ROMNEY LEAVES VERMONT LARGELY UNTOUCHED

When Mitt Romney spent three days in Vermont in early September, the biggest news he made was a press event in New Hampshire. The rest of the time the gaggle of local and national media people were limited to reporting that Romney was in West Windsor to prepare for the October 3 presidential debate and, no, you can’t see the house from the dirt road, or the foot of the driveway, with Vermont State Police and Secret Service vehicles blocking the entrance.

According to AP writer Kasie Hunt, “The story about Romney focused largely on the size of former Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey’s $3.9 million vacation home, where Romney’s debate practice sessions are being held.” Mrs. Healey and her husband Sean have owned the 143-acre property for about ten years.
http://www.gopusa.com/news/2012/09/06/romney-in-vermont-for-debate-prep/

West Windsor’s local law enforcement consists of one part-time, elected constable. The town has a residential population of a little more than 1,000 people.

Although Vermont isn’t even close to being a battleground state, the Romney sequester elicited no noticeable political protest. In 2008, Obama got 67% of Vermont’s vote, with 30% going to McCain. Obama got 68% of the vote in West Windsor that year.

No surprise then that Romney’s only public appearance was in Lebanon, NH, on September 5, when he did a series of media interviews in an impromptu TV studio set up at the back of the LaValley Building Supply warehouse. New Hampshire is generally thought to be a swing state in this year’s election.

The Romney campaign also reached out to Vermont State Senator Randy Brock, the Republican candidate for governor of Vermont. Romney and Brock met privately for about 15 minutes. Afterwards Brock countered the common image of Romney as detached, telling a reporter, “I thought he was outgoing, he was friendly and very personable in my discussions with him.”
http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120906/NEWS03/709069859/1004

Brock also spoke about promoting Vermont as a destination for Presidential debate preparation retreats. “Now if we could get Obama to do the same thing, it could be a revenue producer,” he said.
http://vtdigger.org/2012/09/06/brock-meets-with-romney-in-hardware-store-turned-tv-studio/

Brock also took the opportunity to assert some independence from total acceptance of the Republican platform, pointing out that he supports a woman’s right to choose whether or not to have an abortion. For younger women, however, he said he supports parental notification.

Also concerned with generating Vermont revenue, like Brock, the Woodstock Early Bird blog commented on the stack of empty pizza boxes left by the media people on the Woodstock Green, pizza boxes from a pizza place in NH.

The Early Bird was not pleased by the campaign’s choice of patronage, lamenting that “the entire motorcade stopped in to pick up some take-out pizza from Lui-Lui's. Good stuff. But, ya' know we have at least six places for tasty pizza right here along Route 4 in VERMONT!” http://woodstockearlyworm.wordpress.com/2012/09/06/day-three-remnants-of-romney/

Mostly the news during Romney’s three days in Vermont consisted of reports with no substance that he was doing debate prep with U.S. Senators Rob Portman, R-Ohio, standing in for Obama. Portman played the same role for Sen. John McCain, R-AR, in his 2008 presidential campaign.

The public and the media got no closer to the Romney-Portman sessions than the gate at the foot of the long driveway leading to Healey’s house on a remote hilltop in West Windsor, not far from the village of Brownsville in the Town of Reading, although the closest village to the house is South Woodstock. This is the heart of Vermont horse country where two cultures collide, as indicated by numerous Obama-Biden signs outnumbered only by No Trespassing signs.

Only veteran Vermont reporter Susan Smallheer of the Rutland Herald reported on the local context in significant detail. In 2003, the Healeys were one of five families who sued the Town of West Windsor, claiming their property taxes were too high. The case went to the Vermont Supreme Court, which upheld the Healeys and their fellow plaintiffs, leading to their saving $7,000 a year on their local property taxes.
http://rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120903/NEWS02/709039884/0/SEARCH

In 2006, the Healeys built their present house, described by neighbors as “a starter palace,” as reported in the Boston Globe. The Healeys’ property is currently assessed at $3.9 million for tax purposes, with the house assessed at $2 million.

This history, and stories like it, provide some of the context for the September 4 editorial in the Rutland Herald that contrasts the Romney and Healey lifestyles with Vermonters, who vote for policies befitting “a socialistic, European-style principality.”

The editorial observes that: “The widening disparity of wealth that has afflicted our nation is less present in Vermont, which means we don’t feel compelled to do obeisance to rich folks, though our environmental ethic has preserved a place lovely enough that more than a few have taken up residence, full- or part-time. We expect them to pay their fair share of what our communities need. They can afford it.”

“We may not end up with a big house on a hill, but we like the lives we lead,” concluded Vermont’s oldest daily newspaper.

On his arrival in Vermont on September 3, Romney’s motorcade was brought to a crawl for awhile on a narrow back road, caught behind a slow-moving tractor mowing the roadside brush.

There was no complaint from the Romney camp. One Vermonter speculated, “Maybe he was just grateful it weren’t a manure spreader.”

Romney’s stay concluded September 6 without further incident.