Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy Cuts a Deal With The Devil, And (might) Lives to Tell About It!

Democrats out in Blog Land take note. I am about to explain to you how your party has been sold down the river by a Senior Senator from Vermont.

It all started about a year ago when VT's lone Congressman, Bernard Sanders, decided to leave his U.S. House seat and run for retiring Jim Jeffords U.S. Senate Seat. As it always does, the open U.S. House seat set off a scramble in the Vermont political establishment.

At that time, the front-runner candidate to replace Sanders in the House was a lady by the name of Martha Rainville. Now, Ms. Rainville was the first female Adjutant General of the Vermont National Guard. Actually, she was the first female Adjutant General in the entire history of the National Guard. She is attractive, articulate, young has gotten extremely high marks in Vermont for the nine-year job that she did running the Guard.

She was an awesome candidate - pro-choice, pro-civil unions, female and rock solid on national security.

The interesting thing about Ms. Rainville was that even by the end of last summer neither the Republicans or the Democrats knew if she was one of them. She had always been military and had never picked a party, ever. So, both political parties started courting her, hard.

Leading the Democratic Party courtship was Pat Leahy. Senator Pat promised Martha the fundraising moon and his public pre-primary endorsement in the hopes that she would jump into the U.S. House race as a Democrat. There was a slight problem for Senator Pat however, there was already a Democrat in the race, state senator Peter Welch, who had declared his intentions several months previous.

No matter, Senator Pat had his gal and, as the biggest pig at the political trough, he figured he would win her hand. Who gives a pig's snout about a state senator anyway? Leahy was talking with Schumer who was talking with Emanuel, who are all playing to take back the U.S. House in November.

Hey, Senator Pat told a dejected Welch, you got to break some eggs to make an omelet.

But, the courtship was not to be. Martha Rainville decided, after much consideration, to run as a Republican instead. Hey, its politics and weird things happen.

Oh fuck, thought Senator Pat. That is actually a direct quote from Senator Pat's head when he found out Martha was joining the Republicans. Oh F-U-C-K!

Now Senator Pat had a serious problem. He had he been jilted, in a semi-public way, AND the hoped for Democrat cake-walk for Vermont's U.S. House seat just got a whole lot more interesting as Martha Rainville, even as a Republican, has a really good shot at defeating Peter Welch. Hastert's aides gloated while Pelosi's aides fumed.

So, Emanuel called Schumer who called Senator Pat and said, "Fix it moron. Every take back the House plan the Democrats have requires us to keep VT's seat in the hands of the Democrats. Jesus, how hard can it be? Its your own fucking state!"

That's right, thought Senator Pat, it IS my own fucking state!

So, Senator Pat went into over-drive mode. And, this is where he screws his own party for short term gain. Because Senator Pat had another big problem other than just Martha.

At about the same time that Martha Rainville was deciding to run as a Republican a state representative named David Zuckerman, a progressive, was thinking about tossing his hat into the Housed race. Now, everyone liked David but didn't believe he had a snowballs' chance in hell of winning the election. Hell, David didn't think he had a chance. However, David didn't care. He wanted to run so he could talk about issues near and dear to his heart, farming and such, and he wanted to have fun. In other words, a typical Progressive.

David, all pundits agreed, would get 5-10% of the vote, party it up on the campaign trail, lose gracefully and then head back to the statehouse next winter.

Wrong. Senator Pat had other plans. In what was going to be such a tight race between Rainville and Welch Senator Pat couldn't have 5-10 points leaving his Democratic candidate for the Progressive Candidate. If Zuckerman stayed in it would guarantee a Rainville victory.

So, Senator Pat called up the one guy that could help him, Bernie Sanders, the undisputed Dean of the Independents, Progressives and everyone else in Vermont. Their conversation went like this:

Senator Pat: "Hello Bernard, its Senator Pat"

Sanders: "What do you want? I hate Democrats."

Senator Pat: "You're running against a really, really, really rich guy for Senate (Rich Tarrant). The race is going to be over a year long. You know that anything can happen in that time."

Bernard: "Yeah, so?"

Senator Pat: "I'll endorse you, publicly. My party will endorse you publicly. We'll all pretend that your not a socialist and have said things like 'when I saw JFK's funeral procession I cheered'. And you can sew this Senate race up right now."

Bernard: "What do I have to do?"

Senator Pat: "Keep Zuckerman out of the race. He's in your party, stop him from running."

Bernard: "Done."

So, Sanders agreed to slit Zuckerman's throat and Senator Pat agreed to slit the Democratic Party's throat.

Fast forward to the present. Sanders is running away with in his Senate race against Rich Tarrant with the full and public endorsement of Senator Pat. Sanders will win the election in November in a landslide and will go to Washington a U.S. Senator with all the rank and senatorial privilege that goes along with that (hang on tight Vermont!)

Sanders #1 priority in DC? Growing the Independent Party. Where do Independent voters come from? Why from Democrats silly. Sanders is making off like a bandit. The Democratic Party's long term outlook isn't doing so well.

And, what did Senator Pat get from screwing his party in the long term? Well, he did manage to keep the Progressive out of the race by cutting his deal with Sanders. But, I just saw the latest Welch-Rainville poll numbers with a little over two months to go before the election.

Welch 47 - Rainville 45.

Senator Pat is chewing on his fingernails. And praying.