The Vermont approach: one of a kind
Don't believe everything you've heard about the state. Yes, it's quirky, it has plenty of cows - but there's much more
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"Cede Vermont to Canada. It's time," wrote Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam in June. "Eastern Canada needs some decent ski resorts, and Vermonters are tired of all the hassles of getting to Cuba for spring vacation." Rep. Sanders, wrote Mr. Beam, could then "work in a country where people take looney-tune lefties seriously."
More pointedly, Sanders's Republican opponent, Greg Parke, last month called Sanders part of a "progressive caucus" he said was indirectly responsible for Sept. 11.
Vermonters tend to wave off such glib characterizations and pointed charges.
"Vermont, despite its reputation for being a 'people's republic,' really has much more of a libertarian psychology," says Báthory-Kitsz. "It's really more, 'I'm happy to contribute to the social growth ... of government, if that growth does not relieve me of my own responsibility, or my own choices,' " he says. "That's part of what's not understood by outsiders."
"I think of the state as a little paradise," says Samantha Schoech, a San Franciscan who spent much of her childhood with her father at a Buddhist center near St. Johnsbury. "There's a stereotype about rural people being closed-minded, and in my [Vermont] experience, that was not the case at all.... It has tolerance - and not really racial diversity, but cultural diversity."
That openness to diversity appears to be independent of partisanship. The GOP held sway here for about 100 years, until the early 1960s, points out Sherman. He notes that in the early 20th century, when Vermont began to add elements of an industrial economy onto one that had been purely agrarian, state leaders worked fast to find ways to assimilate ethnic immigrants and ensure their fair treatment.
"In big cities it's possible to shunt people aside and they can get lost," he says. "In smaller towns, it's harder."
More recent migrations have posed different challenges. Plenty of urbanites with a bucolic bent want to try a winter spent splitting wood or bouncing along an unpaved road - maybe try launching a small business that could become the next Ben & Jerry's.
More than half the state's population was born elsewhere, according to the 2000 US Census.
"We've had a migration of wealthy people," says Sherman. "They're bringing liberal, middle-class values with them, and demands for more sophisticated services."
New arrivals find many Vermonts. The state loves consensus, but it is by no means devoid of hard-line stands.
"It's easy to lose sight of the more conservative Vermont and the angry Vermonters," says Sherman. "You find signs that say 'Take back Vermont,' dating back two elections already [to the first civil-union bills in 2000].
"I think we're sort of caught sometimes in contradictions between a kind of traditional, rural society, and a very progressive, up-to-date, kind of leading-edge society. It creates tension. It creates some bitter political fights," he says. "But they have to get resolved, and they have to get resolved quickly. It's very hard to bear grudges and get anything done."
Báthory-Kitsz agrees. "When something comes up that's problematic ... you and your neighbors get together to figure out what to do," he says. "You can't be an arrogant loner if your car's in the ditch."
