Democrats, Progressives disagree over politics of lt. governor’s race

Print More

(Host) The head of the Vermont Progressive Party says she’s disappointed that Democrats are trying to use scare tactics in an effort to convince voters not to support her party’s candidate for lieutenant governor. The race for lieutenant governor has three major party candidates: incumbent Republican Brian Dubie, Democrat Cheryl Rivers and Progressive Steve Hingtgen.

Speaking Tuesday night on VPR’s Switchboard program, Democratic chair Scudder Parker said Dubie’s positions on a number of social issues were of great concern:

(Parker) “Brain Dubie is a very affable person, people like him when they hear him. But he is staunchly anti-choice, he is very conservative on the social issues and out of touch with most Vermonters on those issues.”

(Host) Progressive chair Martha Abbott accused Parker of trying to scare voters into supporting Cheryl Rivers by portraying the Progressive
candidate Steve Hingtgen as a spoiler in this race:

(Abbott) “At the national level we criticize Bush and Cheney and the republicans in Congress for using wedge issues like abortion and choice to scare people into not voting for certain candidates and that’s exactly what’s going on here. Brian Dubie has never had to break a tie in the senate which is the only time he would ever vote on an issue and if he does it’s not going to be on the issue of choice.”

(Host) Parker denied the charge and said that he’s never described Hingtgen as a spoiler candidate because Parker believes Hingtgen has every right to run for lieutenant governor.

Comments are closed.