Windsor County Senate: Sharp differences mark race

Longtime Windsor County Sen. Richard “Dick” McCormack said he’s extremely hesitant to claim victory four days before Tuesday’s election, but he believed strongly that Windsor County voters were going to return Senate Majority Leader Sen. John Campbell to the Statehouse, along with Sen. Alice Nitka, D-Windsor, of Ludlow, as well as himself.

http://www.vermonttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/RH/20101030/NEWS02/710309859  Published October 30, 2010 in the Rutland Herald   •                                        Windsor County Senate: Sharp differences mark race •  By Susan Smallheer Staff Writer  •  While some of his fellow candidates are continuing their dogged pursuit of votes, Bethel Republican Henry Holmes has gone hunting in Canada and won’t be back until after the election.  •   Holmes, a former state representative who has run for a Windsor County Senate seat before, said if people hadn’t made up their minds to support him by now, another week of campaigning wasn’t going to make any difference, his wife said Friday.  •  Holmes’ defection to the Canadian woods in search of deer instead of votes may be further proof that Windsor County Senate seats are all but permanently painted blue — as in Democrat.  •  Longtime Windsor County Sen. Richard “Dick” McCormack said he’s extremely hesitant to claim victory four days before Tuesday’s election, but he believed strongly that Windsor County voters were going to return Senate Majority Leader Sen. John Campbell, the county’s senior senator, to the Statehouse, along with Sen. Alice Nitka, D-Windsor, of Ludlow, as well as himself.  •  It’s not just the future of Vermont Yankee that sets the candidates for Windsor County’s three state Senate seats apart, the six candidates have different ideas on taxation, the role of government in health care and the state’s expected $112 million budget deficit.   •  Campbell, McCormack and Nitka are being challenged by two Republicans who have run for the Senate before, former state Rep. Holmes and John MacGovern of Windsor, and a political newcomer, Francis Renaud of Weathersfield.  •  McCormack, who has represented Windsor County for 17 years in the Senate, said the Senate candidates have had to work hard to get attention.  •  The governor’s race has been on the front page every day, he said, monopolizing attention, while House candidates focus their attention on going door-to-door and talking with every potential voter, McCormack said.  •  “When I first ran 20 years ago, it was a different world,” said McCormack, who added it was next to impossible to go door-to-door in Windsor County, given the county’s large geographic spread.  •  “I think Windsor County has become Democratic,” said McCormack. “I don’t want to be smug, but I think it is an uphill battle for Republicans.”  •  At a recent political forum in Weathersfield, five of the six candidates — Holmes was missing — the two Republicans said they were in favor of the continued operation of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, while the three Democrats, who all voted in February against the plant’s continued operation, said nothing had changed their minds and they said the Vernon reactor’s license should not be extended.  •  Campbell, who many say is in line to succeed Sen. Peter Shumlin, D-Windham, the Democrats’ gubernatorial candidate, as Senate president pro tempore, told the crowd at the Weathersfield Meeting House that the state’s fiscal crisis was the toughest issue facing any candidate.  •  “We face the toughest fiscal crisis in decades,” said Campbell, a Quechee attorney, who was first elected 10 years ago.  •  Campbell said he favored a collaborative process for solving the $112 million budget gap.  •  But the first thing the Republicans have to do is stop bad-mouthing the state “and driving out business.”  •  When you are in a hole, he said, “the first rule is to stop digging.”  •  Campbell said Republicans’ claim that businesses were leaving Vermont because of its tax policy was misleading, if not false.  •  “We love Vermont because of what it offers us,” said Campbell, who said he sits on a state board that offers tax credits to expanding businesses.  •  Nitka, a lifelong social worker and former state representative from Ludlow, said her track record showed she worked in a bipartisan way.  •  Nitka said important programs, such as heating aid to low-income Vermonters, had to be protected. Nitka said she might support a proposed single-payer health care system, but she expressed doubts the state could obtain a federal waiver to allow the change.  •  She said she didn’t know yet how the program would be funded, but the idea of saving money through streamlining billing and administration was very attractive.  • McCormack said his priority was protecting the vulnerable who are dependent on government programs, rather than cutting taxes.  •  “It’s nice to say, ‘sure, let’s cut taxes.’ But how are you going to afford what a state does?” Campbell said.  •  MacGovern, who has run for both the Vermont House and Senate unsuccessfully in recent elections, said the deficit was proof that Vermont was not living within its means — something people all over Vermont and the country have to do.  •  “In a nutshell, Vermont has to live within its means,” he said. MacGovern, who heads a conservative Dartmouth College alumni group, the Hanover Institute, said he would be completely against any increase in taxes to pay off the deficit.  •  He refused to say what programs should be cut to make up the deficit, saying it was counterproductive.  •  But he said Democrats who want to shut down Vermont Yankee are destroying 700 jobs, and they aren’t serious about helping the economy. The current taxes in Vermont are a “burden,” MacGovern said, to the “entrepreneurial class.”  •  Renaud, who said it was his first run for public office, also stressed the importance of living within your budget.  •  When he was a child, the youngest of 18 in Brattleboro, he said his family would go to the grocery store, but have to put things back because the total bill was too high.  •  “You got to put things back,” he said.  •  Renaud, who owns a small car repair shop in New Hampshire, said taxes and workmen’s compensation costs continued to drive business to New Hampshire.  •  “We should be self-regulating,” Renaud said. “I think we should take care of those who can’t work.”   •  Renaud said schools were spending way too much money, noting that he and his wife were home-schooling their children on a fraction of the standard per-pupil costs, about $2,300 a year.