It really goes back to the early days.  Political culture is hard to change.  Vermont, under the Allen brothers, really created itself democratically. Government in Vermont has always been “us” not “them”.

  New Hampshire was a crown colony — the least self-governing form of a British colony.  The power was held by the governor (remember Benning Wentworth!).  In post colonial New Hampshire, the political culture remained as hating government and what government they did have was authoritarian.

New Hampshire may well change because the southern part of the state has effectively become a Boston suburb.

The Vermont Democratic Party has an online system for early voting that folks should take advantage of. First, you can now request an early ballot online through the VDP – http://www.vtdemocrats.org/earlyvote. You also can look yourself up, to see what town you are registered to vote in and who/where your clerk is and where your polling location is – http://www.wheredoivotevt.com. Finally, there’s a toll-free hotline for people to take care of their early-voting needs: 877-277-9015. I’ll try to post reminders about this over the next couple weeks.

The Vermont Guardian is beginning to publish the answers to a 10-question candidate questionaire as they come in. Topics include the Iraq War, foreign policy, immigration, education, health care, agriculture and more. Click here to check out the site (another one we’ll be returning to over the coming weeks, no doubt).

Washington County Senate Candidate Donny Osman is back on YouTube. I hope this pays off for him, as it’d sure be a great thing if this sort of thing becomes a regular element of Vermont campaigns. He takes advantage of the medium by actually getting into some issues (and in a straightforward, unscripted way). Click on the image below to view. Go Donny!

In RT’s campaign literature, he singles out mico-loans in Sri Lanka as an example of waste.  What a jerk!  The founder of the micro loan bank, Mohammad Yunus, and his Grameen bank just won the Nobel Peace Prize.  Yet, the Mr. megabucks from South Burlington thinks of it all as waste.

Mr. Tarrant is the waste.  Maybe, after he is soundly defeated, he’ll do wonders for the environment by leaving the state.