Political resurrection is routine in Vermont. Peter Shumlin, Ed Flanagan and others stand as examples of politicians who have embarked on “part twos” to their electoral careers after removing themselves – or seemingly being removed – from the political scene. That’s why we should all expect to see Deb Markowitz back whenever she feels up to it, as well as Susan Bartlett. Matt Dunne is a bit more complicated. Despite his two statewide losses, his political career has never exactly “died” necessitating a “resurrection” – he just goes semi-underground for a while. Coupled with his youth, we shouldn’t be surprised to see him re-emerge as well.

A double resurrection? That’s a rarer thing. Doug Racine rose to statewide prominence through the Senate and the Lieutenant Governor’s office before falling from grace with a loss to Jim Douglas for the top spot. Soon thereafter, though, he resurrected himself with a solid show of electoral prowess in his home county and returned to the Senate.

But the conventional wisdom all around has been that this is it – that this gubernatorial election was an all-or-nothing gamble against his political career, and a loss would send him into permanent retirement. You don’t get a third bite at the apple, the thinking went – and I agreed with this thinking.

Now, I’m not so sure.

First of all, Racine overperformed against the conventional wisdom. The media and insider crowd had nearly unanimously written this primary off as Markowitz’s to lose, with possible competition from Shumlin. They were wrong, largely due to an underestimation of the forces brought to bear by organized labor and the VLCV, but also because they generally get stuck on timebound narratives without firm polling data to ground themselves in. Sure, when the media picks up a narrative, they recite it enough until it becomes reality, but that takes time. There’s no doubt that Racine’s lack of competitiveness in the fundraising department cost him at least 200 votes – and with another month of headshaking from the pundits, that number could have multiplied by ten or more – but it hadn’t yet. The media down-talking had impacted the perception of reality, but didn’t have enough time to work its magic on reality itself. As a result, Racine ends up in a virtual tie for first, giving his supporters something to crow about after the bad press.

But second of all is the dynamics of the recount. Despite all the demonstrable, quantifiable ways that the recount is problematic for presumed-candidate Shumlin’s prospects, the fact is that the unity dynamic surrounding the recount is playing out very well among the base. It’s an unprecedented level of kumbayaing that we simply wouldn’t be seeing without a crisis mentality.

And it’s popular because it plays to our fantasies of what we want politics to be, and that’s powerful stuff among the left and the center. Those fantasies and desires were tapped by the Obama administration, sweeping him into the Oval Office. Markowitz tried to tap into some of that vibe in her own campaign, but while no one of the candidates in the primary was capable of doing so, we may now be seeing that all five together can, if for no other reason than that so many people so badly want them to.

And Doug Racine stands at the center of that dynamic. The sole character in the drama who brought us along into the recount universe is likely the one who will personally benefit the most from it. And at this point, to maintain that benefit, he needs to see it through. Although a cease to the recount would, again, be in all ways a tangible benefit to the party, stopping it now could be seen as a disrespecting of the volunteers who are giving their time for the cause – a cuase many see as Democratic Party unity, rather than the simple democratic process.

So Racine will walk away in second place, but with a resevoir of good feeling across Democratic Vermont. If Shumlin loses to Brian Dubie, many will question whether the impact of the recount was to blame – but most rank and file Dems will not see it that way.

Sure, Racine will have to be smart and creative in tapping that resevoir (that he, for the moment, seems to own a large share of) for a political resurrection – he can’t just follow the same path a third time. But the point is, he does have a path to resurrect himself a second time, something I doubt even he would’ve thought possible under the circumstances only weeks ago.