Over and over I keep seeing entries that refer to Vermont as a little State and that Dean's experience is somehow diminished because he came from "a small State". Why are you people so obsessed by a piece of Real Estate?
Do you honestly think that anyone coming from this State hasn't gone through a process of selection from a much larger population and therefore can't be as good? Do you think that a smaller State has less Federal mandates or less issues than a Larger State? Or maybe you think we are just all know each other so we are like minded in a "small State"?
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I will say that from a diversity standpoint we don't have as many typical minorities as other States but that is one of the few differences.
We have a system of Town government which has town meetings every year where people go out and vote on their town issues. This gives people a chance for real Democracy and less reason to be complacent about their Government. This makes the population a bit more involved a bit more powerful and less likely to be a herd of sheep. Maybe that's why Vermonter's believe they can make a difference. This may well be the "nursery" for our future polls. This is probably the mindset Dean has when he says, "You have the Power", he learned it first hand.
Vermont was a leader in the antislavery movement, not too far from where I live is one of the stops on the Underground Railroad. It has a constitution which forbids many of the issues that had to be won in other States by mandate, hence the first Civil Union laws in the Country. This tradition goes way back to the begining, BTW we were the 14th State.
The Constitution gives citizens of Vermont the right to hunt and fish on their own property and that which is not posted. Lots of guns in this state.
Our crime rate is low despite the per capita gun ownership. And we have a lot of forested land because the hunters, and anglers want to conserve that characteristic of the State so the NRA here joined with the environmentalists to protect that land.
We have an amazing Congressional Delegation, Patrick Leahy, Jim Jeffords, and Bernie Sanders, all from this "Small State" and also Howard Dean all of them men of some stature. These men selected from a population base of under 600,000 people.
And the Bluest of the Blue states has primarily a rural population, our biggest city is under 50,000. You know, country folks, not the urban elites the myth is trying to sell.
You are more likely to see an old pickup or SUV with a Deer on the fender and a Sanders bumpersticker on it in hunting season than you would see a Volvo. Check out DFA meetup at meetup.com and look for the biggest chapters, the Burlington group, Northern Vermont DFA is the 6th largest meetup in the country, that's a lot of involvement from a smaller population.
Stop the Big State mentality, we may be a small state from a square mile standpoint but we've got some big ideas.