The Green Mountain State by all rights should be a Red State. It has no city over 50,000 people. It is extremely poor and working class and it's sister state New Hampshire went Red as often if not more than blue until quite recently and most demographers suggest that is because Southern New Hampshire has gotten an infusion of Democrats from neighboring Boston as the suburbs expanded.

I live in NY's 21st Congressional District right next door to Vermont. NY's 21st Demographically because of Fort Drum probably has more African Americans and Hispanics than Vermont, and the district has been solidly Republican since the Civil War. It is rural. It is white. It has a few key industries. It has farmers. It has a lot of poor people and a ton of hunters. Excluding the election of Bill Owens -the final vote for the Affordable Care Act- in a special election to replace Army Secretary John McHugh, which changed that for 5 years- the district is redder than red and Vermont looks very much like NY's 21st.

The neighbors in Vermont look a whole heck of a lot like the residents of my District, so why is Vermont a true Blue Democratic stronghold?

Bernie Sanders! The policies that Bernie Sanders implemented as the Mayor of Burlington were so popular and so beneficial to average working Vermonters that he literally changed the demographics of the state by his sheer will.

He wins white rural working class voters. Let me say that again, Bernie Sanders wins white rural working class voters.

It costs a fortune to run a campaign in Ohio, or Pennsylvania if they are in play, but it doesn't cost a fortune to run a campaign in North Dakota. $5 million in North Dakota or Wyoming, or South Dakota, or Nebraska puts you on the playing field, but it takes $50 million to win Ohio. It doesn't cost a fortune to run a campaign in Montana. It doesn't cost a fortune to run a campaign in Kansas or Nebraska, and Bernie wins white rural voters because he speaks our language, no bullshit, mean what you say, and say what you mean language. No equivocating, no focus groups, no polled language, just straight from the hip what you think.

If you want to understand Bush's appeal to that demographic I just explained it to you. Confidence in what you are saying makes a huge deal to white rural America. If the Democratic Party wants to expand the map and put the Republicans on the defensive Bernie's populist working class message wins white rural working class voters. The forgotten backbone of the old FDR coalition. Yes, it was a long time ago, but speaking the language of white rural working class voters can change the map in an unexpected way.

The Republican small state strategy can be defeated by a populist message and guess what, it does not take a whole lot of money to run and win in those small rural states. Here is the other reason that is a really good set of politics, that is where you must go to win back the Congress. If you want Congress, win white rural working class voters.