1. After co-opting his former Democratic Party rival for the 2010 governors race by appointing him Secretary of Human Services, Governor Shumlin axed Mr. Racine ambush-style, and completely out of the blue - despite his solid record on improving the troubled agency's efficiency. In the process, he serves up Racine as a scapegoat for the troubled health care rollout (which Racine didn't even have authority over), and the ongoing public anger over high-profile failures at theDepartment of Children and Families - which Racine has not been given the resources to fully staff. (See here, here and here).
2. Frustrations with Mr. Racine have been running deep, wide, and in broad circulation for years now - virtually since the outset of his appointment. Virtually everyone in and around the agency and in the political world knew he would either be fired or resign anytime, likely right after the Governor's re-election. He was the very definition of an embattled AHS head, who had little support in keeping the position. (See here).
It goes without saying that competing and contradictory narratives surround all institutional dramas. But outside of the playground, only the magical world of politics can produce such unrelentingly irreconcilable storylines for the same event, and a week after the fact, I can't think of a state-level instance that demonstrates that more clearly than this one.
The real story is somewhere in between endings #1 and #2, no doubt, but that "in-between" covers a surreal amount of real estate. Perceptions of the circumstances of the firing are all over the map - and isn't it an axiom in politics (and how could this not slide into the political) that perception is reality?
All of which makes the reality of this story strangely DIY. But humans are storytellers who like to be on the "right" page of the "right" story, so it won't stay muddy forever. One of these narratives is is going to win out over the other, although it will be muted quite a bit, with some acknowledgement that the other version had some merit.
But which one? Which storyline ends up being the retroactive conventional wisdom? Who gets to write the history books inside the Montpelier bubble?
Racine himself won't. Despite his eyebrow-raising breaking of insider protocols by lamenting his firing to the media, he's not the drumbeat type and tends to keep counsel with his confidants in a reserved manner. After providing a heaping amount of grist for the mill with the aforementioned media comments, the final story will be written by others.
As far as others go, it is true that many, many in Montpelier have expressed frustration with Racine for some time. The water-cooler crowd will tend to fertilize the #2 story.
But in the greater liberal-political world, Mr. Racine is still appreciated, if not beloved - and many are at wits end with Mr. Shumlin for a variety of reasons. Interestingly, many of those reasons overlap with criticisms from his opponents on the right (gripes about managerial competence and integrity). Which also opens up a teeny window for possible electoral exploitation from the Governor's opposition in November, and there may be the tiniest hint of that in the comments of Republican Senator Kevin Mullin in the vtdigger piece, and echoed deep down in some of the reader comments as well. If so, it won't amount to anything vote-wise, but could have the effect of allowing the Racine-as-martyr narrative to take hold.
And just to be clear: if you think that giving it a year to provide historical perspective will make the facts less muddy, don't hold your breath, as names, faces, relationships and reputations cycle in and out with abandon in Montpelier. Consider, for example, former House Majority Leader and that-close-to-being-Lieutenant-Gubernatorial-candidate Floyd Nease. Nease left House leadership years back, was brought on as executive director of the Vermont Association for Mental Health, and reportedly drew the outrage of Governor Shumlin after pulling off the largest demonstration anyone can remember against (yup) AHS cuts, putting the Governor in an uncomfortable position right from the get-go. But now? Only five months ago, Nease was brought on board to keep the Governor's health care plan afloat.
While this demonstrates that Mr. Shumlin's long memory does not translate into a tendency to hold political grudges (our Governor is nothing if not pragmatic on the matter of political alliances), what it really shows is that - in state government - whoever goes around, comes around. So Mr. Racine is likely to reemerge somewhere, sometime, locking arms with somebody in state government again eventually (if he wants to), regardless of what version of the story is true, takes hold, and of who may or may not be displeased with him at any given moment (and regardless of how many times he's pulled that trick off already).
And the political axiom that "perception is reality" will be vividly proven true once again (as will the song title "People are Strange").
-John Odum
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