Gubernatorial campaigns duel over data about economy

A minor controversy is brewing after the re-election campaign of Gov. Jim Douglas (R-Middlebury) Tuesday accused the campaign of his Democratic challenger, House Speaker Gaye Symington, of skewing economic figures in an attempt to exaggerate Vermont's economic struggles.

The disagreement has played out in a series of statements released by the campaigns.

On Monday morning, Douglas released a statement that said Symington (D-Jericho) had acted as a "road block" in the legislature to Vermont's economic progress as well as environmental initiatives. 

The Symington campaign responded later saying that Douglas was "blame shifting" and that "Vermonters know it's the Governor who should be held accountable for the worst rate of job growth in New England, the highest unemployment rate in 14 years and his other economic failures."

A few hours later, the Symington campaign issued a second statement qualifying and clarifying their previous response. 

The Symington camp said that Vermont's economy grew just 0.1 percent, which was the slowest rate of growth aside from Rhode Island which actually lost jobs and had a growth rate of negative 1.0 percent, according to numbers from a recently released Federal Reserve Bank of Boston report examining the economic health of New England. 

The House Speaker's campaign elaborated on their use of the numbers saying: "Vermont's job growth number was 0.1 percent while New England's was 0.7 percent.  Of the New England state's (sic) that showed any net gain in jobs (which was all states except one) Vermont had the slowest rate of growth at 0.1 percent.  Rhode Island actually lost jobs (they were at - 1.0 percent).  The question is, do you include a state that lost jobs in a comparison about job growth?"

They added that "If you look at it one way, you can say VT had the slowest rate of growth in New England.  Looking at it another way, VT had the 2nd worst performance on job creation because Rhode Island lost jobs overall.  Either way, a 0.1 percent rate of job growth is a very bad performance, and it is having a big impact on Vermonters."

The Douglas campaign refuted the information using a baseball analogy comparing the big league standings with the economic rankings of New England states.  "Under Gaye Symington's fuzzy math, teams with more losses than wins would not rank in the standings of which team has the best winning record," said the Douglas camp in an official statement.  In other words, the Speaker's campaign only considered New England states with positive economic growth in their analysis, not Rhode Island because it had negative economic growth.  

Douglas' campaign manager Dennise Casey referred to the Speaker's campaign's logic as "absurd" and said "her facts are wrong." 

The governor's re-election campaign also pointed to June 2008 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics which show that Vermont's relative job growth among New England states has improved.

Michael Carrese, communications director for the Symington campaign, in a statement today said "It's astounding that they (the Douglas campaign) want to quibble over just how bad the Douglas record is on job creation."  

Carrese added that in 2007, Vermont had lost private sector jobs, saw exports decline, saw an increase in home foreclosures, and cited a 4.7 percent unemployment rate, which besides a 4.9 percent unemployment rate in May 2008, is the state's highest rate of unemployment since early 2003.  

Click to see:

• The Douglas campaign's original statement
• The Symington campaign's response to Douglas
• The Symington campaign's clarification and qualification of their response
• The Douglas campaign's rebuttal of the Symington camp's economic analysis
• The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston report on New England states
• June 2008 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics
• Vermont's Department of Labor unemployment statistics