(Host) As Democratic gubernatorial candidate Peter Shumlin kicks off his campaign this week, he’ll have the support of many members of Vermont’s Progressive Party.
But as VPR’s Bob Kinzel reports, it’s unlikely that the Progressives will formally endorse Shumlin’s candidacy.
(Kinzel) Martha Abbott is the chair of the Progressive Party in Vermont. She says her party made a deliberate decision this year not to run a candidate for governor during the general election.
Abbott ran for and won the Progressive gubernatorial nomination to ensure that no one outside the Party would able to secure it. Then she withdrew from the race.
Abbott says the Progressives decided that they didn’t want to be a factor in this race because of their overwhelming desire to make certain that Republican Brian Dubie doesn’t win in November. She says the so called Douglas-Dubie team has been bad for Vermont over the last 8 years.
(Abbott) "We feel that they have driven this state into an economic ditch, among other things, and that it is not a good idea to continue those policies. And we’re afraid that Brian Dubie would bring the same team and the same policies back into office."
(Kinzel) Abbott says many Progressives want Shumlin to win. But she says it’s not appropriate for the party to formally endorse him.
(Abbott) "I don’t think this is a big deal or a big distinction. I think it’s just the way this has sugared out in the process of figuring out how we participate this year. We’re not a coordinated entity with the Democratic Party and I think this is just the most comfortable arrangement for everybody involved."
(Kinzel) Abbott thinks the Progressives had an influence on the Democratic gubernatorial primary because many of the five candidates supported the Progressive priorities of closing Vermont Yankee, implementing a single payer health care system and protecting the rights of workers.
(Abbott) "You did see candidates for governor who were fighting for those issues and those positions on those issues. And so I would argue that in that way, in this race, by staying out of it we were actually very effective at moving the issues that we care about forward, probably more so than if we had simply said, `Well, you know, we’re going to run a candidate and you do whatever you want to do about the issues in the Legislature this year.’"
(Kinzel) About a third of the Progressive legislative candidates are also running as Democrats. In some cases the candidates actively sought the Democratic nomination, and in other cases, they received enough write-in votes to win.
For VPR News, I’m Bob Kinzel in Montpelier