Sadly, we’ve seen the passing of two stalwarts of the Vermont Republican Party, first Senator James Jeffords and then Lola Aiken, widow of the great George Aiken. I never met Senator Jeffords, but I met Lola Aiken once when I was six on a trip to Washington D.C. News of their passing makes me feel like I’m watching the last catamount in Vermont disappear. Only this time it’s the classic Vermont Republican, part of a vanishing species of Northeastern Republicans that used to play such a prominent role in our national politics.
Over the past decade or so, many of the old friends I grew up with, from solid, long-standing Vermont GOP families, revealed to me that they no longer voted Republican, although they didn’t tell their parents about their switch. Others ran for public office as Democrats, a thought so inconceivable at one time that I still find myself shaking my head when I see it.
“What happened?” I ask them. “You don’t seem that much more liberal than you were before. Is this something your spouse is forcing you to do?”
No they laugh, it’s not my spouse. Then they get a little more serious and lower their voices. They feel the party has left them. They feel that the center or socially liberal Republicans aren’t welcome in the party anymore. They confess that they don’t believe they can be elected to public office if they have a Republican label in Vermont.
It makes me sad to hear them say this. I admit, I grew up in what was probably one the most liberal households in Vermont and my current household is no different. But when my unabashedly progressive Dad took me into the voting booth with him when I was little, we’d still check off Republican names like Aiken or Little or Peisch, because we knew and trusted them, whatever their label.
They showed us that they would fight to do the right thing even if it crossed party lines. Jim Jeffords stood his ground many times when fighting for some of the least powerful people in America, even if it meant he had to deal with angry members of his own party. He and Senator Aiken personified the best of us Vermonters.
I hope the moderates of our Vermont Republican party don't go the way of the catamount or the dodo. Vermont needs a two-party system that can meet in the middle. It’s worth considering that Howard Dean and Madeleine Kunin both governed more from the middle than most people remember. Deane Davis did the same and so did Dick Snelling, especially in Snelling’s second go-round as Governor
American politics have grown alarmingly partisan – especially at the national level. I don’t know if it’s because of cable news, social media, or just that things seem so much more complicated than before. But it would be great if the legacy of Lola and Jim were to inspire others to follow in their footsteps - the footsteps of two moderate Vermont Republicans.
