The Rural Vote (Or Lack Thereof)
August 25th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
At the Rural Council Caucus this afternoon, it wouldn’t have been a surprise to see tumbleweeds blow through the mostly empty Four Seasons Room at the Colorado Convention Center. The room looked as though it could easily hold the alleged 400 delegates here representing rural communities. We’ll never know because so few of them showed up.
A modest crowd of about 40 people gathered around the podium, where Todd Campbell, Obama For America Rural Vote Director, proselytized about the importance of outreach to rural voters. Obama’s campaign is coming off of a corn syrupy sugar-rush, having been endorsed by the American Corn Growers Association just last Friday — the first agricultural group to endorse Barack Obama. But this only planted the question: does rural America care?
Democrats once dominated rural areas all through the South, the Midwest, and Texas. Those days are long gone, though you can still occasionally find unreconstructed Yellow Dog Democrats wandering the floor of state and national conventions. Democrats have talked for years about trying to win in rural areas; they opine about how their populist message should play well. (This afternoon, there was a lot of talk about John McCain’s voting history. He has consistently voted against farm bills, starting with a no vote in 1985, when he was still a member of the U.S. House. He voted against farm bills twice more in the Senate in 1996 and 2002, and was a no-show for a vote in 2007.)
But Democrats have largely ceded rural areas to Republicans, especially in national and statewide races. The modern Democratic Party is, for the most part, an urban one. That’s not a bad thing. As Rural America loses population, its political influence dissipates as well.
The decline of the farmer was never more evident when, at the end of the caucus, the council opened the floor to questions. David Harper, a row cropper and pasture farmer from Hartsville, Tennessee, stood up to ask if Obama had bothered to engage the Farm Bureau, a non-partisan organization that looks after the interests of its members while simultaneously offering them insurance. Campbell’s roundabout answer was that the Obama campaign intends to reach out to as many rural organizations as possible. Hartman then turned to the audience and asked, holding his hand up, “Are there any farm owners here?” One other hand crept up, belonging to an elderly woman with gaunt, weathered skin stretched across her cheekbones. Hartman turned back to Campbell at the podium and said “That’s rural America…and I’m real concerned about that.”
The question is, how concerned is the Obama campaign? If party leaders are serious about winning in rural America, it will take a lot more than passing pork-loaded farm bills and dispensing happy talk at national conventions every four years. If today’s caucus was any indication, rural Americans, apparently, didn’t get Barack’s text message. They’re not signing on to MyBarackObama.com and watching inspiring YouTube videos on their iPhones. If they’re here in Denver, their priorities lie elsewhere.
August 25th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Rachel Farris’ comments are very perceptive and right on the mark. Thanks
August 26th, 2008 at 9:57 am
“Democrats once dominated rural areas all through the South, the Midwest, and Texas. Those days are long gone…” Thanks for this post. As bleak as it is, it is so important for Democrats to recognize the loss of the rural base. While you suggest that, in terms of political power, it may not be a bad thing, I hope Dems begin to rethink this surrender of rural America. As energy (and transportation) costs skyrocket, perhaps there are additional reasons to nurture local farm communities. Your post was a strong illustration of the need to do so.
August 26th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Oh, does he have a message? Has he ever been on a farm other than maybe to get on TV?
August 26th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Ms. Farris’ perceptive description of the Rural Council Caucus revealed a sad and accurate picture of Democrats’ failure to reach what was once relied on as their base. Recalling the words of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., cited in Ms. Farris’ earlier post from Red Rocks, one wonders if lately Democrats have not been too “disciplined and restrained” in informing Americans of the depth of Republican failure, as we are all forced to share “the bitterest pill to swallow.”
August 27th, 2008 at 7:47 am
Calling the Farm Bureau a non-partisan outfit that happens to sell insurance is like saying Karl Rove just wants to see everybody get a fair shake. As the Texas Observer has doggedly pointed out since the 1970s, the Farm Bureau is the enemy of the family farmer, is an insurance company, dictates insurance-deregulating, family-farm killing legislation to every state legislature and to the Congress, and should not be the measure of any politician’s commitment to the family farm.