Vermont going Republican

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

Interesting, another article indicating that Vermont may be alot less partisan than most people think it is...http://www.wcax.com/global/story.asp?s=12020363

Ha, even in Vermont.

[Ebowed]

He didn't have any trouble beating Kerry.

Pretty revisionist.... he had a lot of factors going in his favor and didn't even get to 51%.

[Vepres]

Actually a place can be any of those things, so long as we accept that the human element is critical in defining place. But no place is 'libertarian' for the same reason that no place is Trotskyist.

You can have moderate conservatives, moderate liberals, moderate populists, but not moderate libertarians?

[Хahar 🤔]

Actually a place can be any of those things, so long as we accept that the human element is critical in defining place. But no place is 'libertarian' for the same reason that no place is Trotskyist.

You can have moderate conservatives, moderate liberals, moderate populists, but not moderate libertarians?

No place is such. Also, populism is not an ideology.

[Hash]

Actually a place can be any of those things, so long as we accept that the human element is critical in defining place. But no place is 'libertarian' for the same reason that no place is Trotskyist.

Al, has an openly Trotskyist party/candidate ever finished in first place in a sizable area at an election?

French Trots have won and still can win cantons, but they aren't really 'sizable' areas.

[Bleeding heart conservative, HTMLdon]

I can't believe there is an entire thread where I actually agree with most of Libertas' posts.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

I don't understand the obsession with Vermont. It's 3EVs, and the Republicans have bigger states they need to worry about than winning back Vermont. I'd like to see us competitive in the Northeast again, but I think we can win New Hampshire, Maine, PA and New Jersey before worrying about Vermont.

[DS0816]

I don’t understand the obsession with Vermont. It’s 3EVs, and the Republicans have bigger states they need to worry about than winning back Vermont. I’d like to see us competitive in the Northeast again, but I think we can win New Hampshire, Maine, PA and New Jersey before worrying about Vermont.

I’ll begin by repeating this fact: The Republican Party carried Vermont from its first presidential election, in 1856, until 1988. The only exception was in 1964 when even Vt. said no to Barry Goldwater (who barely held his home state of Arizona but struck in the south by flipping Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina—the beginning of the southern realignment that sticks together for prevailing GOPs; which turned out necessary, because in presidential elections of late this current Republican Party cannot lose a single state in the south).

What has made the Republicans lose Vt. was in their party’s platform. It was fomenting, I believe, in the 1980s (Election Night 1988, the Michael Dukakis camp believed they had a chance to flip Vt. [See video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-52n_qaL6BE]; that night the Democrats delivered a stunner by beating the GOP and George Bush in Iowa, another historically reliable state for the party—which, for example, said no to 1960 John Kennedy [and, before, gave yes votes only to the first two elections of Franklin Roosevelt]—by a whopping 10 points, despite Bush winning the popular vote by just over 7; this flipping of the state of Vt. became official when Bill Clinton won it immediately, at 7 p.m. ET, on Election Night 1992. [See video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXTg5Wxym1Y].) Thing is, even in prevailing Democratic presidential elections, Vt. along with New Hampshire and Maine—the only two states Roosevelt never won were Me. and Vt. (see Election 1936)—carried for the Republican Party. Kennedy won the other three New England states—Connecticut, Rhode Island, and home state Massachusetts—in 1960. (1968 Hubert Humphrey won the same and Maine, in part because he had Sen. Edmund Muskie as his running mate—and 1964 Lyndon Johnson ran up the margins there and nearly everywhere.)

Lots of elections in the past—from the 20th century there’s 1900s William McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, and William Howard Taft; 1920s Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge (from Mass.); 1950s Dwight Eisenhower; and 1984 Ronald Reagan—saw the GOP win all six New England states (as was the case with much of the winners of the late-1800s). I noticed during Election 2008 season, even if you wanna call this coincidence, Vt. had agreed on all ten previous elections (1968–2004) with California, Illinois, and New Jersey. (Of course they all voted in 2008 for Ill.’s Barack Obama. As they did, in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, with Calif.’s Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.) Now, with the exception of 1960, Calif. and Ill. agreed on all elections since the first post-World War II election of 1948. Since that same period, Vt. and N.J. disagreed just once—in the same election of 1960. (Nixon held his home state of Calif., barely, and held Vt. Kennedy flipped and won Ill. and N.J.) So all four states were won over to the Democratic side in the same election, in 1992, when Clinton unseated then-President Bush.

