The July 6th Shittenden County Democrats show featured State Senator Tim Ashe. Tim and County Chair Mike Yantachka talked about ways in which the Democratic Party and Progressive Party can cooperate on the state and local levels. Sen. Ashe was a "fusion candidate" in the 2008 state senate race. As a Progressive Burlington City Councilor, Ashe chose to run for a nomination in the Democratic State Senate primary race. He won that contest and then was elected by a 400-plus vote margin to one of the six senate seats from Chittenden County.
Tim and Mike both agreed that the two parties share similar goals at the state level. Ashe acknowledged that those who identify themselves as Progressives tend to be a bit more liberal than the average Democrat. the most contention comes at the local level, especially in Burlington. Both Yantachka and Ashe agreed that it will be necessary for both parties to support a common gubernatorial candidate in 2010 to have any chance to unseat Republican Governor Jim Douglas. A caller reminded the panel that Gov. Douglas won by a 55% to a combined 45% margin over Progressive Anthony Pollina (who ran as an independent) and Democrat Gaye Symington. While this is true, Yantachka stated that the difficulty Democrats had in announcing a candidate combined with the way Pollina's request for endorsement by the Democratic Party negatively affected voters perceptions of both candidates, as bourne out by the overwhelming Democratic victories in every other statewide and national race.
The program will be rebroadcast at the following times by CCTV:
Friday July 17, 12:10 AM
Friday July 17, 5:10 AM
Friday July 17, 11:10 AM
Saturday July 18, 1:00 PM
Monday July 20, 3:30 PM
Monday July 27, 3:30 PM
The program can also be streamed online at http://www.cctv.org/node/77221.
LCATV and VCAM also rebroadcast Chittenden County Democrats shows at regular times. See their schedules for those times.
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