Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dennis Steele (2nd nomination)

Dennis Steele

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Procedural nomination on behalf of TR05401 (talk · contribs), who requested technical help. I have not independently verified any of the claims made here or any of the sources present on the article and submit this AfD in accordance with WP:AGF. I am neutral. —KuyaBriBri^Talk 19:55, 29 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

While Steele did have a campaign of sorts, it was comprised primarily of stunts, such as his arrest, or standing at the roadside awaiting a Vice Presidential motorcade and giving the VP the finger. Whether Biden deserved it or not isn't so much the issue, as was whether Steele was a serious and/or viable candidate. Coverage was minimal, usually a part of a larger story not concerning him, and, as an example, what he got had more to do with his fringe perspective; this Burlington Free Press article mentions his phosphorous pollution abatement plan for the nearly 600 miles of Lake Champlain shoreline - an "industrial hemp barrier" for which he never during the debate or on his website afterward offer any facts or point to any studies in support of his proposal. He was routinely excluded from debates for not meeting minimal criteria for admission and so used those occasions to garner free media by standing at the entrance and complaining until the event started, and then he'd leave. He did not schedule events for voters to meet him since there was no visible support for his candidacy in the state, other than from a very small group (20-30) of likeminded secessionists. The event at which he was arrested was a Democratic primary candidate event for which, naturally, he was ineligible for inclusion since he was running as an independent and was not, as Ketcham's Times's January 31, 2010 article inaccurately reported, running as the "Second Vermont Republic's gubernatorial candidate" (SVR is not a registered political party in Vermont). Further, Ketcham wrote a self-published piece at the HuffPo on August 31, 2010 that was subsequently self-republished again at CounterPunch.org that I've removed from Steele's article since Ketcham revealed in another of his self-published pieces on March 15, 2011, that he'd written the August 2010 piece "as a favor to my friends in the Vermont secessionist movement" and that the piece was intended as "good advertising."

Since the election Steele's absented himself from any of the statewide policy discussions that in a small state like ours most can participate in with little problem. During the March town meeting this year that occurs statewide he made no effort to politically participate, either in his community or in the state at large.

He has never held or run for any other public office here that I can find in the Vermont Secretary of State's website.

There's considerably more but since I didn't see this much detail in the original deletion discussion so I don't want to overdo.--TR05401 (talk) 19:28, 29 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]