While citizenjerry cites cities, the reality is much more complex. The post-WWII invasion of Flatlanders* actually produced a wave of antipathy against their association with the coincident, blitz-paced transformation of the economy from agriculture to tourism. If anything, the increasing leftward tilt grew, not from an inability to stand against strident ideology, but as the first shock passed and it became evident that the Jews on the hill or the hippies in the hollow sometimes made sense at Town Meeting. The strident voices, by the late 60s, were the isolated radio hosts and weekly shoppers’ guide editors who had “told us so” that you wouldn’t be able to find a buck on Opening Day without having to stomp around a nudist colony or that the drug dealers would get the combination to your bomb shelter from your kids and it would be you, not they, who would face the concealed double 12-gauge moments after the preternatural glow flashed over the horizon like an Orodruin in the south.

This all happened at the end of a multi-generational abandonment of orthodox Congregationalism. While the doctrines of grace had been of such momentous impact as to leave a scriptural imprint even on a society which, largely, no longer believed them after 1850, by 1950 the Scriptures had been abandoned as well and all that was left was an ethical skeleton. This may have been sturdy enough to carry most of the Greatest Generation through the Depression and into Europe and Africa and the Pacific, but it was so void of content by the 60s that nearly any doctrine could be substituted for the original–and many were. I cannot recall a single man of my father’s generation teaching me of sin, judgment and salvation–but many were quite eager to put away the now-exposed shames of racism (Mom remembered seeing burning crosses from the 20s KKK resurgence in an encampment in a river bottom across from her house in South Royalton) and militarism, and they would give a hearing to any who offered hope in a new direction. Phil Hoff? Bright young kid, let’s see what he can do in this new world! Goldwater? City slicker. Warmonger. Gonna blow the whole place up. McGovern? I’m sick of this stupid Republican war. Kids keep talking about peace–maybe it’s time to listen. Reagan? Smiles too much; gotta be a liar. Gonna set the Russkies off one of these days. Sanders? Socialist? What a hoot that would be! Can’t be worse than anything we’ve seen yet. It was a great year for zucchini, and we got the permits for the wood lot, what could go wrong?

* for y’all Southenas like GC, that was anyone hailing from south of the VT-MA line, predominantly Bwaston, NYawk, LawnGuyLand and Joisy (Jersey being affectionately applied solely to relatives of the Misses Guernsey and Holstein)

The voices of those who didn’t are what stuck with me, however.

Actually, I’m encouraged by little anecdotal indicators that the pendulum may be swinging back to the right. Probably too slow and too late for Mr. MacGovern’s sake, but I’m thrilled to hear he’s in the fight.

And ever since seeing your title today I’ve been racking my brains for any dirt I could dig up from the week in 1980 that ol’ Bernie and I were nighttime housemates at my Aunt’s office in Burlington–I needed her IBM Selectric to type a research paper–but I only spoke to him once about who would park in the garage vs. the driveway; I don’t recall anything untoward, nary even a nefarious gleam in his eye, although he was probably planning for City Hall at that point.

The “classic VT joke” frequently turns on shrewd self-deprecation being underestimated as idiocy by the outsider, to the ultimate harm of the latter. In a case where a beloved son candidate like Leahy could only have been beaten by a resurrected Ethan Allen, the venture at least got plenty of air time and discussion. In 2008 I could not hear a very different Fred’s name mentioned without a fond mind’s eye view of “SPREAD FRED” lettered on the back of a … Natural Crop Enhancement Distribution System.