12-NOVEMBER 2·9, 1986/VANGUARO PRESS
.. colliinued from page 1
One such combination landed at th~ NorthCreek Condominiums residence of O,:",se
Per-
raudin, an ERA supporter with a sticker onthe door saying so. A friend, Evelyn Biddie,says Perraudin was busy and so she calledmith headquarters."There was a scream on the other end of the phone when they found out," aocordln~ toBiddle, who adds that even though she
IS
notvoting for the candidate, "I only made the callto protect Peter Smith." Biddle doubts thatPerraudin's home was the only one targeted,"when there's 200 condos out there. The point is that Peter Smith' people did ~ot .know that this was going on. I beheve
In
mcedean campaigns and I think this is dirty pool."Perraudin identifies the leafleter as 34·year·old Michael Codding, a resident of the samecondo complex who is active in Republican cir-des. Codding, a member of
both
the
Essex
andChittenden County Repubhcan Committees,acknowledges distributing the anti·ERA andmith brochures simultaneously to "quite afew"
Essex
hom es.
Coddingsays he volunteeredto hand out literature for both the ERA Infer-mation Committee and the Smith campaign.Asked if the two brochures were foldedtogether as Perraudin reports, Codding admits,"They were together." But Codding says heheard of no complaints until contacted by areporter. When told Smith an?,pro ERA force;;were upset, Codding asked, then why didn t
they
call
m e?"
Some ERA supporters wish that Smith,who is on record in support of the ERA, had publicly disavowed any connection with theanti·ERA forces and denounced the dirty trick."We heard indirectly that he did not knowabout it and ,.,ould not have approved it,"says Nedene Martin of the Vermont Coalitionfor the Equal Rights Amendment. "But wewere hoping that when he heard about it a.lotof noise would be made. It makes It look hkePeter Smith is against the ERA." Martin as-sesses Smith's stance as, "When asked, hesays he supports it, but when not asked, he
doesn't bring
it
up."
The depth of Smith's support for the ERAis also criticized from other quarters. In aninterview with
Vermont Woman,
a monthlynewspaper preparing to issue a gubernatorialendorsement, Smith equivocated, accordingto
Editor
Rickey Gard Diamond, who explained,"We noted that he wasn't going to stick hisneck out."The Republican party's platform conven-tion - which cooservatives packed while manymain-line Republicans stayed home-had justvoted to remove the ERA plank that had beena GOP feature since 1981.Diamond says Smith begged off with theexplanation that "he had to work with peoplein the party. We said, 'Well, what happenedon Saturday, Peter?' He laughed, becauseoddly enough he wasn't at the Republicanconvention. He was at the NOW conference[a meeting of the National Organization for Women
held
in Vermootthe same day
1
assuringattendants that he was confident that the ERAwould pass that day. And he was wrong.'A group of Republican women, includingseveral state legislators, held a news confer-ence the following Monday to criticize the de-mise of the ERA plank. "And quite frankly,"says Diamond, "we were disappointed thatPeter wasn't willing to do the same sort of outspoken thing."
•
B y A n d y
P o tte r
stumbling along the campaign trail
During a live debate on Green MountainCablevision this week, a telephone caller askedfor Smith's
reaction
to the alleged flyer incident."I bave never heard of a confinned report,"Smith said. He suggested it was a matter of
dirty
tricks
from
"overzealous people
in
another
campaign trying to hang one on me."
Later, Smith angrily responded toa reporter'squestion about the complaints from Martinand Diamond. "They know me better thanthat. I think what's happening is that
in
bothcases they support my opponent and they'retrying to create an issue in the last week of the campaign." Smith also asserted, "You takea look and you've got more anti·ERA peoplevoting for Madeleine Kunin than you do Peter Smith. Read the polls. This is utter nonsense."Given that both Kunin and Sanders countthemselves as strong ERA supporters, Smith,whose party opted to withdraw its support,"may back off a bit," notes political scientistGarrison Nelson of the University of Vermont."He cannot do so publicly because that, in
fact,
would backfire. But he can make it knownin a subtle fashion that he would probably bethe least pro-ERA of the three."During the
Vennont Woman
interview, Smithflubbed a question about teenage pregnancy,Diamond claims. "He didn't have any clear idea how to address this problem. He gave lipservice to believing it was fairly important, but at the same time said he wasn't at
all
surethat public education was the way to go. Weasked,
if
push carne to shove, would these be programs [pregnancy and women's health.related programs
1
you would withdraw supportfrom? He said 'no' because they don't cost thatmuch. But at the same time we we.'e not con-
ineed
of his commitment to those kinds of pro-v ms either and what we need is real
leader-
grhap
"Smi
th ~kind of waltzed around" the rest of
sm n, .
d Id
"It
the interview,
Diamon
coneu es. was
pretty clear to us that he had not spent agr~atdeal of time
preparing
for the q uestions whl~were sent out to him well ahead [of time).Sanders was also invited for an mtervle~ but "ended up standing us up Wlthout apology.Sanders later responded
in
wnting,
and accord-ing to Diamond, "has a very strong record onwomen's issues." Not surprisingly, Diamond
concedes,
Vermont
W~man
gav~.lts
endo~~e.
ment this week to Kunin for her mas~~ry. of women's issues and her comnutment, whichis refreshing to see in a woman candidate for whom many times it makes political sense to back away from those issues. She did not."Kunin's trouble is traced at least
In
part to a big stumble in which she was forced to admitthat, contrary to her d~nial, a deal had beenmade to get rid of the
highly
unpoP,ul~ direc-tor of the Agriculture Department s dIVISIO~of marketing and promotion. Barbara Montihad been persuaded to resign quietly in ~e~for a $25,000 consulting contract. Kunin sgesture to set the record straight came on theheels of a front-page account of the matter inthe
Rutland Herald.
A crisis of confidencehad been created, which Smith hoped to makeinto a crisis of credibility. .Did Kunin lie about it? "You bet she did,"Smith replied to a reporter, employing thesame question-and-answer cadence that punc-tuates his campaign ads: "Does it really makea difference who's governor of Vermont?You bet it does."But Smith encountered his own credibility problem when reporters compared his cam- paign positions with his record over the pastfour years as lieutenant governor. Srmth has been pledging "no mandates without money," promising to veto any bill that carries a cost tolocal government not covered by state funding.Smith later admitted that the state can't payfor everything that emanates from Montpelier.And Smith had been unclear on his stance ona measure sponsored in the House that wouldhave required what he now urges-statereimbursement for state- mandated programs.Smith explained that the bill never made itto the Senate floor, where he presided. For that matter, the proposal never made it intohis current campaign platform.
It
was alsonoted that at one point Smith supported man-datory kindergarten and advocated, then later abandoned, a statewide
tax
on commercial property to fund additional state aid to edu-cation. A statewide property
tax
is now thecornerstone of the agenda he accuses Kuninof planning. The
Free Press
and the
Herald
both printed editorials this week taking Smithto task for the apparent discrepancies.
S
anders' campaign is in much worsetrouble, having fizzled at the startingline. The self-styled socialist mayor of Burlington had hedged for monthson whether or not he would make the race,having told reporters he would do so only
if
he could demonstrate the ability to raise atleast $180,000 and mobilize a statewide
coali-
tion of the working poor, the unemployed, theelderly, labor union members, teachers, womenand the handicapped. Sanders' plan was to