Gubernatorial candidates met on Sunday at Lyndon Institute for a Caledonia County democratic party event.  During the brunch, food wasn't the only item on the menu.

Three out of the five candidates for governor were there to discuss their bid for the position.  Senators Doug Racine, Susan Bartlett, and former State Senator Matt Dunne were in attendance.  Each candidate expressed their position on many issues, and tried to convince attendees why they should be the party's choice in the fall.

Senator Doug Racine said, "We need to work on the quality of our workforce which means good education from P-K (Pre-K) through K-12 education to higher education.  And then good workforce training those are the essentials those are the basics that any good economy needs and we've been lacking in all of those areas we need to be making progress in each one of them."

Senator Racine also expressed his concern about Vermont's economic future, "So job number 1 for the next governor will be one that I'm going to embrace is creating jobs in this state and working in partnership with our business whether it's in manufacturing or agriculture or tourism or anything really working in partnership with them to make sure we have better jobs in Vermont.  We've got a lot of potential here that's what makes me excited about being a candidate that makes me excited about running for governor."

Matt Dunne expressed his thoughts, "The campaign is going great, we have an amazing group of volunteers that are coming out from all over the state.  Be involved in a campaign that's really about the future of the state of Vermont, Vermont has an extraordinary past of innovation and environmental protection and coming together to solve problems that face us and we're facing some really serious problems right now."

And Senator Susan Bartlett said, "We're smart intuitive think out of the box kinds of folks and I've come up with a whole plan for how we capitalize on that strength and how we create jobs so that not only young Vermonters want to stay here but Vermonters that have left have the ability to come back."

The other two candidates, Deb Markowitz and Peter Shumlin did not attend the event.  Vermont democrats will decide the party's choice on August 24th as the primary has been moved up 3 weeks from its original date.