Sugaring Off: Vermont Politics and History, Plain and Simple

No, you didn’t misread the headline. We have our first candidate to succeed Doug Hoffer in the auditor’s office, and it’s not Tim Ashe, it’s not Emilie Kornheiser, it’s not Linda Joy Sullivan, it’s not even H. BROOKE PAIGE. It’s a fellow from Williston by the name of Nicholas Graeter. If you’re like me (and I know I am!) your reaction to this information is probably “who?!”

Yesterday, Mr. Graeter created an account in the Secretary of State’s campaign finance portal (hat tip to friend of the blog and Windsor County politico Hudson Ranney for bringing it to my attention). We don’t know what party banner he’s running under (the candidate registration statement doesn’t include party affiliation), and he doesn’t have a website or fundraising page that I’ve been able to find.

What he does have is a golf YouTube channel. Two of them, in fact. The first, @nick_golfs, hasn’t uploaded in years. The second, @holefore, has three uploads all from within the last year, the most recent of which is a tutorial on how to add golf shot tracers to your videos (presumably of you golfing, it would be strange to add golf shot tracers to videos of you doing Irish stepdance or playing the pipe organ). I present his golf YouTube channels without comment, because I write about Vermont politics on the internet in my spare time and thus have no right to make fun of anyone else’s hobbies.

Now, golf content aside, what could Mr. Graeter’s qualifications be to serve as Auditor of Accounts for the State of Vermont? A quick look at his LinkedIn page tells us that he works as an accounting specialist at Heritage Automotive Group, a large Ford and Toyota dealership in South Burlington. I don’t know whether (as Linda Joy Sullivan would surely want to know) he’s a CPA or not, but I suppose having accounting experience might make one think one is qualified to Audit the Accounts.

However, regardless of which Graeter runs in, as a first-time candidate he’ll be in for a tough fight. Deputy Auditor and former Senate President Tim Ashe and House Ways and Means Chair Emilie Kornheiser are both widely rumored to be taking a look at Hoffer’s job, and I’d be surprised if Linda Joy Sullivan (who went from representing Bennington County in the House to serving as Mayor of Newport in the clean opposite end of the state if you haven’t been keeping up with her) turned down a second chance to be the only CPA in the field.

I’ll update this story if any of you lovely folks have heard of Mr. Graeter or have some idea of why or how he’s running. I look forward to hearing more from him as he launches his campaign. Certainly, he’s already taught me a lot about golf.

---

Sugaring Off is powered by readers like you! If you enjoy my content and can chip in a few bucks to help me keep the lights on, I’d greatly appreciate it. You can make a contribution on my Ko-Fi page here: https://ko-fi.com/sugaringoff.