Talk Elections

Does anybody here know why Vermont has become so liberal?

It's more the way the parties have shifted than anything.  Vermont mixes progressive populist (think the DFL in Minnesota) with "latte liberals" (as much as I hate that term) with winning elections.

Maybe they got sick of being demonized by the national Republican party.  Jeffords and Dean may have helped, too.

I thought it was all the yuppies moving there.

TV Broadcasts from Canada, perhaps.

Their secessionist behavior?

vermont has been demonized by the republican party?

Social issues.

Yeah, I think you're right opebo.  Same reason AR and WV have become so conservative

All of the above.  (Especially those damn Canadian TV broadcasts..grrrrr)

Vermont has had a 'perfect storm' that would push it from being the most Republican state in the Union to a reasonably Democratic bastion in Presidential elections.

The Yuppies moving there from manhattan have made the Burlington area especially Democratic.  There has been somewhat of a partisan shift, though the far eastern counties do still trend Republican as they always have done.  I think a non-southern candidate for the GOP would make the state more competitive again.

They do have a whacko socialist member of Congress.... but so did Louisiana in the 30's.  (Huey long)

Demonizing Dean as being a latte-drinking, New York Times-reading, Volvo-driving, democratic freak show and saying that it belongs in Vermont probably hasn't helped things.  Of course, that was a Club for Growth Ad, not a GOP ad, but most people don't know the difference.

Actually, I think Vermont is the only state where Bush lost ground from 2000 to 2004.  Maybe Dean had something to do with it.

Native Vermonters, for all I know, may still be voting for Republicans (as they still do, to some extent, in the Northeast Kingdom).  But with all the foreigners colonizing the area [just as they do here in the Berkshires, 3 miles south of the border], it's little surprise that the state swung Democrat--and that the liberalism has rubbed off on the local population.  Plus the locals were never really Conservatives of the modern stamp, anyhow.

New England is generally weird politically as it is.

Just to prove my point.

Howard Dean, the shining example (to most) of Vermont Liberalism.

From "Real Vermonters Don't Milk Goats," (c) 1983, a little gem of a book I had lying on my shelf.

One section of the book classifies people by how close they are to being Real Vermonters.


(Dean, of course, was born in New York, grew up in the Hamptons, went to prep school, went to Yale, and only arrived in Vermont in '78 to do his residency at UVT).


On Jim Jeffords:

"Congressman Jeffords can't decide if he's a Republican or a Democrat, wants to be a Senator or a Governor, or where to sleep at night--in his office or in a house like real Vermonters do."


How Prescient.

I think he actually did sell that pickup.  I seem to recall a small news story about Dean being an enviromental hypocrite because he owned an SUV.  Or maybe it was Kerry?  It probably belonged to his wife. ;-)

I disagree with the idea that the Norhternmost part of New England has trended Democrat only because of migration, since other Northeastern states are just as liberal as before (MA, RI, NY). At the same time NJ and CT have also trended to the Democrats.

NY has become even more Dem & liberal than it use to be.  The NYC suburbs usually kept the state at least within reach for the GOP, but has trended to the left starting in the early 90
s.  Casing point Nassau Co (where I live) went Republican in every Pres election from 1916-1988 except for 64 when LBJ won every NY Conty, it has gone Dem each of the last 4 Pres elections.  Westchester has gone through a very similar shift, as has Suffolk County.  It may not have that much to do with migration, but just the overall idealofgical shift of the region as well as a growing shift between the two parties on social issues

I do recall seeing a poll that Massachuestts immigrants were actually more likely to be Republicans than the Vermont state average, and that local Vermonters voted heavily Democratic, somewhere around 60%.

It was in one of the 2004 state polls for Vermont.  I'd look for it, but I'm on a 56K.

Republicans almost always blame trends like this on "migration," don't they?

If it's a suburb, its those icky city Democrats moving in. If it's a rural area, it's those damn yuppies!

The truth is Vermont isn't stupid, because only stupid people (or very wealthy but evil people) are the ones who vote for the Repulsive Party.

I'm just kidding about that last sentence...sort of :)

Say that to 51% of America!

Wow.  "Repulsive Party."  That's good.  The also very original.  That's almost as clever as 'dumbocrats' or 'democraps.' :-/

Thank You

::)

To most things in this thread...

On Free Republic it's the democRATS, but usually just "the rats." But you probably already knew that. :)

I don't frequent Free Republic, so not particularly.  I've heard that one before, all the same.

Vermonters are small-town, folksy people. They are not "latte liberals" and they did not "migrate" from Massachusetts.

People like Patrick Leahy, Bernie Sanders, and Howard Dean helped turn Vermont into a Democratic/left haven. Vermonters want politicians that care about the average person's needs, and they find that in the Democratic party.

Self-admitted socialist Bernie Sanders = Democrat?

did you mean New Hampshire?

no, wait, I think you may be right.  I was thinking of state that flipped against Bush that was previously for him.

My view is that Vermont Republicans have always been "Theodore Roosevelt Republicans", or "Dewey Republicans" or "Rockefeller Republicans."

In that sense, even Republicans in Vermont have been somewhat liberal.

He also lost ground in South Dakota, just as an aside.

And North Carolina!

Oh, really?  Never knew that.

Also lost ground in Montana, if you count Buchanan's votes in 2000 as going to Bush.

And New Jersey. And Delaware.

It's not that Vermont has become liberal. It's that Vermont has become a place for the Democratic party.

Vermont swung from 72% for Eisenhower and 59% for Nixon to 66% for Johnson, which is probably one of the bigger swings of any state in that time period.

Vermont Republicans are part of the dying breed of Moderates.