Dem candidate Balint cancels debates, GOP nominee Madden thinks he knows why
by Liam Madden
Becca Balint has recently backed out of two debates in the Rutland and Manchester areas. The first was a forum on energy policy in Rutland, hosted by local renewable energy businesses, and the other a debate in Manchester—put on by the community TV station. And for another debate, in Bellows Falls, she declined to attend altogether.
By reneging on the Rutland and Manchester debates, Balint is denying western Vermont voters a chance to see the candidates present their views side by side, for ease and quality of comparison. My speculation is that because she has been given an enormous boost of name recognition, afforded by the over $1 million in out-of-state, cryptocurrency-linked lobbyist money that substantially funded her primary campaign, to her logic, then why bother to be present for potentially uncomfortable questions?
Debates—where more grassroots candidates can connect with voters on their merits, instead of through costly ads—serve to level the electoral playing field. Now, it seems Balint wants to hide out of the public spotlight and run out the clock of the election season, knowing that every time she appears on a stage with her opponent, me, she stands to undermine the advantage her out of state funders have afforded her in public attention.
She’s right that debates, by giving the public the opportunity to hear from all candidates, will level the playing field by making the election more about ideas than money. But it’s odd for someone, who claims to care so deeply about the health of democracy, to avoid local, intimate, and good-faith debate, in favor of impersonal ad campaigns funded by out-of-state millionaires. The least you could do, Senator Balint, is return the emails of people who organized events for you, events you agreed to attend, which you abruptly backed out of when you couldn’t exclude other candidates. I thought the motto of the Balint campaign was “courage and kindness.” What’s kind about dropping all contact with constituents after agreeing to attend a forum? What’s courageous about avoiding debates?
When Senator Patrick Leahy said of me, “I wish the officials in the White House and Pentagon… had a fraction of Liam’s honesty and courage,” he may have foreshadowed the defining difference in this election, honesty and courage.
The author is a Bellows Falls resident and GOP nominee for U.S. Congress.
Categories: Commentary
No doubt Balint is a coward and afraid to debate. She doesn’t need to debate you. Just like Scott refuses to participate in any debates. They have the money and backing from the democrat party. That is why Scott receives 60 – 70% democrat votes every election.
Seems you don’t want Vermonters to know you aren’t the only opponent Balint faces.
Ericka Redic is on the Ballot and actually represents Republican Voters far more than you ever would.
You have said and continue to state you won’t caucus with the Republican Party.
You were only allowed to participate in the Republican Primary because of the failures from Chairman Dame and Rules Committee Chair Koch.
They wanted a ” Big Tent ” where anyone could say or do anything they want as long as they claimed to be a Republican.
Dame, Koch and others should have made absolutely clear from the start of the Primary you were not a Republican candidate. But in their rush for anyone who claimed to be a Republican, they created the situation where liberals and progressives could use Republican Ballots to defeat Ericka and Anya. The real Republican candidates.
There are some great Patriots running as Republican who are Pro Life and Constitutional. They believe in and support the VTGOP Platform.
Something neither you or the transrepublicans can say.
I think a person who is honest would have not taken the Republican nomination as they clearly and publicly stated that they would not.
I think a courageous person would have owned up to their mistake of not submitting the proper paperwork to be on the ballot as an independent.
Seems like maybe you’re a politician after all…. I highly doubt you’ll represent me in Congress, any more than Becca and her crypto money.
Liam, you are doing a very good job. It’s about time that a protected establishment politico spends time in the barrel; for a change! Let the light keep shining in!
Great job at what?
Liam, good points about Becca Balint and her crypto-money help (which of course came as a total surprise to her). But you have another opponent running on the thinnest of budgets thanks to the Libertarian Party’s small financial footprint. Ericka Redic is a principled, intelligent, conservative candidate and if you really want to defeat Balint you would withdraw from the race and support Ericka. But I have a feeling that’s not your style
Liam don’t worry about the angry, resentful, habitually losing neigh sayers. Some folks here are more interested in legislating the morality they themselves have abandoned.
You outsmarted many Republicans and that includes me.
Nuts to you. I’m voting for Ericka.
Give it up already ! Do what you said you would do ! This is your test or are you just another lying politician?
I’ll be voting for Ericka thanks.
