I know, I know, I started to tell you about last week’s lunch with Tom Salmon, Vermont’s Auditor, but then I got distracted by things like…well…Tom Salmon.
I guess he’s a bit sensitive these days. Or maybe he just needs a fucking drink. Whatever.
Little Tommy went a little over the top with his reaction to my first report, claiming that I was breeching some trust between us. When I finally stopped laughing and came up for a breath, he was sporting a smirk of his own. It eerily reminded me of his DUI mug shot.
Salmon, you see, is in super-sensitive-decision mode. And those of us who know him well have a special name for him at times like these: Bastard. Simple as that, really. But some of us add “spoiled” to the equation.
Decisions don’t come easy for Little Tommy. Vermonters know that by now, given his party switch and open flirtation with practically every elected position that he can pronounce (Governor! Senate! House! Auditor (again)!)
And here’s the skinny on where he’s at now: Little Tommy wants to take his ball and go home. Yep, walk away from politics.
Besides being able to hoist one again without the scrutiny (damn those DUIs!), by quitting politics now, he thinks he could put some money away by working in the private sector and continue to repair the damage his drinking and his constant politicking have done to his family life.
But there’s more: Salmon also feels deeply disrespected by his new Republican Party and Vermont’s political elite. This is where the “spoiled” part comes in.
Salmon, you see, would like to see political waters parted when he mentions an office he’d like to seek. In Little Tommy’s mind, for example, when he hints to a Vermont reporter that he’s considering a challenge to Senator Bernie Sanders next year, he fully expects the reaction to be nothing but fawning. Sound the trumpets! Here comes Salmon!
That hasn’t been the reaction, though. Mostly because the people who cover these things know that Salmon has been all over the map and, let’s not forget, he’s talking about challenging incumbents like Sanders who doesn’t bother parting political waters in Vermont because he walks on the water, damn it.
It’s more than a little ironic that Salmon’s failure to signal which race he’s going to be in come 2012 is the same reason he got pulled over for his DUI: Failure to signal. Montpelier, we have a problem.
In fact, that’s what I told him during lunch. His opponent, whomever it is, will only need those three words to keep Salmon on the defensive the entire campaign: Failure to signal. Because, they would argue, his failure to signal equals a judgment problem. Yep, the swift-boat word of the campaign will, indeed, be problem.
Salmon’s stubborn streak is leading him to flirt with a race against Bernie Sanders a whole hell of a lot more than pure logic would allow. He’s still super-pissed that it was Sanders’ buddy, John Franco, who successfully sued to have his DUI-arrest tape released to the public. And the grudge match has been on ever since – at least in Salmon’s mind.
It’s my hunch that Salmon’s going to take a breather from politics. Because, instead of parting any political waters with all his electoral flirtations, he’s just been muddying the hell out of them. And somewhere in that stubborn mind of his, he’s got to see that.
Just be careful about telling him that over lunch.
Whatever.