The best hope for national single-payer is to let Vermont show that its homegrown version will work. If Vermont can cut its health care spending by over 30 percent under single-payer, as is projected, other states will copy it, with no pressure needed from Washington.

Gay activists regard laws banning same-sex marriage as a great injustice, and with reason. But simply waiting for a Supreme Court decision making same-sex marriage legal nationwide, no certainty, would have been a massive waste of time. Marriage is a state responsibility, so what better place to change the laws than in states open to it?…

Some states will do things noxious to liberals, for example, on gun control and public financing for education. Conservatives will dislike decisions made in liberal places. Fine. Let’s all make a pact to stop trying to make everyone else over in our own image.