BILL “SPACEMAN” LEE ON FRANKLIN COUNTY
By Latimer Hoke
Vermonters will have three choices to lead the Green Mountain state when they hit the polls next week: the Libertarian candidate, Bill “Spaceman” Lee; the Democratic candidate, Sue Minter; and the Republican Candidate, Phil Scott.
Plenty has been publicized about the three, and how they plan to improve Vermont, but we wanted to know how they’d help locals in and around Franklin County. Specifically, we asked what each Candidate’s election would do to help Franklin County.
The Courier reached out to these candidates, both by email and phone, with mixed results.
Bill “Spaceman” Lee
Bill Lee did not respond to an initial email, but did answer the phone and had some time to talk, though he has told ESPN in an interview that he “hates the phone.” He stated his main reason for running his campaign was to “try to poke fun at Sue Minter and Phil Scott.” He describes himself as an “Old Time Radical from the 60s.” When asked specifically about Franklin County, Lee mentioned two things in particular: music and baseball.
Lee remembers that the Grateful Dead played two shows in Highgate at the Franklin County State Airport. One was in July of 1994, and the other was in June of 1995. Jerry Garcia died less than a month after he played his last Vermont show with the Dead.
As for economics, though it would be slightly out of the control of a Governor, Lee also remembers what effect the Montreal Expos had on VT, specifically Franklin County. Because Interstate 89 takes people North to Montreal, and because “Franklin County is the gateway to Montreal,” Lee says that Red Sox fans would flock through the Highgate border crossing when the Boston-based team was playing in Montreal. In his estimation, this was great for the towns along I-89, thus it has been detrimental to the local economy since the Expos relocated to Washinton D.C. and re-branded themselves as the Nationals.
Lee also recognizes the uniqueness of Vermont. He reminds us that Vermont had 14 years as an independent republic prior to “being annexed” into statehood by the United States in 1791. Lee advocates for “taking back Vermont,” and to him that means that Vermont would do better on its own, independent from the USA.
Lee does not have a campaign website, but an interesting fact about Lee is that he was a pitcher for both the Boston Red Sox and the Montreal Expos in the 1970s-80s. One thing he shared on the phone was his knowledge of Red Sox legend Larry Gardner’s childhood home being in Enosburg Falls.
Some other quick research revealed that Lee was the 1988 Presidential candidate for the Rhinoceros Party.
