Themselves Again?

In the 1964 Goldwater debacle, Philip Hoff, 41, Vermont's first Democratic Governor in 108 years, overwhelmingly won a second two-year term. His reinvigorated party captured all statewide offices and increased its representation in the malapportioned, rural-dominated state legislature.

This year, as Vermonters prepared to elect a new legislature under a federal court's reapportionment edict, Democrats naturally expected new triumphs, since their party is strongest in the towns and cities that would be fairly represented in the state assembly for the first time. Lieutenant Governor John J.

Daley trumpeted that Vermont would once again become a "one-party state" --for the Democrats.

But Vermonters can seldom be taken for granted. In last week's special election, Democrats not only failed to make the major gains they expected in the house; their strength even dropped a fraction to 23%. In the senate, Demo cratic membership fell from 43% to a mere 20%. Massachusetts-born Hoff, who was on a State Department tour of Europe and Asia for all but the last week of the campaign, called it a "horrendous defeat." Penny-wise Vermonters had plainly responded to G.O.P. National Committeewoman Consuelo Bailey's charge: "This Governor's been spending the way Johnson does in Washington. Some of the bonding people out of state have been wondering whether Vermont has suddenly gone crazy." So did Hoff. He immediately cut his ambitious legislative program by half and started preparing for his re-election campaign next year as if Vermont were its sane, Republican self again.

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