The House and Senate Democratic caucuses took six of the best in this year’s election, losing their supermajorities and being reduced to, well, plain ol’ majorities. (As old Statehouse hands have noted, their “defeat” reduced them to the kind of solid partisan edge that used to be normal.) Most of the losses came in rural precincts, and the remaining rural Dems are in their feelings about it. As Rep. John O’Brien of Tunbridge put it, “we had nothing to run on.”

Given the situation, caucus leadership had two choices: Rein in their ambitious agenda or stay the course and try to craft better messaging. Recent votes for leadership positions show the majority supports option number two. Rather than try to accommodate rural discontent, House and Senate caucuses each decided to make their leadership teams more strongly Chittenden-centric. (Hat tip to Rising Young Blogger Matthew Vigneau for calling the House changes a couple weeks in advance.)

House leadership also seems determined to ignore independent Rep. Laura Sibilia’s bid for Speaker, as they went ahead with renominating Speaker Jill Krowinski while voting to prohibit non-Democrats from seeking the caucus nomination. The issue will be settled in the full House come January.

Clearly, the hatches are being battened. While it might seem as though the Dems are ignoring the lessons to be learned from their November beatdown, their actions make a lot of sense in two ways: The True Believer and the Machiavellian.

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