Graff Brings ‘Dateline Vermont’
To Local Bookstore
By Sandy Cooch

Chris Graff’s book, "Dateline Vermont," is an insider’s view of 27 years of "covering and uncovering the newsworthy stories that shaped a state—and influenced a nation," as the book’s subtitle puts it.

Graff’s account of following the Vermont political scene as an Associated Press reporter—and for many years, the chief of AP’s Montpelier bureau—resounded with some Central Vermont readers, who turned out in force for Graff’s recent appearance at Cover to Cover Books in Randolph.

"I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed your book, and you caught my attention right from the beginning," Randolph’s Idora Tucker told Graff.

The book opens with Graff’s personal "introduction to state government," in 1967, when his Woodstock Elementary School’s eighth-grade class took a trip to the Statehouse.

Graff, who liberally sprinkles his book with rueful confessions, wrote that he does remember a talk by then-Speaker of the House Dick Mallary, but was especially impressed by the fabulously ornate bathroom in the Statehouse basement. What he completely missed, he related, was that Vermont had, at that time, its first Democratic governor since the Civil War—Phil Hoff.

When Hoff was elected in 1962—ousting incumbent F. Ray Keyser, Jr.—a number of Democrats running for lesser office were swept into office on his coattails.

One of those Democrats was Idora Tucker’s father, Harry Cooley, who was elected secretary of state.

Cooley, in his 70s, was one of "only a handful of Democrats in Orange County," Tucker noted, and had agreed to put his name on the ballot, but never expected to get elected.

Tucker wasn’t the only person at the bookstore interested in Graff’s 1967 visit to Montpelier.

Steve Springer of Randolph Center had been Graff’s English and social studies teacher that year. Springer brought an eighth-grade class picture for Graff to see, as well as his copy of Graff’s book to sign.

For Graff, there wasn’t much of a gap between that school trip and the start of his career as a reporter and analyst of the Vermont political scene. In September of his freshman year at Middlebury College, he was recruited by the news director of the college radio station to cover the funeral of Winston Prouty, a U.S. senator from Vermont.

The student news director who assigned him the story, by the way, was Middlebury senior Jim Douglas. For his part, Douglas made a quick transition to politics, elected to the Vermont House the next year, going on to serve as state treasurer for many years, and is today, of course, Vermont’s governor.

The Major Players

Graff’s book is built around chapters on pivotal times and politicians in Vermont, with his behind-the-scene insights into the big stories of the day woven into these topics.

There are chapters summarizing the tenures of former governors Kunin, Snelling, Salmon, and Dean, plus one on Dean’s presidential candidacy. "Dateline Vermont" offers a chapter also on the civil union issue that divided the state, and one each on three Vermonters who went on to represent Vermont in Washington, D.C.—Jim Jeffords, Pat Leahy, and Bernie Sanders.

There is no one chapter devoted to Dick Mallary, now of Brookfield, but Mallary’s story, like Graff’s personal one, appears throughout the book. Mallary, a "Young Turk" Republican who went on to serve in Congress in the early 1970s, returned to elective politics in 1998, with his return to the Vermont House.

At his May 12 book signing at Cover to Cover books, Graff characterized Mallary as "sort of the John Adams of Vermont," an elder statesman willing to return to public service as, essentially, a freshman representative.

Mallary, who was promptly voted out for his vote on the civil unions law, returned briefly to public service in 2003, when newly elected Gov. Jim Douglas asked him to serve as tax commissioner.

"To follow Dick Mallary’s story," Graff said in his bookstore talk, "is to follow the story of Republicans in Vermont."

Graff’s own career as a political reporter came to an abrupt and somewhat mysterious close last March, when he was summarily fired by the AP. He devotes the last chapter of his book to the firing.

His severance agreement with AP, Graff wrote, "precludes me from speculating publicly why I was fired," but the book gives some history and context on his termination.

Over the last year, Graff told the bookstore crowd, he has made a gradual transition from being a news reporter to a news consumer.

"I went through the addict’s withdrawal period," he joked, gradually cutting back on his news diet.

Stepping back from the fray has given him a bigger perspective, and Graff admitted that he is a little "disturbed" by the emphasis on "conflict" in state political reporting.

Conflict might sell stories, but those reports also reflect, in part, a changed reality, he suggested.

"Partisanship is the biggest difference" between politics in 1971, when he first turned his eye on state government, and today, he said.

"When I started," Graff added, "it didn’t matter so much if you were Democrat or Republican."

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