by Ted Cohen

The political party that took hold in Vermont’s largest city when socialist Bernie Sanders won a mayor’s race there 45 years ago has proven nothing is more dangerous than a leftist armed with maple syrup.

The centrist Democrat Party in Burlington, Vermont is accusing the Bernie Wing of the Democrat-Socialist Party in that alleged bucolic college town of spreading lies about its city council candidate.

But that’s where things get sticky.

The Democrats claim that the Burlington socialists accused their council candidate’s father of spreading maple syrup on the ground at a downtown parking garage used for a daily free-food giveaway for the poor.

Seems that Democrat Ryan Nick’s father, who allegedly believed that the food pantry was attracting a homeless criminal element, spread syrup to try to keep people from getting their daily nutritional fix.

At least that’s what Nick’s opponent, council incumbent Marek Broderick, reportedly claimed while campaigning to keep his council seat.

“Negative campaigning in municipal races is rare but not unprecedented, especially in Burlington, where close-knit party lines can blur council elections,” political analyst Kolby LaMarche wrote in the Burlington Daily News. “Take the race mentioned herein, for example, where two left-leaning candidates are seemingly duking it out to be more progressive than the other.”

The race got so nasty it made a complete joke out of a council resolution both parties signed last fall that signatories actually thought would take the mud out of competitive politics.

Or at least the maple syrup.

In the end, socialist Broderick held on to his seat, handily beating Democrat Nick, proving that Vermont’s most well-known export – its Grade A maple syrup – is not only great on pancakes but good for winning elections too.

Besides being blamed for using maple syrup to disrupt a food giveaway, Nick was also blasted by a University of Vermont group known as students for Justice In Palestine for allegedly being funded by corporate real-estate tycoons.

The pro-Palestinian students questioned Nick’s public image, alleging that despite portraying his campaign as progressive, anti-ICE, and pro-tenant – including featuring a quote from New York Mayor and Bowdoin College grad Zohran Mamdani on his website – Nick had received substantial funding from corporate interests, LaMarche wrote.

The Mamdani acolytes also accused Nick’s father, a real estate developer, of renting space in one of his buildings to immigration-enforcement authorities, also known as ICE.

“What was an atypically quiet election season in Vermont’s largest city ultimately intensified in the waning days,” wrote Aaron Calvin of the newspaper Seven Days. “In Ward 8, which encompasses the University of Vermont campus and nearby student housing, activists and mutual aid group Food Not Bombs amplified claims that Nick’s father had used maple syrup to harass homeless people downtown. A video obtained by the group shows a man, his face not visible, dump syrup on a spot where Food Not Bombs distributed free food.”