Taking a Third Swing at Congress

Keith Stern pushes a load of produce from his truck into his store, Stern’s Quality Produce, in White River Junction. The Springfield, Vt., native is seeking the Republican nomination to run for Vermont’s U.S. House seat.

http://www.vnews.com/05162010/6601005.htm                       # # # # Taking a Third Swing at Congress  •  By Gregory Trotter  •  Valley News Staff Writer  •  Published 5/16/2010  •  Keith Stern pushes a load of produce from his truck into his store, Stern’s Quality Produce, in White River Junction. The Springfield, Vt., native is seeking the Republican nomination to run for Vermont’s U.S. House seat. (Valley News — Jennifer Hauck)  •  White River Junction -- On a recent Monday afternoon, Keith Stern hustled waxen boxes of produce from a truck into a walk-in cooler at Stern's Quality Produce, the small but bustling market he has run for about 26 years with his wife, Judy.  •  He was up at 12:30 a.m. to make his four-times-a-week journey to the docks in Chelsea, Mass., haggled through the leanest hours of the morning, and made it back with plenty of work yet to do. Shooed from the truck by an exasperated Judy, he retreated to the small office in the back of the store and sank into a worn, pink recliner to discuss his third and most committed run at Congress.  •  As a virtual unknown, Stern ran for the U.S. Senate as an independent against Patrick Leahy in 2004, and then for House in 2006 against Peter Welch. Now, as a Republican, Stern is making another bid. Before he gets another shot at Welch and Vermont's lone U.S. House seat, he will have to beat out Paul Beaudry, a conservative talk radio host, and John Mitchell, a retired CEO from Rutland, in the August primary. In terms of money and recognition, Stern is once again the underdog.  •  But he likes his chances this time around.  •  “My ideas are more developed now. I'm someone who has a vision. And if I get elected, I'm going to be like a pit bull, fighting for the people,” Stern said.  •  In his previous bids for office, Stern ran as an independent to “get some new ideas out there” and because he didn't want to threaten a more established Republican's chances, he said. Though a fiscal conservative, Stern is not a candidate easily defined by partisan lines.  •  Believes in less government and less taxes? Yep.  •  Hates the new health care reform law? Check.  •  Supports Arizona's controversial stance on immigration? Si.  •  Empathizes with the anger of the Tea Party movement? Indeed.  •  But from there, it gets a little trickier. Though he thinks global warming is a “myth,” Stern believes in aggressively developing alternative fuel sources for renewable energy, particularly ethanol. He contends American foreign policy is disastrous and advocates for treaties of nonaggression with all countries. They sign the treaty or the United States doesn't deal with them.  •  And Stern shrugged off the perennially divisive topic of abortion. He is opposed to late-term abortion but, beyond that, he has no real problem with the freedom of choice embodied in Roe v. Wade.  •  “The law has already been established,” Stern said. “I don't think it could be changed and I don't think it should be changed.”  •  While Stern was elaborating on his ideas, his wife burst into the office to answer a telephone that had been ringing. After hanging up the phone, she offered some views of her own.  •  “Want to know the No. 1 reason for global warming?” she asked. “Politicians. They should take them all outside and shoot them.”  •  She wheeled around and began to storm out of the office. When asked if her declaration included her three-time candidate husband, Judy Stern turned back around and raised her hands in the air like a churchwoman feeling the spirit of the gospel.  •  “Amen!”  •  Keith Stern smiled and silently prepared a response.  •  “I'm not a politician!” he shot back in the general direction of her receding footsteps.  •  The exchange was both a comic interlude -- a routine chop-busting back-and-forth between husband and wife -- and a very real glimpse into the political mindset of the Sterns.  •  They disdain politicians like wilted lettuce.  •  Ross Perot Lights a Fire  •  Keith Stern is passionate about government -- a fiscally conservative, workingman's brand of populism that he says hearkens back to the ideals of the Founding Fathers.  •  His interest was first “ignited” by a billionaire, Ross Perot, who approached the idea of governing like running a business when he ran for president as an independent in 1992 against President George H.W. Bush and challenger Bill Clinton. Perot staked his campaign on his own millions, which Stern admired, and he lashed out at the incumbent government on both sides of the aisle.  •  “He basically said, ‘We're the owners of this country and the politicians work for us,' ” Stern said. “You don’t hear people say that anymore.”  •  Stern said he felt that American democracy had become a thinly veiled aristocracy where the politicians were royalty, removed from and out of touch with the common people.  •  Prior to 1992, Stern had very little interest in politics or government at all.  •  Born in Springfield, Vt., in 1955, he grew up one of six children. His father, Harry, owned a furniture store. His mother, Bella, reared the children. When his older brother, Neil, was 14, his father set him up with a vegetable stand.  •  After Neil graduated from college, he returned to work the vegetable stand and his 13-year-old little brother Keith joined him.  •  Later, Stern attended the University of Vermont for two years, but quit after he couldn't find housing and was unable to commute from Springfield to Burlington and also finish his homework, he said.  •  Stern returned to Springfield and started a wholesale produce business with Neil. When he was about 29, he opened Stern's Quality Produce in White River Junction. A couple of years later, he returned to college at Johnson State College and graduated with a degree in general studies.  •  Hard work has been a consistent theme in Stern's life, and at age 55, he still cuts out the wholesaler and goes down to the docks to select his produce. He gets better selection at lower prices by doing it that way, but it's not easy, said Sam Rocco, owner of the B.C. Produce Co. at the Chelsea market.  •  Beyond being business associates, Stern and Rocco are also friends, prone to talking politics before the sun comes up.  •  “He could do it easier. Sure, he could. He could deal with another wholesaler up there or hire someone else to come down here,” Rocco said.  •  “But he wouldn't have the same choice. He's a hands-on person. He puts the effort in.”  •  Bruce Johnson served on the Zoning Board in Springfield with Stern in the 1990s. He described Stern as thoughtful, thorough and solution-oriented.  •  “He's honest and extremely hard-working,” said Johnson, executive director of Springfield Area Public Access Television. “He works like very few people I've ever met.”  •  Johnson described himself as being politically neutral, but said he could speak to Stern's personal qualities.  •  “I like him very much,” he said. “That doesn't mean he'll be elected to Congress, but you never know.”  •  ‘For the Small Guys'  •  At 10 a.m. Thursday, right as the doors opened at Stern's market, the parking lot was packed with cars and shoppers started filing in.  •  Later in the day, at 2 p.m., the store was still buzzing with customers perusing the aisles of fresh citrus, avocados, tomatoes, and more exotic veggies like chayote, Chinese okra and bitter melon. Judy Stern instructed a skeptical customer on how to cook yucca root like steak fries.  •  When cornered for a few questions on her husband's run for office, she was calmer than she was a few days before -- supportive, in a way. “He's a big boy,” she said. “If he wants to run for Congress, that's fine. And I expect him to support me if there’s something I want to do.”  •  The country is governed by too many lawyers and too few businessmen, she said, inching closer to an endorsement of her husband. George Washington wasn't a professional politician either, she pointed out. If her husband were elected, she could manage the store just fine. Most of the mail comes in her name, anyway.  •  And then, quietly but clearly proud, she said, “He's for the small guys.”  •  It's a point that's at the foundation of Keith Stern's professed beliefs. On his campaign website, he has posted a 12-point contract with the voters. The terms of the contract center on reducing government size and spending, and making elected officials more accountable.  •  Stern wants to eliminate the federal income tax for anyone who earns less than $75,000 a year, and impose a flat tax on people whose income exceeds that amount. He also intends to remove the income cap on FICA taxes to help boost Social Security.  •  And, if elected, Stern said, he would fight to undo the health care reform law or simply not fund it. Though health care reform is important, he said, the new law does nothing to address the exorbitant costs of health care.  •  Stern doesn't hesitate to criticize his opponents. Mitchell had just announced his bid for the Republican nomination on Thursday when Stern called him a “wealthy elitist” and characterized him as “bored and looking for something to do with his summer.”  •  He likes the verbose Beaudry, Stern said, but doubts his opposition to abortion would give him any chance against Welch.  •  Stern is also outspoken in his criticism of Welch. Beyond his derision of Welch's support of the health care reform law, there are also perceived personal slights. Once, in 2006, Stern said, Welch told him he had good ideas and that they should meet to further discuss them. But Welch never responded to Stern's attempts to meet, Stern said.  •  Similarly, Welch, a Hartland Democrat, said he loved shopping in Stern's market, according to Stern.  •  “He's never set foot in here. Not that I care, but don't say you love shopping here if you've never been here,” he said.  •  A spokesman from Welch's office said the congressman had no intention of getting involved in a back-and-forth with Stern, offering only this statement: “Peter has a strong record of fighting for Vermonters and looks forward to a vigorous campaign with whomever the Republicans nominate.”  •  Eric Davis, professor emeritus of political science at Middlebury College, said he doubted that Keith Stern would get the Republican nod.  •  The pundit ranked the three Republicans in terms of likely success: Mitchell, Beaudry and then Stern.  •  “I just don't think he has the recognition or the resources,” Davis said of Stern.  •  Stern was inspired to run again by what he considers to the “lack of leadership” in Washington and also by the birth of his great-granddaughter, whose name is Sky Rain. He has hired a campaign manager for the first time. If he makes it through the primary, he'll hire another driver to make the pre-dawn journeys to the Chelsea docks.  •  Until then, it's business as usual with a little campaigning sprinkled in. But he's no politician, Stern maintained.  •  “I've been a working person all my life,” he said. “I know what people go through.”  •