Recently Rural
As a followup to my 11/8 post, I first realized that the Republican farm vote was soft when I flipped by CMT on TV one day last Summer. Farm Aid #523 (or whatever number they're up to now) was on. They were giving away premuims for donations NPR-style, and the one that was being featured at that moment was Fast Food Nation. My initial reaction was "What the Hell?" But then I thought about it for about half a second and realized that the book (from what I understand -- I've heard the author interviewed, but I haven't read it yet) detailed the grizzly concequences of the hyper-industrialization of our food supply. That can't be good for the small farmer. I had a "Captain Obvious" moment when I realized that their best interests are our best interests. And this was being broadcast on CMT, remember. Home of Toby Keith and Darryl Worley.
Which brings me to an article that I read at The Nation recently. We need to brush up on our very recent history. Here are some quotes:
As recently as 1986, when Democrats retook the Senate six years into the Reagan era, they did so by electing a fresh crop of senators from recession-ravaged farm states that included South Dakota's Tom Daschle, North Dakota's Kent Conrad and, four years later, Minnesota's Paul Wellstone.
So farm states were actually where the Democrats were able to build their strength as recently as the Reagan and Bush I years.
Since 1988 support for the Democrats among rural voters has dropped from 56 percent to around 36 percent. In the early 1990s the Congressional Rural Caucus had eighty-eight Democratic members to fifty-four Republicans; less than a decade later, the breakdown was eighty-four Republicans to fifty-eight Democrats.
So you mean to tell me that support for the Democrats among rural voters was at 56% as recently as 1988?
[In 2000,] Bush won 59 percent of the rural vote, compared with 46 percent for Republican Bob Dole in 1996 and 40 percent for Bush's father in 1992.
Holy crap! So what the Hell happened? And we're not just talking William Jennings Bryan here, folks -- this is recent history. So why does no one even seem to remember that the Democrats had a solid constituency in the hinterlands as recently as 15 years ago?
Food for thought...
12:05:46 PM 
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