What may be interesting is how Vermonters will react if Hillary Clinton is elected President next year with a Congress with a larger Democratic majority and she pursues an essentially socialist European agenda combined with corporate welfare of the type her husband dealt in. There is something of a left-libertarian streak among the transplants that may be as unhappy with her policies as economic and limited government conservatives were with Bush's so-called compassionate (big government) conservatism.
I went to school there back in the early 60’s and I remember VT being much as you stated. Once the hippies realized just how sparsely the state was populated, the handwriting was on the wall.