BRATTLEBORO — Recently my friend, the apostate Bob Oeser, has encouraged people to vote for Republican Vince Illuzzi for state auditor [Letters, this issue]. I argue the wise vote is for Democrat/Progressive Doug Hoffer.
While Illuzzi's positions on some issues are better than those of some Republicans, there are serious faults in some of those positions, too.
Illuzzi has endorsed Mitt Romney in public appearances with John Sununu and Steve Forbes, who have recently declared President Obama un-American, “a disgrace,” and a “radical socialist.”
Illuzzi has voted in the Vermont Senate against health-care reform and single-payer insurance. He has a 33-percent rating from Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG) and a 50-percent rating from Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility.
Forward-thinking voters should vote for Doug Hoffer, who has been active in Vermont economic and policy analysis since he began working with Bernie Sanders in the 1980s. He is well respected in the Legislature and by anyone who has heard him speak for his thorough and clear analysis of economic issues.
Hoffer is very much a numbers guy. I particularly like him for quickly and concisely disabusing people of the misinformation spewed by the bloviating gasbags of the Ethan Allen Institute.
Hoffer has been endorsed by Sanders, Gov. Shumlin, the Vermont AFL-CIO, the Sierra Club, Vermont Planned Parenthood, many legislators, progressive business leaders, and others.
The money that the right-wing super PAC, Vermonters First, has been spending to pump Illuzzi and to attack Hoffer is a measure of how much they dread his election.