(It’s like an “enthusiasm gap,” only bigger.)

The good folks at Gannett’s Washington bureau (assuming they still qualify for the plural) have gifted us with a little analysis of Vermont’s political contributions to Presidential candidates, drawn from Federal Election Commission reports, and published in the Freeploid on Friday. And the numbers are quite striking.

Vermonters are giving heavily, and the overwhelming share of the money is going to President Obama.

According to the FEC, Vermonters gave $1.6 million in itemized contributions – those amounting to at least $200 – to the Obama campaign. That accounted for 86.1 percent of the $1.9 million that state residents gave to all presidential candidates.

I know this is a notoriously liberal state, but even so, that’s incredibly one-sided.

It’s even more so than in 2008. At the same point in the 2008 campaign, total donations to Obama from Vermont were almost $300,000 less than this year. And Mitt Romney is doing substantially worse in Vermont than John McCain did four years ago. (Romney $153K, McCain $179K.) Given four years of inflation, that’s not good news for Vermont Republicans; they certainly aren’t doing much to enhance their stature on the national stage. Which won’t help them attract the big out-of-state donors they’d need to be financially competitive in state races.

After the jump: our Pundit Laureate weighs in.

  To interpret the numbers, Gannett’s Washington correspondent called on — guess who — Vermont’s Pundit Laureate Eric Davis. He said that a lot of liberal money in Vermont is going to Obama because Vermont “lacks competitive elections this year” while “I think (state residents) see it’s a close presidential race and they know (Obama) needs help from Vermont.”

Funny thing about that: Peter Shumlin’s raising truckloads of cash, which pokes a hole in the Pundit Laureate’s theory. Also, if he was quoted accurately, it’s too bad he overlooked the races for Auditor and Treasurer, which appear to be very competitive. (We really don’t know, because there hasn’t been any recent polling.)  

Y’know, for this entire campaign cycle, conventional wisdom has told us that Republicans would be far more motivated and enthusiastic than Democrats, and that Obama would have trouble getting his base to give money and show up at the polls. In Vermont, at least, he’s got absolutely nothing to worry about. And remember, all these numbers were tabulated before Mitt’s infamous “47%” video came out. That’s when the bottom fell out from under Willard’s campaign.