Excellent article, Mr. Madden!
I endorse Ericka Redic. Liam, your young family needs you at home. It is time to drop out.
Ericka Redic has no chance of winning this election in this state at this time. Liam Madden does. Vote for your adherence to your party rather than for someone who espouses at least many of the same values, and you will be voting for Balint. Madden won the race fair and square. He HAS admitted that he naively didn’t know some of the rules. Redic is splitting the vote, after the fact, making it about herself. She is the one who should drop out.
I will NEVER vote for someone willing to take away the 2nd Amendment. So NO.
What?? You are basing this allegation on what? I’ve heard him say only the opposite.
Apparently the problem with the REPUBLICAN PARTY IN VT IS THAT THEY CANT READ!
Since that seems to be a problem for so many let me highlight the important parts “REGULATE WEAPONS” and “OVERSEEN WITH FEDERAL PROTECTION” which is wrong on any level. Before you go saying “but you can be a part of this local organization”, who determines if you’re a part of that organization or not, who determines if you’re proficient or not the Federal protection or the former military?
If I’m not the one determining my own self-defense needs then I am not free.
Taken directly from his site (GO READ IT, OBVIOUSLY YOU HAVEN’T):
“I think the best way to mediate this regulation is at the local level. Local communities should set their own standards, but those standards for their community defense must be overseen with federal protection to ensure that localities do not onerously preclude participation. For instance, anyone with an honorable discharge from the military, (and without a violent criminal record) should be considered competent, disciplined, and trusted enough to participate in a locality’s citizen defense force. Any average citizen meeting basic standards of accountability should be allowed to participate in these organizations. And these community defense groups would only regulate weapons needed for community defense (assault weapons), whereas self defense and hunting weapons should remain freely accessible to law abiding citizens.”
https://rebirthdemocracy.com/reduce-gun-violence-protect-the-2nd-amendment
You said he is willing to “take away the 2nd amendment”. This is absolutely NOT what he is saying. Go to your own page that you cited and read ALL of what he has said. Liam Madden is nuanced and creative in his thoughts about everything. That means that he sees the shades of gray in all of life, which is a fact in real life. You seem to see everything in black and white, all or nothing. On that page, he says exactly opposite what you are saying he says. Trying to figure out a way to get beyond the left/right struggle on this issue REQUIRES nuanced and creative thought, and this paragraph you have quoted shows him thinking outside the box to try to settle an ongoing problem. He deserves credit for this, not castigation.
You are the type that will give away our freedom and then complain about it.
This is not nuanced at all, it is BLACK and WHITE. No one should ever tell you how to defend yourself it’s a simple law of nature enshrined in our Bill of Rights. It’s a God given right and as such shall not be infringed. The reason it is so important is because EVERY other nation that has given up that right to a governmental entity (this would include “community defense groups”) has succumb to tyranny or mass genocide thereafter.
This is not “Thinking outside the box” it is rather giving in to tyranny and an age old play to do so.
I suppose you thought limiting someone’s magazine capacity was a good idea too?
Thank you for paying attention to what Madden actually says Brian.
Most of those supporting Madden seem to be all in on the ” Let’s take away Rights and Protections from Law abiding people in the name of whatever the ” community ” decides.
Every one of them either not understanding the United States is a Republic governed by our Constitution, or just not informed enough to care.
Ironically, those same people are self righteous enough to demand you give up everything to appease their will.
Real Vermont Republicans understand, transrepubliucans and pretenders don’t care.
Sorry, Brian. You are reading what you want into what he is saying, and reading it wrong. We’ll have to agree to disagree.
We will definitely disagree.
Balint and the “woke” try to avoid open debate. I challenged the dangerous Marina Brown, yes I mention that name yet again, to open discussions which the coward has refused, instead having me privately harassed and threatened. This is “cancel culture”. “I want my way and that’s all there is to it.”
Balint, realizing how thin is the veneer of her positions, refuses to be open and honest.
It is simply the politics of these fascists.
An honorable person would not spend years harrassing a friend who called it quits.
And yes, i asked your friends and my friends to ask you to stop with the online smear campaign. I’m asking you directly to stop this smear campaign.
… and “my way” is simply having you go your way and me mine.
I neither want nor expect anything of you.