Your May 12 “Dunne outlines formula for economic recovery” disappointed me because it gave no indication that the interviewer (presumably the article’s author, John Flowers, but perhaps the editorial board or others, as well) asked follow-up questions, such as are essential in getting beyond any candidate’s mere boilerplate responses.
For examples: The issues identifying whom the losers would be from candidate Dunne’s various proposals didn’t come up, and the article even closed with a statement from the candidate that cried out for crucial follow-up questions, but the interviewer(s) (or at least Mr. Flowers) just ended the article with Matt Dunne’s puzzling statement itself:
“‘The harm of jumping to school consolidation (such as Dunne advocates? — the article doesn’t even make this clear) is that you lose the sense of connection to the community and all of the engagement that comes along with that,’ Dunne said. ‘And you’ll have scenarios where kindergartners will have to commute an hour to get to school.’”
Is that travel one hour one-way? Wow! Seems so, but the article fails to make it clear. Is this what Dunne is proposing? If it is, then does he think that losing ‘the sense of connection to the community’ would be OK? What’s important to know about this candidate is simply ignored in this article.
The article also said that Dunne promised “to revisit” single-payer health care, but there was no follow-up question as to why he thinks Shumlin abandoned it and how Dunne might propose to overcome the problem(s) that Shumlin wasn’t able to. There was no real sense at all in this article.
Such a poorly written article leaves a voter wondering: Is Matt Dunne actually the type of mere technocrat that this article presents him as being? Or is the only problem the deficiencies of the article’s author, and/or of Dunne’s interviewer(s)? At least those deficiencies were clear, even if nothing about the type of Gov. Dunne would likely be was.
Eric Zuesse
Whiting
Editor’s note: Given the limitations of time and space inherent in putting out a newspaper, it is not always possible to cover every angle of a candidate’s positions on issues; this is particularly true of a candidate for Vermont’s highest constitutional office. With this candidate interview we hoped to re-introduce readers to Matt Dunne, and we intend to do more stories and editorials on him and the other candidates as the campaign continues. We are glad that this article sparked the reader to ask questions himself.