A Rural Strategy for Democrats - Democratic Underground

IrateCitizen

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Thu Oct-23-03 08:55 AM
Original message

A Rural Strategy for Democrats

In the most recent issue of The Nation, there was a fantastic article by John Nichols about the lack of a rural strategy by the Democratic Party right now, and many suggestions to combat this slide among voters in the "heartland".

I grew up in the rural American heartland -- and still go back to visit when I can. And I can honestly say, from talking to relatives and friends back there when I visit, that many of these ring true.

Here's a few choice excerpts:

Needed: A Rural Strategy by John Nichols

... What angers Waller is a sense that the deck keeps getting stacked against rural America by powerful corporations and by politicians of both political parties who pay more attention to promised rural panaceas--like free trade and a bigger-is-better attitude toward farming--than to the painful realities of the countryside. "I ask myself: How can people in Washington let this happen?" she says. "I wonder if it's because they've gotten so used to measuring everything in economic terms that they don't recognize that behind all these numbers from all these forgotten places, there are people who are hurting."

SNIP

"Rural America is being eviscerated by contract farming, by the loss of control of the food chain, by the lack of rural healthcare, by trade policies that are particularly destructive to rural economies," says Representative Marcy Kaptur, the ranking Democrat on the agriculture subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. Kaptur is angered that many in Congress, including fellow Democrats, fail to understand the small "d" democratic value of having a countryside populated by farmers and small-town residents who keep control of the nation's food supply in diverse hands. It is not just a romantic attachment to old ways of farming that causes Kaptur to fear rural depopulation. Rather, she says, something fundamental is lost as rural folk who considered themselves stewards of the land are replaced by sprawling factory farms that treat the landscape as a commodity to be dosed indiscriminately with chemicals and despoiled with livestock "waste lagoons." Democrats must recognize, Kaptur says, that "rural America is hanging on by its fingernails. There's a sense of urgency in the countryside. It's real, it's volatile."

SNIP

Kaptur says that's because the party has been peddling gimmicks rather than populist substance. "Most of the people who run the Democrat Party, like Terry McAuliffe, they're city people," she says. "They think it's just a matter of tinkering with the party's image." Democratic consultants have created a mini-industry that tells candidates to go "country" by sponsoring NASCAR teams, joining the NRA or fuzzing positions on abortion or gay rights to mollify social conservatives. Rural folks just laugh. "You can be ardently pro-choice and support gay rights and still win rural areas if you have an economic message," says Rhonda Perry, a family farmer who is program director with the Missouri Rural Crisis Center. "I don't think too many people in rural Missouri sit up nights worrying about gay rights. But they do sit up nights worrying about how they are going to keep the farm or how they are going to get health benefits after the meatpacking plant shuts down."

If Democrats want to speak to rural America, they should start listening to the Rhonda Perrys and Helen Wallers. They'll learn quickly that bland, one-size-fits-all "rural strategies" are losers. The corporate owner of a 4,000-cow factory farm in California has different demands from the family that milks 100 cows in Wisconsin. Companies like Monsanto and Tyson are not "partners" of wheat farmers trying to keep genetically modified seeds out of North Dakota, or Missouri hog farmers who want to use antitrust laws to prevent meatpacking companies from cornering markets. Wal-Mart has a different vision for rural America from mom-and-pop stores on Main Street. And while a Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement might open foreign markets for agribusiness, it will collapse prices for family farmers here and abroad. "It's about making choices," says Waller. "Most of the time the choices are between what the agribusiness companies want, which is to rig the markets so they can make money, and what's good for rural communities."

Take some time and read the rest of this article. It's very eye-opening and important, IMHO. Most importantly, it needs to be read by all of the party hacks and pollsters still trying to tinker the party's "image" rather than really offering forth solutions to their problems -- even if they go against powerful corporate interests.