A Man with a Plan: The Legend of Fred Tuttle

Vermont has many legends, from Ethan Allen’s capture of Fort Ticonderoga to “Champ,” a seamonster supposedly living in Lake Champlain. But the legend of Fred Tuttle is perhaps the hardest to believe; yet it’s entirely true.

The story begins about ten years ago with John O’Brian, a local director who makes quirky films about Vermont such as “Vermont is for Lovers.” O'Brian made the popular film “Man with a Plan” using neighbors from in his hometown of Tunbridge as actors. The story was about Fred Tuttle, an 80 year old Vermont farmer with a 10^th grade education who was having a hard time paying his property tax. Fred discovered that Senators make a lot of money, and so he decided to run for Senate against the incumbent--a college educated lawyer—to get a job that would pay him enough to cover his expenses.

The actor who played Fred Tuttle really was an 80 year old Vermont farmer with a 10^th grade education, and really was named Fred Tuttle. Using his real name made it easier for actors to remember their lines.

Fred knew little about politics, and had no money for his campaign, so he was forced to do a grassroots campaign. One memorable speech at a county fair began with “I am a man with a plan. I am not a perfect man, and this is not a perfect plan….” By the end of the speech his only audience is a dog watching him.

Fred figured that knowing politics meant memorizing information about the 50 states, so when he was asked for his position on taxes at a debate he replied “My position is Don’t Mess with Texas.”

Naturally, the incumbent didn’t take him seriously, thinking that nobody would vote for a man with a 10^th grade education. But he did corner the incumbent by asking about his government-paid vacation to the Caribbean. When the incumbent claimed that it was a research trip, Fred replied “You expect me to believe that B*** S***.” Not surprisingly, Fred wins the election at the end based on his down-home personality and ends up in Washington.

The movie made a good run in Vermont and covered its costs. Afterwards, the movie retired to video and the cast went back to their ordinary lives.

Jump forward now about six or seven years. A Massachusetts millionaire named Jack McMullen retired from business and in looking for something to fill his time decided that it would be fun to be a senator. He realized that he had no chance running against Kennedy in Massachusetts, and so asked himself where he could buy an election. Vermont immediately came to his mind, as it has only a half a million citizens--many of which are not highly educated--and so should be easy to gather votes with a professional campaign. McMullen rented an apartment in Vermont to establish residency, though he never moved in, and declared himself a candidate for the Republican nomination for Senate.

The Vermont Republicans embraced McMullen, despite a longstanding tradition in Vermont of treating anybody not born in the state as an outsider. This bothered a lot of core Republicans, including Fred Tuttle. In fact, Fred was so bothered that he decided to run again McMullen, and O’Brien agreed to run his campaign for him.

The first order of business was collecting the 500 signatures needed to get on the primary ballet, which were collected by friends on the street, and I remember signing the petition myself. Then, in one of the greatest campaign blunders in electoral history, McMullen’s campaign challenged the signatures; something that had never before been done in Vermont.

The Secretary of State checked the names and found that 29 could not be verified. Scratching his head about what to do, the Secretary of State gave Fred an extra week to gather 29 more signatures. A week later Fred showed up at the Statehouse with 2900 signatures, accompanied by camera crews from every news station in Vermont.

McMullen’s challenge not only demonstrated his lack of respect for Vermont’s traditions, but Fred did not have the money to get his name out to the public. McMullen’s challenge provided Fred with just the publicity that Fred could not afford himself.

McMullen then went on to make a second major blunder by claiming that Fred could not be taken seriously given his background. He forgot that a large percentage of the Vermont electorate lacks higher education and works on farms, and so he came off as an outsider insinuating that a real Vermonter is a backwoods hick.

At their debate Fred asked McMullen to properly pronounce the names of ten Vermont towns from a list, and of course McMullen had some trouble with them. He also asked him questions such as "How many teats a Holstein got? (it’s four).

Does all this sound familiar? Life imitates art in an uncanny way. With McMullen continuing to shoot himself in the foot, Fred won by a landslide, and McMullen back slinked home to his Massachusetts estate.

Now that Fred was the Republican nominee for Senate, he had to run against Patrick Leahy, a real Vermonter and long-standing senator who is popular with both Republicans and Democrats. Fred ran against Leahy, but couldn’t come up with a reason to vote against Leahy. Even Fred’s own sister said that she was voting for Leahey because Fred is not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. Fred himself would eventually admit that he was voting for Leahey.

They had the most polite debate in political history, where they ate Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and couldn’t find a topic to disagree on. Fred stated in the debate that Leahy was the finest senator that the state has ever had, and Leahy reminded people that Fred represented the heart of Vermont. Leahy won, but afterwards had Fred down to Washington for a tour of the Capital and a visit to his office.

Sadly, Fred died in 2003 after picking potatoes at his farm and was buried in overalls.

Only in Vermont.

Please add any comments or thoughts you have below.

Weekly Question:

For those new to this Director’s Corner, I finish each piece with a question about Vermont, Norwich University, or something totally unrelated to anything in particular. In the past, the first person to correctly answer the question gets recognized in the following Director’s Corner.

But to avoid handicapping those who are not first to see the Director’s Corner late, after this week we will pick a winner at random from all correct entries.

Last week’s question was:

What major religion was started by a native Vermonter, and who was that Vermonter?

Matt Bambrick was the first to answer that Joseph Smith, Jr. founded the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) and was born and raised in Sharon, Vermont. By the way, the second leader of the church, Brigham Young, was also born in Vermont before moving out west to found a university.

For his winning entry, Matt receives a signed copy of the book “Risk Management for Dummies,” published by Lehman Brothers Press.

Next week’s question is:

What major event happens at Joe’s Pond each spring?

One winner picked at random from all correct entries will receive a copy of my latest book “The Overlooked Importance of the Wet Bar for Emergency Operations Centers.”

Please send all submissions to me at jorlando@norwich.edu