Republican Gov. Jim Douglas told reporters at his Statehouse press conference Thursday that he is not surprised by the gubernatorial candidacy of Anthony Pollina, the distinguished Progressive. Tony the Prog has come out of the candidate closet with a gubernatorial campaign ad in this week's Seven Days. He's looking for money and he's looking for paid campaign staff.

Asked about Pollina's candidacy at his weekly presser, Gov. Scissorhands said he's always assumed Pollina was running.

"He’s indicated he plans to [run] publicly," said Douglas,  "and is raising money, I understand."

Mr. Pollina continues on the WDEV radio airwaves with his one-hour afternoon talk show that airs four days each week. Asked if he thought it was kosher for Tony the Prog to continue with the talk show while running for governor, the current Guv said he was "not a federal official so I don’t know the FCC rules, but I guess I’m not too concerned about his listening audience and what impact it might have on the outcome of the election."

Q. Would you welcome him into the race?

DOUGLAS:  Well, I certainly expect a credible  well-funded opponent. I don’t know who it might be at this point. He’s certainly indicated an interest in running and there may be others. I’m really not worried about that. I’m focused on the immediate future. I’ve got a couple major presentations to the Legislature as you know.  This is a time when we’re putting together a budget in the most challenging time that I can remember.

ALSO:

Yours truly was late to Doug Racine's 11th-hour attempt to keep his name in play as a gubernatorial possibility.  The Ds have been getting desperate to come up with a gubernatorial horse.  Ol' Dougie called a bunch of my press colleagues refuting what appeared in a little item in Wednesday's "Inside Track" about the Chittenden County state senator [who lost to Douglas in 2002] being "not interested" in running in 2008. "Trust me," I wrote.

Funny. Racine did not call me.

Mention of the "Pollina for Governor" campaign print ad, and my comment about Racine not being interested in running [his name had been floated as a kind of last-chance Democrat possibility in the mainstream press the first week of December] made it into a story in Thursday's distinguished Brattleboro Reformer.

I'm flattered.

Here.

It also has been a hot topic over in the Green Mountain Daily Blog which Freyne Land links to column-right [a hot topic that I missed yesterday, sorry, Odum]

However, I stand by what I wrote. State Sen. Racine the distinguished auto/truck dealer is correct when he tells The Reformer I didn't call him about it. That's because we spoke face-to-face at the Statehouse.

Racine is not running for governor in 2008.

Hey, I like the guy!