Even as nouvea-richedom crested in the 80s and 90s, that house, lawn and driveway could have belonged to only two types of people in VT: the tiny conservative native entrepreneurial minority or the somewhat larger liberal ex-flatlander entrepreneurial minority. The former would never vote for, and the latter never against, Leahy.

So while it’s cute, it sends a totally wrong message to the rather larger struggling middle: “Well somebody sure better pay that deficit, and it ain’t gonna be me; if she can afford a house like that I don’t know what she’s complaining about.”

I wish he had gone this way. Same setup, but the Money Patrol pulls up to a rented house off River Street in Rutland. Inside, we see a man’s work clothes on pegs at the front door, marble dust on the boots, Rutland Herald employment pages open on the table; in a seen-better-days chair, an attractive but worn mid-20′s woman nurses her baby while highlighting lines in an Elder Care textbook on her lap. She hears the SUV, puts down the book, glances out at the invoice and appears at the door with child in left arm football grip, still nursing, and a 12-ga. dangling from her right: “Can I help you boys?”