One thing is certain: Windham County legislator Peter Shumlin, president pro tem of the Vermont Senate and one of five Democrats running for governor in November, believes in Vermont exceptionalism.
The crises that confront the nation every day, that litany of challenges rolled out in and on the news - jobs, health care, education inequities, agriculture subsidies, political and finance shenanigans, deregulation - may be shadowed in Vermont life, but Vermont is uniquely poised to face them, he believes.
“We are known for our independence, our frugality, commitment to social justice, and for caring for our neighbors,” Shumlin says of Vermonters, and he thinks each one of those characteristics puts the state in a unique position to face today's challenges and, in a way, to show the rest of the country how it can be done.
A Windham County native, Shumlin, 53, has served in government for most of his adult life. He and his wife Deb have two daughters. Olivia is in college; Rebecca, in high school.
Shumlin is one of five Democratic candidates running to succeed Republican Governor Jim Douglas, who will step down from public office.
After graduating from Wesleyan University in 1979, he began his political career a few years later as a Putney selectman in the 1980s, serving seven years and, among other things, helping to start Landmark College. Then, for all but four years, 2002 to 2006, he has served in both houses of the legislature, the last nine in the senate.
The four-year hiatus came after he narrowly lost a three-way race for lieutenant governor to Republican Brian Dubie; he then went to work for Putney Student Travel, his family's business. The Democratic candidate will almost certainly face off against Dubie, who is running for the office on his party's ticket.
Back in his State House office, juggling visits from the attorney general about the recent Vermont Yankee controversies, as well as from other equally compelling interruptions, Shumlin settles in to sing the praises of the state and its populace - including himself.
It's not just leaking tritium that concerns Shumlin.
“We are leaking jobs,” he says. “There are now more Vermonters out of work than in 30 years."
Vermont's unemployment rate is about 6.6 percent and marginally declining, according to state Department of Labor data from late 2009, which Shumlin calls good and bad news: “The larger factor contributing to our improving unemployment rate is a decline in our labor force,” according to Labor Commissioner Patricia Moulton Powden.
“I want to be the toughest-ever governor,” declares Shumlin, who believes long service in Montpelier and other work experience warrants that statement.
Shumlin mentions his experience with Putney Travel, a family business that “now is exclusive provider for high school National Geographic Expeditions,” he said.
He said his part in helping to create Putney Student Travel and running it with his brother, Jeff, has given him insight into such things as meeting a weekly payroll.
Getting things done, he says, is endemic to his view of government, and he is glad to have been involved in important decisions.
“I'm proud that the Vermont's legislature was the first in the country to pass marriage equality, and then afterwards to override the governor's veto of the bill,” he said. While Massachusetts was the first state to legalize gender-neutral marriage, it did so by court fiat, not legislative process, as Vermont did last year.
He's a staunch supporter of Act 60, the Equal Educational Opportunity Act.
He also cites his work on Dr. Dynasaur, the program that guarantees health coverage to every child in the state, and particularly his work creating jobs relating to renewable energy systems.
“We passed the toughest climate change laws in history,” he said, adding that, “we made sure we provided efficiency standards for all Vermonters.
As a senator, he played a pivotal role in organizing the opposition to renewing Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee's license, set to expire in 2012, for another 20 years. In March, the senate voted 26-4 to reject a bill that would have authorized the relicensing of the plant for another 20 years.
Shumlin foresees a “huge economic boom as we move off oil to renewable sources. This has to happen.”
And even though that's a well-known talking point nationally, Shumlin sees local plans taking shape. “The potential boom coincides with our values,” he adds.
Shumlin says a governor's job is to look forward. When he does, he sees smart entrepreneurs in Vermont - in electronics, in agriculture, in energy use - but an environment that doesn't fully support them.
To launch a successful, significant enterprise, “you need three things,” he says.
“One is risk capital, the money, public and private, [that] someone is willing to risk to help you get started. Then you need angel money - venture capital from banks.
“Two is Internet access. We can have high-speed access and cell phone service all over the state by 2012.
“And three is retraining Vermont's work force."
Shumlin adds a fourth property to the list.
“You need a governor who knows how to run a business, who promotes Vermont,” he says. “Dubie and Douglas complained all the time about what a terrible place Vermont was to do business.”
Shumlin believes in helping to spur entrepreneurial ventures in Vermont and has met with University of Vermont President Dan Fogel to encourage him to offer a degree in climate change. Shumlin also is encouraged by the vision of businesses statewide.
He cites people like Bob Johnson, president of Omega Optical in Brattleboro, and his team who are designing a solar car. Across the state in Williston at AllEarth Renewables, CEO David Blittersdorf is developing new wind and solar technologies and solar tracking systems.
Another of the candidate's broad visions relates to Vermont's place in the food production chain.
But Shumlin concedes that what he has to say about agricultural Vermont and all of New England becoming the breadbasket of the northeast “makes me sound like I'm some kind of nut.”
“What's bad news for the mid-Atlantic is good news for Vermont,” he said, touting Union of Concerned Scientists projections of migrating climates that will bring a lot more moisture to New England while causing droughts in the mid-Atlantic.
“The region where things are now grown will run out of water,” he says. “And if we can trap water in the New England states, we can become the food belt for a wide northeastern region.”
Because of the region's topography, Shumlin says, the conditions are right for building holding ponds for trapping water for agricultural use. “Opportunities are there for a bright agricultural future,” he says.
Shumlin sees huge opportunities in the technology/environmental boom - every bit as life-altering, he believes, as the industrial revolution.
He cites the growing business in the state of so-called green, or energy-neutral, modular homes, the rapid rise of sustainable farming, and the move toward eating food produced locally.
Shumlin says he loves the legislature and will run again when his term is up in January 2011 if he does not prevail in the governor's race, even though he believes “the senate needs new blood.”
The issues facing Vermont are challenging but on a scale that can happen.
“You can make changes here,” he said, emphasizing that the kinds of changes needed, especially those relating to the economy and the environment, “coincide with our values.”
One such value is democracy, he said.
“Democracy is being destroyed by the access that money buys,” he says. “My last campaign for senate cost $337. I was the only senate president in the country who spent less than $500 on his campaign.”
Shumlin said he thought he would spend about $1 million on his campaign, a typical amount for a Vermont governor's race that the candidate described as “way down on the scale."
“My campaign is going well, and I feel pretty confident,” he concluded.