of which I’m very grateful."
(Kinzel) Costello says there are a number of key issues he wants to focus on in his campaign against incumbent Republican Lt. Governor Brian Dubie and he thinks voters are eager to have a debate over these issues:
(Costello) "And the issues that I have been talking to them about the lack of leadership over a period of 6 years with no plan for the future to deal with energy health care costs, the cost of living wages seem to the people I talked to to be meaningful."
(Kinzel) In the only other statewide primary contest yesterday, incumbent Democratic Congressman Peter Welch easily turned away a challenge from former Green Party U.S. House candidate Craig Hill of Montpelier.
For VPR News I’m Bob Kinzel in Montpelier.
Photo: Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, Tom Costello, waits for voters at a polling place in Burlington, Vt., Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2008. (AP Photo/Toby Talbot)