Outside of Burlington Vt, Vermont is the most racially uniform place I have ever been outside of Northern Europe. Burlington has a small minority population, but we are talking small. Frankly- its as white as swiss cheese. I don't think I saw a single tan or brown person in Mt Pilier (the capitol) in any of the three summers I visited there. Outside of Burlington, I would say the combined minority populations are around 1/2 of 1 percent.

One of my old college friends from waay back went there for grad school in forensic pathology, and promptly left... in part because she started to believe she was the only asian-american in the state and couldn't find very many people she related to (that and she couldn't stand the winters). But this was all like 10 years ago, so some things could be different.

I see Deans record on Gay rights and gender issued as being representative of his stance towards disadvantaged and minority populations. I can't really hold Vermonts overwhelming (and spooky) uniformity against him, and frankly Sharpton has just found a clever stick to beat dean with- as Dean in no way could turn around and say "there is a difficiency of qualified and interested minorities in Vermont" without the 7 dwarves twisting it into a racist slur. Only 1 out of every few hundred people is that interested in a career in public service anyway, and when you are talking about 1/2 of 1 percent of one of the most sparsely poulated states of the union, that doesn't leave very many candidates.

Still, it would be interesting to see the percentages or resumes of any minority candidates that dean has turned down- there is something that could sway me!

Davin L.