Why the rural strategy will FAIL

With his pick of Palin, McCain is trying to shore up the rural, conservative vote. His strategy is to try and cause a culture war, not between right versus left wings, but between "cosmopolitan" and "small town America". This will fail, most epically. Why? Well, it's rather simple. There are simply too many more suburban and urban voters than rural voters. For example, look at my home state of Kansas. As of the 2000 census, 71% of KS is urban/suburban. Since then, this percentage has only grown, due to a huge boom in NE Kansas, plus the slow death of small towns. While the small towns in KS will vote overwhelmingly for McPalin, they make up a tiny fraction of voters. There are some counties here with less than 700 total people; in other words, there are more of cattle, dogs, or cats than humans.

The new resurgence towards centralized living is due to a multitude of reasons: increased college enrollment, increased industrialization of agriculture, and a growing young population. Currently, my generation (late Gen X-Y), is the second largest generation after the Boomers.

The Palin pick plays very well in rural America, because she sounds, acts, and behaves like "one of them." My grandparents, who live in a 200 person town best known for somebody painting the water tower to say ViAgra, are ecstatic, because Palin sounds like a pretty and moral Sunday School teacher. They were looking for an excuse to vote against "that black guy", and used McPalin to do that.

Why won't McPalin work in the suburbs and cities? People aren't stupid. In NE Kansas, the voting base is increasingly moving leftward, as is evident by the twice election of Gov. Sebelius. Also, Kansans decided that they'd had enough of radical Phil KKKLine, and booted him out of both State and Johnson Co. AG. Democratic candidates are seeing thricefold donations to their campaigns. Pat Roberts is going to have to actually defend his senate seat (after winning with 80% last time around).

The moderates in the burbs are fed up with high gas prices, crashing home equity, skyrocketing credit card debt, increasingly unaffordable health insurance, and the embaressment that is the State Board of Education. The new moderate bloc in Kansas said NO to Bushie Jim Ryan in the Republican Primary. The new moderate bloc said NO to coal fired power plants. The new moderate bloc said, "ENOUGH! We MUST fund our crumbling schools, and provide better education!" The legislature recently approved hundreds of millions in deperately needed maintenence aid to the State's public universities, including KU. We had building at KU with slipping foundations, trick office doors that wouldn't shut or would lock the occupant inside. We had campus security stations with faulty wiring.

Kansas is not yet to the point that we need to get to, but we will be there soon. We are just a microcosm of the entire country. We have a big mixture between rural and urban. We may not turn blue, but we sure ain't fire engine anymore.

States like the Dakotas, Montana, Iowa, are coming into play. Americans are fed up with the bullshit of the GOP. McPalin will not solve the problem, just put a cute face to the destruction of the middle class. We recognize this. To the traditional Democratic states, I tell you that we will try our best to put Obama in office. Don't give up on us.

and is in a dead heat in South Dakota. nt.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/sabra/8806

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3469753

http://www.usaelectionpolls.com/2008/montana.html

edit: add more polls and for accuracy

any more.

Kathleen Sebelius has been elected twice and actually works very well with a Republican legislature that is dominated by right-wingers.

Two of the four Reps are Democrats (Nancy Boyda District 2 and Dennis Moore District 3).

And this year a Democrat, Jim Slattery is running a respectable race against Pat Roberts. Not sure if Slattery actually has a realistic chance of winning, but this is the first time in decades, maybe ever, that the state Democratic Party has actually supported a Democrat running for the senate.

The eastern part of the state near Kansas City, Missouri, is becoming more Democratic all the time. It is the central and western portions that are largely rural and very heavily Republican.

Oh, and if you really want to start a fight with a rural farmer in Kansas ask how much subsidy money they get every year from the federal government. Many of them get six figures, and it's NEVER talked about openly.

Democratic party is that they haven't cultivated enough good will with the rural areas.

The biggest divide in America is rural vs urban. Almost every state, with few exceptions, Red or Blue, can be broken down by population density. Rural goes Republican, Urban goes blue.



I think in order to create a "let's get single payer healthcare" and other such majorities elected, the Democrats are going to have to figure out how to gain a better handle on the rural voter mindset.

It's very apparent to me that outside of cultural issues, generally Democrats have the interests of the Rural voter in mind. To be simple, rural voters are generally working class and that's the Democrats stock in trade. However, rural voters don't see it that way, mainly because of TAXES. The simple paradigm they've accepted is that Republicans mean lower taxes and Democrats mean higher taxes. It's about that simple. Even now, when Barack offers better tax cuts to the working class, they will find it hard to believe.

Also, there's a model for campaigning in rural areas that is compartmentalized and scaleable that is never pursued by the Democrats. Republicans have churches, which are persistant, but Democrats have nothing to balance it out. "Once every four year" ads and a walk through the corn fields doesn't add up.

What I'd advise Democrats to do is organize a regional and county by count "rep" system that works like a sales force just like Drug Companies do. Then have those regional reps work with local party volunteers to reinforce the message and resources to spread the word.

All I've ever seen is some well meaning oldsters that get together here and there with the annual booth at the county fair.

There's never any advertising on the local paper or local news station, even though in a lot of rural towns more people visit those places than flip on the tv.

I've tried to bring up the "rural factor" many times on DU but I think a lot of folks don't get how it is the rural vote that has been picked off by the Republicans in the last 30 years, using Churches as the Trojan Horses with little response from the Democrats. I kinda feel like my concern is met with a :shrug:

But as you can see, despite your Demographic breakdowns, the rural voters have delivered Bush the Presidency as well as a long stretch of Republican Congress.

I think the Democrats can win back the rural vote if they continue to focus on lower taxes but really show some results. Median income in rural areas are a lot lower than urban areas so they stand the best chance to get tax relief from Obama. But they don't have the foggiest clue.