As is the tradition at VTblogosphereTV, our year-end holiday special features John Odum of Green Mountain Daily.  Last Yuletide season, John described how the pivotal bloggers’ summit set the goals of opening up the process in the VT Gov’s race, ratcheting up the enthusiasm, and increasing participation in order to strengthen our chances in November. His ghost-of-xmas-past assessment is eerily prescient, given how the 2010 election cvcle played out in Vermont. It is largely because of this kind of thinking from the netroots that the 2010 “enthusiasm gap” turned on its head in VT.

We were reading everywhere how the Republicans were amped while we in our own state got involved in a strong five candidate Dem primary for governor, which ended in a squeaker close recount that was played so right that it resulted in unified and energized Democratic base. And in November, our pick, Peter Shumlin beat Brian Dubie by running on a platform of single payer and retiring VT Yankee, our failing nuclear power plan down on the MA and NH border.

So it may be no surprise that this year’s “progressive psychological lifeline” (as Odum calls it) came from Vermont in the form of Bernie Sanders’ 8  1/2 Hour Tour De Force. We’ve been pumped in 2010  and we are happy to spread the energy to the rest of our battered and beleagured nation.

Not only did one of our three federal representatives provide the tonic after a defeating election cycle, our incoming governor looks serious about moving us towards a statewide single payer system. This is exciting stuff and it is exactly how the states have to approach the federal reform law. The best thing about the health care changes at the federal level is it gives states the room to build a complete system.

Peter Shumlin’s last job was Pesident Pro Tem of our state Senate and he had a large part in overriding the marriage equality veto. He knows how our little state legislature works. We might just get it done here; it might take a decade but we just might show the way for the whole nation to get there. Remember even in as regressive a year as 2010, we still made progress. Elections are over, let’s get some policy victories in 2011.

Happy New Year GMDers! looks like we done some good in 2010 and I just had to brag to the kos crowd. crossposted there