In southern Vermont, mourning gives way to planning for the fight ahead

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday December 18, 2016 · 5:13 PM PST

2016/12/18 · 17:13

It’s been more than four years since I’ve posted here. And, like many who have been writing here since November 8, the election result we got was not the one I figured would happen.

However, here in my corner of Vermont — the state that gave Donald Trump his lowest percentage of the vote of any state in the nation — there has been a lot of mobilizing going on.

The day after the election, the first ones to get together and plan for life under Trump was the LGBTQ community. They quickly built up a database of things that needed to be done before Jan. 20, 2017, and shared it with the community.

Not long after that, there was another informational/organizing meeting, this time for people with disabilities worried that a president-elect who mocked them would make life difficult for them.

Hunger advocates met with members of our citizen-legislature to figure out ways to keep the food shelves open.

Civil rights advocates met with many of those same lawmakers to hear what sort of actions the Legislature will take to blunt the worst of a Trump administration.

Several communities have signed on to be “sanctuary towns” since the election, and the incoming state attorney general has made it clear that Vermont will not aid the Trump administration in any deportation sweeps.

And two young college students are busy forming a chapter of the NAACP in southern Vermont, a state that never had a NAACP chapter until one was formed in the Burlington area last year.

These actions, and more, are taking place all over Vermont. My newspaper, The Commons, has been documenting it for the past few weeks.

The mourning period has given way to determined efforts to stand up to Trump on every front.

But that’s what this state does. We still believe in small-scale democracy, in the idea of commonwealth and the public good, and coming together in times of crisis instead of turning on one another.

Yes, I was as angry as Kos at the Americans who voted for Trump and want nothing to do with them. They voted for the destruction of our nation, and they will ultimately regret making that choice.

However, from here in Vermont, I want to offer some hope that this state is on the case and people of goodwill are coming together not just to fight to preserve what we already have in place, but to keep moving forward toward a better future.

Operation Hilarity? Vermont has experience in that area

RTHolhut

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday February 15, 2012 · 6:56 PM PST

2012/02/15 · 18:56

It seems that the Kos community wants Vermont to participate in a monkey-wrenching of the Vermont Republican Primary.

Since Vermont has open primaries, we can vote in any party's contest without having to declare a official affiliation. But I do think it will be tough to get Vermont Democrats and Progressives to cast a vote Rick Santorum under any circumstances.

But causing mischief in a primary has been done in Vermont. One of the great primaries in recent years was the 1998 GOP Senate primary between Jack McMullen, a millionaire from Massachusetts, and Fred Tuttle, a dairy farmer from Tunbridge.

McMullen was a recent transplant to Vermont and thought he could buy himself the GOP nomination. Tuttle's claim to fame was that he appeared in a 1996 film by John O'Brien called "Man with a Plan," about a retired dairy farmer who decides to run for Congress so he can pay his bills.

O'Brien had the brilliant idea of having Tuttle run for Senate to promote the video release of "Man with a Plan." He figured that it would be great publicity. He didn't figure that Tuttle would actually win.

McMullen wasn't that well liked, even by Republicans. Tuttle, on the other hand, was a beloved figure.

The turning point in the campaign was a debate on Vermont Public Radio. Tuttle asked a series of questions to gauge how much McMullen really knew about Vermont. After being unable to correctly pronounce the names of several Vermont towns, Tuttle went for the kill with this question: "How many teats a Holstein got?"

McMullen answered "Six," instead of the correct "Four." In blowing that question, he confirmed his status as a flatlander -- the epithet Vermont natives use to describe people from Massachusetts, Connecticut or New York.

On primary day, Democrats and Progressives voted in droves in the GOP primary to support Fred.

Tuttle, who spent about $200 on his campaign, beat the Massachusetts millionaire, winning 55 percent of the vote.

And the story gets better. Tuttle's opponent in the general election was incumbent Democrat Patrick Leahy. Saying that he didn't want to win because it meant he would have to move to Washington, Tuttle endorsed Leahy and made several campaign appearance with Sen. Leahy.

Despite endorsing Leahy, Tuttle still picked up 48,051 votes (22 percent of the vote) in the general election.

Tuttle died in 2003 at the age of 84, but the memory of that election still warms the hearts of Vermonters.

Greetings from Southern Vermont

RTHolhut

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday December 29, 2011 · 6:07 AM PST

2011/12/29 · 06:07

After years of reading Kos and staying in the background, the $100 lifetime subscription and the gentle prodding of the Kos community convinced me to stop lurking and start posting.

I've been in print, broadcast and online journalism around New England for more than 30 years. For the past two decades, I've been in southern Vermont -- Brattleboro to be precise.

Vermont is a great place to be a journalist. Public officials are accessible and (usually) return phone calls promptly.

We have a citizen legislature, and the ALEC folks have made little headway here. The Tea Partiers are small in number, and even smaller in influence.

Democrats are in control of both houses with solid majorities, and our Democratic governor, Peter Shumlin, is smart and capable.

We have a state government that works, and an economy that is diversified. Small businesses and entrepreneurs are flourishing here, and social responsibility is seen as an asset, not a liability, for companies.

Molly Ivins once called Texas "the laboratory for bad government." I like to think that Vermont is the laboratory for good government, and I hope to use this space to let others know that there is still a place where life is lived at a human scale and the public good still matters.

Vermont has led the way in the past, and this state has some good ideas for the future. I'll be sharing them in future posts.

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