(Host) Vermont is going to have a three-way, major party race for governor this year.
Progressive Anthony Pollina told his supporters at a Burlington rally this afternoon that he’s committed to his gubernatorial campaign. He rejected suggestions that he run for lieutenant governor.
VPR’s Bob Kinzel reports:
(Kinzel) There’s been a lot of speculation that Pollina was thinking about running for lieutenant governor because no Democrat has yet emerged to challenge incumbent Republican Brian Dubie.
Some Democrats even offered to help Pollina in this endeavor because it would allow House Speaker Gaye Symington to run in a head-to-head contest against Governor Jim Douglas.
With the sun beating down on roughly 150 supporters in front of Burlington’s City Hall, a defiant Anthony Pollina quickly ended the speculation.
(Pollina) “So I thought it was best that we come together here in the sunlight to end the political spin, to bury the myths,, and to end the speculation and to outline a strategy for winning the office of governor of Vermont."
(Kinzel) Pollina says a central theme of his campaign is his belief that there’s not much difference between Gaye Symington and Jim Douglas on the major issues facing the state.
(Pollina) “They are political insiders. They have spent their time in the Statehouse bickering back and forth while I’ve been working with Vermonters in their communities on issues that matter most to them. And when it comes to the issues, there are big differences."
(Kinzel) Symington says Pollina’s decision to stay in the race doesn’t change her strategy at all because she entered the contest with the belief that it would be a three-way campaign.
But she says Pollina is dead wrong to lump her policies together with those of Jim Douglas.
(Symington) “I find it amusing that each of my opponents is claiming that there’s no difference between me and the other opponent in the race. I think Vermonters are observant enough to figure out right off the bat there’s one obvious difference between me and my two opponents. And I think over the course of the next six months they will see that we are three very different candidates."
(Kinzel) Middlebury College political science professor Eric Davis thinks Pollina’s contention that Symington and Douglas share many similar positions is going to be a very tough sell to Vermont voters.
(Davis) “Most people who follow politics in Montpelier closely know that there are significant and substantive differences between the Democrats and the Douglas Administration on a wide range of issues – tax policy, energy policy, health care policy, just to mention three important ones. When Pollina says there’s very little difference between them, it comes across more like Ralph Nader in the presidential race the last two cycles making an argument which many voters would find it difficult to accept."
(Kinzel) Davis says Pollina’s decision to stay in the race is also likely to make a bad relationship between the Progressives and the Democrats even worse during this election cycle.
For VPR News, I’m Bob Kinzel in Montpelier.