VT GOP on life support: Vermont G.O.P. Finds Candidates in Short Supply

The Vermont Republican Party website makes a plain-spoken appeal: “CANDIDATES WANTED.”

Right up until Thursday, the filing deadline for the primaries in this deeply progressive state, the state Republican Party lacked a declared candidate that it could support in any statewide primary, with the exception of the lieutenant governor, an incumbent and candidates for Vermont’s at-large congressional seat.

Just before the deadline, Scott Milne, a travel agency president, announced he would run for governor. But according to the party, no Republicans have entered the races for attorney general, auditor, secretary of state and treasurer.

It was a paltry showing even by the standards of New England’s other Democratic strongholds. In Massachusetts, Republican candidates have entered each statewide race, and in Rhode Island, two candidates have been campaigning in the Republican primary for the governor’s race.

The state party in Vermont, though, alienated from the national brand, troubled by some infighting and stunted by low recruitment, is in a funk.

“The Republican Party, at this point in Vermont history, is pretty much on fumes,” said Garrison Nelson, a professor of political science at the University of Vermont. “It’s the least relevant it has been in the close to 50 years I’ve been in the state.”

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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/13/us/vermont-gop-finds-candidates-in-short-supply.html?_r=0