That wasn’t any coincidence. And if you look at elections in the second half of 1800s, and the first quarter of the 1900s, you’ll notice these states—in addition to Vt.—have been reflective of a trend where the GOP won them; and the Democrats, when winning an election, could barely slide in the Electoral College with victory (and did so with the backing of the south and a few smaller states that, not unlike today’s GOP, also was assisted with bellwethers). With 2000 and 2004 George W. Bush, it was the opposite complexion (but similar scenario). He, too, barely slid in—being the first GOP (as I’ve written before) to win two terms while never once having carried any of the likes of Calif., Ill., Pennsylvania, Michigan, New York (especially in light of 9/11), Washington, Wisconsin, Oregon, Connecticut, Maine, Rhode Island, and Vt. Add in the these states with a string of others Clinton flipped in 1992—which have not voted for a Republican since—that are New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware. Of course once we also consider R.I. as part of the Democrats’ cluster of reliables—Massachusetts, Minnesota, District of Columbia, and Hawaii (with which R.I. has voted identically since the Aloha State’s first election in 1960)—and you see how fast it adds up, approximately 90 percent of the 270 electoral votes needed to win, and why Bush barely slid in.

The Republican Party losing just three [3] electoral votes from the state of Vermont may seem like a small thing. But for a party that had massive Electoral College victories in, for example, the 1950s, 1972 Richard Nixon, and the 1980s, when the GOP lost Vt. in 1992…they lost plenty more than just Vt.


BONUS NOTE: States you listed as GOP potential include Pennsylvania. Well, it’s very closely tied to Michigan in presidential elections. They were both a part of Teddy Roosevelt’s precious few, in 1912, when—as the Progressive—he electorally destroyed Republican incumbent William Howard Taft (who only held onto Utah and Vt.) by winning whatever 1908 Taft states that didn’t go to that election’s winner, Democrat Woodrow Wilson. With exception of 1976, Pa. and Mich.—which had the GOP nominee in the unseated Gerald Ford—have disagreed just once since the first post-WWII election of 1948. And that also ties in Connecticut: all elections since 1948, it has agreed with Mich. So in other words: you can’t retail these states as easily as some may be convinced.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

But the same arguments can be made about states like Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia and the like with the Democrats. Things change. Demographics change. Party planks change.

Would I like to see the Republicans change their opinions on social issues? Absolutely! But I understand that they would lose a huge voting bloc, and there is no guarantee that people in states like Vermont will come back to the GOP if they do. The states demographics are not the same as they were in the years the GOP dominated the landscape. It's more like Massachusetts nowadays than New Hampshire.

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

But the same arguments can be made about states like Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia and the like with the Democrats. Things change. Demographics change. Party planks change.

Would I like to see the Republicans change their opinions on social issues? Absolutely! But I understand that they would lose a huge voting bloc, and there is no guarantee that people in states like Vermont will come back to the GOP if they do. The states demographics are not the same as they were in the years the GOP dominated the landscape. It's more like Massachusetts nowadays than New Hampshire.

What positions would you like to see changed?

[rebeltarian]

take gay marriage off the table
oppose the war on drugs
stop criticizing "syentists" and "imtemlectuals"!
stop addressing small town crowds as "The Real America"
run a candidate who can pronounce n-u-c-l-e-a-r
run a candidate who has shopped at a farmer's market!

Make these changes and the GOP can win in a place like VT.

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

take gay marriage off the table
oppose the war on drugs
stop criticizing "syentists" and "imtemlectuals"!
stop addressing small town crowds as "The Real America"
run a candidate who can pronounce n-u-c-l-e-a-r
run a candidate who has shopped at a farmer's market!

Make these changes and the GOP can win in a place like VT.

Wow, that sounds just like the current crop of potential GOP contenders.

Ironically Vermont is the most rural state in America. There's nothing there but small towns.