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Vermont's history has been an interesting one. Among the colonies in the Northeast, it was conspicuously missing among the original states that ratified the Constitution -- mainly because its legal status had long been in dispute going back even before the American Revolution (the area had been subject to competing claims by the colonies of New Hampshire and New York for years).

And there is some dispute about whether the legendary "Green Mountain Boys" of American Revolution fame were even supporters of the colonial cause against the British. The "Boys" were originally formed as a quasi-independent militia in the region between Lake Champlain and the Connecticut back in the 1750s -- primarily to enforce the legitimacy of New Hampshire land titles against competing claims by title holders from New York.

For all of its radical leftism, the state still has a serious libertarian streak that is honestly quite refreshing in the Northeast. There are probably more gun owners per capita in Vermont than almost anywhere else in the U.S., and the pro-gun track record of that crazed leftist himself (Howard Dean) never got much attention during his short-lived presidential campaign in 2004.

The major problem with Vermont is not the descendants of the Yankees who settled the state in the 1700s, or of the French Canadian, Irish, and other European immigrants who came there in the 1800s and early 1900s, but of the post-1960 wave of people from southern New England, New York, and New Jersey who transformed the state from being socially conservative and Republican to socially liberal and Democrat. Bernie Sanders and Howard Dean were born and raised in New York, and the current governor and sole state representative to Congress are natives of Massachusetts. Of course, Patrick Leahy is a native Vermonter.

What may be interesting is how Vermonters will react if Hillary Clinton is elected President next year with a Congress with a larger Democratic majority and she pursues an essentially socialist European agenda combined with corporate welfare of the type her husband dealt in. There is something of a left-libertarian streak among the transplants that may be as unhappy with her policies as economic and limited government conservatives were with Bush's so-called compassionate (big government) conservatism.

Interesting history lesson. I actually lived there for 5 years and I highly doubt the highest gun ownership per capita. The native Vermonters (dairy farmers and the such) are good people and this may be true among them. The trust fund baby hippies have squeezed out the natives, and it certainly isn’t true with for them. It doesn’t take many people, because the population of the entire state was around 700k last time I checked (several years back). It is a beautiful state and people are very friendly. Nice place to visit!