Election to be held at state meeting in Burlington this Saturday
By Guy Page
Yesterday VDC featured audio clips of Russ Ingalls and Paul Dame, the two candidates for state chair of the Vermont Republican Party from their speaking at a GOP breakfast in Barre Saturday, November 8.
Like Dame and Ingalls, three candidates for the vice-chair position will face the judgement of voters at the annual party meeting Saturday at a Burlington hotel. Today, we offer their quotes and clips, recorded at the same breakfast.
William Kolb, Norwich University Class of 2025 and Valedictorian for the 2023 Northfield High School graduating class, is now a Master of Public Administration student at Norwich. An intern in the 2025 session for Lt. Gov. John Rodgers, he served as the chair of the Northfield Town Republican Party after it restarted in January of 2024, and has been involved with “various conservative and Republican causes since I moved to the state of Vermont in the summer of 2020,” he said in his bio on a page listing the candidates for the November 8 election by delegates to the annual meeting. At the Barre breakfast he said engages young people having a hard time getting established in Vermont, putting himself in their shoes:
“Why do I have to pay so much in taxes? Why can I not find a job? Here’s why. Those small, specific things make it personal for people. They will feel that call. We don’t have to have this grand 1000 page plan. It can be as simple as, Hey, you want to have a house, you want to have money in your bank account, you want to have a family, here’s what you have to do.” William Kolb in his own words:
Greg Thayer of Rutland has an MBA in accounting and works as a Financial Audit Reviewer and has a small Tax practice. He and his partner Tammy live in Rutland. Thayer has run for lieutenant governor and has founded several grassroots organizations promoting citizen advocacy and constitutional government.
Following a question by Paul Malone asking why he wants to be vice-chair, Thayer told the Barre breakfast crowd:
“This isn’t about Gregory Thayer or Paul Dame or [other candidates]. It’s about we, the people, all of us, working together. So I want to address Mr. Malone’s question. First, I think it’s really about engaging the younger generation. And I was engaged by the late, great senator John H Bloomer senior, back when I was like 22 years old, working at my parents market in Rutland, going to Castleton State College at the time. And he invited me to a meeting, and I went and the people you see in the paper and on TV… people from Rutland that I knew, you’re in the same room with them, and you’re talking to them about policy. And I think that’s really powerful.” Here’s the audio:
According to his bio on the list of candidates for the November 8 election, Rep. Zachary Harvey of Castleton is a 7th generation Vermonter and member of House Judiciary Committee. Before entering public service, He spent a decade in financial services, holding various roles at the New York Stock Exchange and its parent company, Intercontinental Exchange, a Fortune 500 technology and data services firm valued at $90 billion. He led strategic and operational initiatives of a global team with 2,000 colleagues across 14 countries and $2 billion in annual revenue. A graduate of Providence College, Harvey holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science with a minor in Economics and studied International Relations at University College London.
During the Q & A, Brooke Paige of the town of Washington asked Harvey, “How do you differentiate your job as vice chair from the chairman of the party?” Harvey answered:
“You really have to have two people working in lockstep as a team. And I think that is one area for improvement in whatever organization that you have is that you want to make sure that people are singing from the same sheet of music, and that they are working together alongside each other.
“I view the role of the chairman is to be the strategic Strategy Officer for the Vermont Republican Party. This person is the one who’s going out building those relationships with donors, working on it, really being an ambassador for our brand across the state.
The role of Vice Chair I view as someone who’s going to be supporting all those initiatives and helping with the day to day operations of the party, obviously in an unpaid capacity. So I do think that there is this tandem.” Here’s the clip from Saturday, November 1:
This week, VDC will provide information about other Republican posts up for election at the November 8 meeting.