Mortimer Proctor News Today

Mortimer Proctor’s ambition helped end the handshake agreement within the Republican party to alternate candidates from the East and West sides of the Green Mountains

The rift has been evident for decades. Former Republican governor Jim Douglas traces the split all the way back to the fight between the conservative Proctor wing of the party and the moderate Gibson-Aiken faction, in the days when Vermont Democrats were so scarce that GOP politics were just about the only politics around. In the 1946 primary, moderate Ernest W. Gibson Jr. beat incumbent Republican governor Mortimer Proctor in a hard-fought race — then went on to beat the Democrat with 8...