Hill Digs for Welchie...But From Who?

We were cruising through some of the political fodder from recent weeks when we came across this interesting morsel of "news" coyly inserted at the bottom of Darren Allen's site: Welchie will be moving into the apartment of whom? The answer is Bill Kurtz, former Chief of Staff for the roundly lionized (and deservedly so) former Senator Jeffords. Our immediate impulse was to think this a bit strange; is not Kurtz an avowed "R?" Apparently Welch is taking the spirit of bipartisanship to a whole new level. Seemed odd...then we stumbled on this fluffy piece on the same not-news subject of Welchie's new bachelor pad. Wait, this blog article says that the apartment in question is furnished too. Sweet. So, Welchie will be reviewing the troop surge proposal that has everyone so up in arms on the same ratty old sofa where Kurtz watched West Wing reruns and ordered takeout from the Tune Inn? This seemed a little bit odd to us at WW.

Then we started thinking about stuff. It's really not that weird. Of course, the body politic in the old green mountain state is pretty small, or as one commentator once told me "it's easy to climb through the ranks here because there are so few people." It makes sense that Kurtz and Welch would know each other, simply due to this fact. Of course, Vermonters should stick together, and Kurtz IS a Vermonter. In his farewell address, Jeffords described Kurtz as "one of the greatest people to ever serve...the State of Vermont." Wow.

But what really had us thinking was the role that Kurtz played in the last election. Welchie's breakthrough year. Yeah, that one, where everyone thought that Martha Rainville was great, but...well, you know the rest. The whole R scarlett letter thing, and there's some truth to that argument, and a few other missteps. But make no mistake: the establishment was shaking in their birkenstocks that Rainville would turn the Vermont political establishment, and a well-guarded one it is, on its head. Of course, Rainville herself was bulletproof, but those national R's have to go! they all cheered, and just look at those glossy TV ads they paid for...wait, did we just see a black & white of Jeffords fly by, on screen for less than a second? Yes, we did.

Remember that? The claim was that national R's were using Jeffords against his will. A letter even came out of Jeffords' office on it, the Times Argus taking note here, and Freyne here. Who wrote that letter? Ostensibly, of course, it was Jeffords. Perhaps we'll never know, but one can imagine that the Chief of Staff might have a say in something like that coming out at well, an opportune moment, shall we say, especially considering the well-known fact (in political circles, at least) that Jeffords was, according to Allen's surprisingly undercovered piece here, "operating in a diminished capacity." How diminished? Evidence suggests the answer: pretty diminished. Enough to block press access to the state's sitting Senator. Blocking press access to the state's sitting Senator. For more than a year. Let that sink in for a bit...Ok.

Considering that this article also points out Kurtz's reference to a Senate office as a "business" it becomes pretty surprising that no one pointed to this article when the anti-Rainville letter came out. The date of Allen's piece was in Summer news hell: July 21st, which was a Friday. "Jeffords'" little piece effectively endorsing Welchie? October 10th, a Tuesday. Less than a month before the election. Interesting timing, isn't it, for "business," we mean?

So, considering all of these connections, it makes perfect sense that Welchie will be crashing at Kurtz's pad, drinking his left-over Sunny-Delite, eating his old rice pudding in that weird green container at the back of the fridge. It makes a lot more sense than one might, from the perspective of the average voter, think.

This leads us to a much discussed but little noticed fact about electoral politics in its current manifestation: nothing. is. done. by. accident. Nothing. The elements of the well choreographed "letter from Jeffords" are so clear: Jeffords's well-deserved saint-like status, combined with no press-availability and a secret-service like level of protection from his staff meant that his office could at least have a strong influence on the timing and reporting of his remarks. At least. Heck, in DA's piece his staff admits that it already drafted major pieces of legislation for him. Why not a little letter about the campaign? Are those crickets I hear?

The timing of these events, and the substantial undercoverage of a long and well-developed piece by Darren Allen implicating Jeffords' ability to reason, combined with the business aspects of politics, are just too much to dismiss as conspiracy theory. It was brilliant triangulation by Welchie's crew, and great cooperation from the establishment to keep Rainville, a legitimate political threat to them all, out of a party to which she was never invited.

If Leahy's COS has an even swankier joint in a few years, look out.