(Host) Governor Jim Douglas has kicked off a two day tour of the state to highlight his re-election campaign.
Douglas says dealing with the current economic slowdown is the top issue in the 2008 election.
VPRs Bob Kinzel reports.
(Kinzel) Douglas called the two-day event "The Every County Counts Tour" because he plans to visit all of Vermont’s 14 counties on Wednesday and Thursday to launch his bid to win a fourth term as governor.
On the first day, he concentrated primarily on the southern part of the state. Traveling outside of Rutland, Douglas said the number one issue this year is helping Vermonters cope with rising energy prices and a national economic slowdown:
(Douglas) "The state can’t control the cost of a barrel of oil but there certainly are steps we can take to make sure that every Vermonter has access to the services that are necessary to keep their homes warm, to find a decent place to live, to get the assistance they need to make their families succeed."
(Kinzel) When Douglas first ran for governor in 2002, his campaign had a bumper sticker that said "Jim = Jobs."
Douglas says the state added more than 10,000 new jobs during his first five years in office but he noted that Vermont actually lost jobs in the last year. Despite these losses, he thinks Vermont’s job picture is stronger now than in 2002 because the state is less reliant on IBM:
(Douglas) "We have a tremendous growth in our health care sector and higher education, in financial services, software development, in travel and tourism, so I think the strength of our economy is its diversity. And although we’re seeing some softening right now, in the long run we’ll be in good shape."
(Kinzel) St. Michael’s College political science professor Bill Grover thinks that Douglas’s two major party opponents, Democrat Gaye Symington and Progressive Anthony Pollina face some major challenges because Vermont voters rarely throw an incumbent governor out of office:
(Grover) "It’s going to take a lot to beat Jim Douglas. There’s no doubt about it. I think this election probably for both Pollina and Symington will be a referendum on the past six years of Douglas‘s leadership. That’s how it’s going to be cast I think, and in a three-way race they both have to make a case that he hasn’t done the job in the last six years on affordability and that he hasn’t done the job on creating jobs."
(Kinzel) Vermont Democratic leaders believe that presidential candidate Barack Obama will bring droves of people to the polls in November – a move that they say will benefit their candidates up and down the ticket. Grover isn’t so sure:
(Grover) "Certainly there will be some Obama impact on Vermont, but it would be consistent with how Vermont votes. To vote for Obama for president and Douglas for governor too, that happens as well. There are a lot of folks in the Northeast Kingdom who vote for Bernie Sanders all the time and also vote for Republicans for other races. Vermont’s kind of a crazy quilt pattern of voting behavior."
(Kinzel) Douglas will wrap up his campaign tour with a barbecue in St. Albans on Thursday night.
For VPR News, I’m Bob Kinzel in Montpelier.