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Old 03-06-2012, 12:36 PM
 
Location: The Woods
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeromeville View Post
The differences are much older and deeper than that.

Vermont was not one of the original 13 colonies... it used to be part of New York... and had an independence movement (from NY) around the time of the Revolution. Vermont even had its own money (look on ebay for Vermont copper coins). However what Vermont really wanted was statehood of its own, they didn't really want to be a separate country. They were admitted 14th state to the Union, which is what they really wanted, to be free of New York. So that is why they have such a "radical" streak.

New Hampshire had a different history.

However, Vermont becoming Granola Haven is only relatively a late development... Vermont actually used to be pretty backward and conservative (even racist).
Historically, though, VT did have close ties with NH. The war for Vermont independence started in defense of the NH grants versus the NY grants. Many of the early settlers came from NH, and there were always strong ties with NH afterwards, though not a desire to be the same state. The recent split is for sure a recent development.
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Old 03-06-2012, 08:35 PM
 
Location: New Hampshire
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Politically, there has always been a marked difference between Vermont and NH, going all the way back to the elections of the early 1800s.

For a very long time, Vermont was perhaps the most heavily Republican-voting state the Union. But it's important to remember that the ideology of today's GOP does not map neatly on to that of Lincoln's GOP. While the party has long espoused support for business interests and been relatively moralistic, the early Republican party was also in favor of a powerful federal government and spearheaded progressive social movements.

When Theodore Roosevelt split off from the GOP to promote a more progressive economic ideology, he did quite well in Vermont (although was narrowly defeated by Taft). Even though VT has undergone a dramatic demographic shift since the 1960s, the jump to its current voting patterns is not as drastic as it seems when one takes into consideration how much the political parties themselves have changed over time.

New Hampshire, on the other hand, has always been a much more evenly divided state in terms of politics. Although Republicans maintained a steady but tenuous political advantage for a long time, the Democratic Party was, until the middle of the 20th century, more popular in NH than in the surrounding New England states (it was the only state in the Northeast to vote for Wilson in 1916).

One hypothesis for the early political differences between NH and neighboring states (particularly Massachusetts and Vermont) is the voting divide between so-called "piestic" and "liturgical" religious groups. The heavily Puritan and Calvinist Massachusetts was initially less welcoming to groups like Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Catholics -- who tended to settle in larger numbers in neighboring states (immigrants of Scottish and Irish descent were initially more prominent in NH and Maine).

Although NH did contribute many early settlers to Vermont, an even greater number arrived from the south, traveling up the Connecticut River from western MA and CT. These settlers were largely Congregationalist, one of the most consistently Republican-voting groups by the late 19th century. Things began to change in southern New England as the Irish and other Catholic groups grew in number, eventually making the Democratic Party a competitive force by the 1920s; but this demographic shift never occurred in Vermont. The majority party affiliation of the state wouldn't change until 40 or 50 years later, and for very different reasons.
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Old 03-06-2012, 09:17 PM
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Location: Western Massachusetts
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I don't notice much of a cultural difference between Vermont and New Hampshire on either side of the Connecticut River (with exception for outliers like Brattleboro), and the voting patterns were similar in 2008.
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Old 03-06-2012, 10:03 PM
 
Location: New Hampshire
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That's true, nei. The western part of NH along the Connecticut River does have similar voting patterns to neighboring Vermont. Here's a good map of those aforementioned voting patterns.
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Old 03-07-2012, 07:12 AM
 
Location: northern Vermont - previously NM, WA, & MA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nei View Post
I don't notice much of a cultural difference between Vermont and New Hampshire on either side of the Connecticut River (with exception for outliers like Brattleboro), and the voting patterns were similar in 2008.
I think most people are drawing their impressions of NH culuturally and politically East of the Merrimack River and South of the Lakes Region. That bulk of the state has been very heavily influenced by Massachusetts transplants and has developed exponentially over the last 20 years into suburban and exurban bedroom communities of metro Boston especially along I-93 amd I-95 and it also has most of the states population. Many of these Mass. transplants have a similar mindset to go to a less beaurocratic and less taxing environment and a lower cost of living.

I think rural areas of Western Mass, most of Vermont, and the Western reaches of NH have a similar dynamic, once you get at least 100 miles away from the Boston metro into Interior New England the culture changes. Those areas are bucolic, fairly rural, flinty, a bit liberal with some mixed pockets here and there. Much of interior Western New England is very unique to the US it contains many contiguous left leaning and fairly liberal rural communities.

Last edited by Champ le monstre du lac; 03-07-2012 at 07:23 AM..
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Old 03-07-2012, 08:23 AM
 
Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
24,606 posts, read 55,808,656 times
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I know little about these two fascinating and beautiful states (I love Ben and Jerry's though!) but I find the difference interesting.
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