It seems that just about all of Vermont's perennial candidates for some office or another have their sights set on the U.S. Senate this year. The U.S. House seat attracted none of the same interest - only Republicans Martha Rainville and Mark Shepard and Democrat Peter Welch filed for that race.

Monday's candidate filing deadline revealed this string of candidates for U.S. Senate:

- Peter Diamondstone of Brattleboro, Liberty Union
- Larry Drown of Northfield, Democrat
- Cris Ericson of Chester, Republican
- Craig Hill of Montpelier, Democrat
- Peter Moss of Fairfax, Democrat
- Greg Parke of Rutland, Republican
- Bernie Sanders of Burlington, Democrat (yes, that's right, Democrat - see today's Free Press for story)
- Rich Tarrant of Colchester, Republican
- Louis Thabault of South Burlington, Democrat


Chittenden Senate
Fifteen candidates have lined up for a stab at Chittenden County's six Senate seats, including all the incumbents except Jim Leddy, who declared his retirement in the wake of last session's health-care reform agreement.

Ed Flanagan wasn't scared off by his car accident and Hinda Miller wasn't scared off by her loss in the Burlington mayoral race in March.

Here the list:

Democrats: Jim Condos, Ed Flanagan, Ginny Lyons, Dennis McMahon, Hinda Miller, Tim Palmer, Doug Racine, Sean Starfighter.

Republicans: Darren Adams, Agnes Clift, J. Dennis Delaney, Chuck Furtado, Robert Sims, Diane Snelling, John Stewart.



- Terri Hallenbeck