November 22, 2011
By Anne Galloway, VTDigger

Bruce Lisman’s recent speech at the annual meeting for Associated Industries of Vermont was the prelude to the official launch of “Campaign for Vermont.” The campaign, Lisman says, is a platform of “mainstream” ideas about the economy, education and property taxes, health care and government accountability.

Lisman, retired chairman of the global equities division for JP Morgan Chase & Co., is a longtime booster of Vermont causes. His own project is designed to “support the economic security” of Vermonters through a campaign for “commonsense” ideas.

Some of those ideas include holding the alternative energy industry accountable for expenditures of taxpayer dollars; an expansion of the tax base instead of tax increases; re-examining the education finance system; and making budget expenditures – especially human services spending – more transparent.

Is Lisman running for office? “Not a chance,” he says. Good ideas are at the end of this campaign trail, Lisman says, not the election of an individual politician. His main objective is to get Vermonters to “re-examine assumptions.” Lisman plans to promote his ideas through speeches, op-eds and a new website.

On Monday, Lisman announced that he has formed a group of founders including Tom Pelham, a former deputy secretary of administration under Gov. James Douglas, Mary Alice McKenzie, former CEO of McKenzie of Vermont, Rep. Heidi Scheuermann, R-Stowe, and former House Speaker Walter Freed, a Republican from Manchester.

Though many of the aforementioned individuals have been Vermont GOP stalwarts, Lisman said Campaign for Vermont eschews party labels. “We think our ideas are pretty centrist in nature,” he said.

~Anne Galloway