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Sunderland elected chairman of GOP, promises to “change the way we do business”

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Jeb Wallace-Brodeur / Staff Photo  Former Rutland Town representative David Sunderland gives a speech before being elected chair of the Vermont Republican Party during their convention in Montpelier Nov. 9.

Jeb Wallace-Brodeur / Staff Photo
Former Rutland Town representative David Sunderland gives a speech before being elected chair of the Vermont Republican Party during their convention in Montpelier Nov. 9.

Escalating discord within the Vermont Republican Party came to a head Saturday in Montpelier, where the organization’s state committee rebuked current leadership by selecting a new chairman who promises “to rebuild.”

Former Rutland Town Rep. David Sunderland won a decisive victory over John MacGovern on a platform that hews to the fiscal issues – taxes, health care and spending – on which he said all Republicans can agree.

The race between Sunderland and MacGovern was in many ways a proxy war between two factions that have been battling for nearly a year now. And it represents a win for a bloc of disaffected Republicans who faulted outgoing chairman Jack Lindley for his allegiance to a Republican National Committee whose social conservatism, they said, repelled the centrists that swing elections Vermont.

“At this critical, pivotal moment in our party’s history, we have a unique opportunity to change,” Sunderland told the nearly 200 GOP diehards crowded into the Elks Club in Montpelier. “We can change the way we do business, shedding the past legacies of top-down management and opting instead for teamwork, openness and transparency.”

Candidates for positions on the party’s governing board offered kind words to Lindley, who nearly died last month after falling suddenly ill. But their remarks about the state of the party amounted to a stinging indictment of his tenure.

Lindley for health reasons did not seek another term, and threw his weight behind MacGovern, who fell by a five-to-three margin to Sunderland.

“The policies of the past have failed. The losses in 2012 were devastating,” Sunderland said. “This is our chance to change for a better tomorrow.”

The five-person board elected Saturday, however, doesn’t represent a total departure form the past. Incumbent party treasurer Mark Snelling retained his seat, despite his very public war of words with Lt. Gov. Phil Scott and Sunderland in recent weeks.

Snelling had accused the men of seeking to commandeer the party apparatus and use it for the benefit of Scott’s personal political fortunes.

Sunderland, in turn, issued an especially ardent plea to the 78 voting members of the GOP state committee Saturday to dispatch Snelling, and elect Deb Bucknam, who most recently served as interim chairman when Lindley was incapacitated.

Sunderland laid at Snelling’s feet blame for a feeble fund-raising effort by the party that has landed it in a $27,000 hole as of Oct. 31.

But Snelling prevailed, by a two-vote margin.

Both men said they’ll be work together, despite their differences.


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