Doug Hoffer Responds to Being a 'Wedge' Issue in Governor's Race

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In a humorous online campaign ad, Democrat candidate for auditor Doug Hoffer takes a swing at Republican Brian Dubie for making him a "wedge" issue in the race for governor.

"When a golfer is in the tall grass he needs a wedge to get out of trouble," says Hoffer as the ad opens with a golfer swinging wildly at a ball in the tall grass. "Some politicians try to use a wedge when things aren't going well. Hi, I'm Doug Hoffer. I'm running for state auditor and I'm an avid golfer. Over the last few days Brian Dubie has tried to make me a wedge issue in the campaign for governor."

The policy analyst, a newcomer to politics, noted that Dubie had invoked his name twice in recent debates. Dubie has been trying to get Democrat Peter Shumlin to either agree, or disagree, with some of Hoffer's statements criticizing Dubie's fuzzy tax math.

Dubie mentioned Hoffer's name, and Hoffer's claims, in the first two debates — on WVMT-AM and Vermont Public Radio. Dubie misquoted Hoffer's comments from this Times Argus article.

Hoffer ends the 30-second ad with this line: "But you don't need a wedge if you just stick to the facts and play the fair way." Or, maybe he meant fairway.

Clever ad. It never mentions incumbent Republican Tom Salmon, who recently had a bit of online fun himself, posting a video of him singing "Rain on the Scarecrow" at the Tunbridge Fair.

Here's the campaign video:

Comments

[Morgan W. Brown]

In case you were not already aware if it Shay, since you might be so use to linking to Times Argus or Rutland Herald content and readers having access to it, most if not all of the content of the online editions of both newspapers appear to now be locked behind a paywall as of 3:00 PM today and links to articles like the embedded one above now land at a tollboth of sorts, unless one already has a paid subscription. One can land on the main pages, however -- save for the breaking news and today's buzz segments -- most anything else I have clicked seems to land at the same paywall page.

[Morgan W. Brown]

i.e., tollbooth (aka paywall)

[Morgan W. Brown]

P.S.

Just did some additional surfing of the TA Website (not the new e-Edition) and, at least for the time being, one is able to click onto the various tabs and still gain access to the section and subsection pages; however, clicking onto article links on most pages bring up the paywall. One of the exceptions I have come across thus far is the opinion section, where I was able to access the content found on that page, at least the two items I clicked upon anyway.

[Jimmy]

"criticizing Dubie's fuzzy tax math."

The first quote in the video isn't something that anyone actually said, and he "refutes" it by citing a study using 2005 data. Since Dubie didn't specify which stats he was referring to, it's odd to characterize "his math" as "fuzzy."

Unless, of course, you're simply shilling for all of the D and P/D candidates. Then it makes perfect sense.