MONTPELIER, Vt. — Just last week, this was an obscure little state with cows, cold weather and a paltry three electoral votes. Now Vermont is the apex of this country's political universe.
"Imagine that," mused David Frattalone, a jeweler in this cozy capital. "Our little Vermont."
Frattalone, like many across the state, is closely following speculation that one of Vermont's U.S. senators, James M. Jeffords, would defect today from the Republican Party, ending GOP control of the Senate and shifting the balance of power in Congress.
While Washington insiders anguished over the implications for committee chairmanships and President Bush's conservative agenda, many people here celebrated a home-grown lawmaker who could admit that he and his party no longer walked in step.
Jeffords' expected decision to abandon a party that fails to reflect his views on the environment, abortion rights, gay rights and the best way to cut taxes was entirely in keeping, they said, with the rugged tradition of autonomy that has characterized Vermont since it became the first state to join the original 13 Colonies in 1791.
"We have taken independent roads before," said Linda Leehman, manager of Bear Pond Books. "Jeffords knows he is safe being his own person."
The importance of the senator's actions escaped no one.
"It's the biggest political story since the Supreme Court decided in December to settle the contested election, and this little state is the star," said Eric Davis, a political science professor at Middlebury College.
The state that voted most recently for Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore also handed 7% of its vote to independent Ralph Nader; only Hawaii gave him more. Crusty Vermont rode proudly against the tide in 1936 when it joined Maine as the only two states to vote for Republican Alf Landon in Franklin D. Roosevelt's legendary Democratic sweep of the presidency.
A small state, Vermont has about 10,000 square miles and 600,000 residents, about the same population as California's Kern County. Even in the Northeast, Vermont has a cold and lonely reputation--the only New England state without a seacoast. But it boasts an odd intimacy: a state where just about everyone, even the governor, is listed in the phone book.
