"Us rural people"

[Mairead]

My moment of illumination about Howard Dean came one day in Iowa when I saw him lean into a crowd and begin a sentence with, "Us rural people. . . ."

Dean grew up on Park Avenue and in East Hampton. If he's a rural person, I'm the Queen of Sheba. Yet he said it with conviction. He said it uninhibited by any fear that someone might laugh at or contradict him.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/09/opinion/09BROO.html?ex=1071995702&ei=1&en=7a2d862154c68778

[Patriot_Spear]

1. You failed to mention he's lived in the country for 24 years...

IMHO- Your post is a bit of a distortion of the facts.

[Sean Reynolds]

2. He's lived in Vermont for like 24 years.....

Lets say I lived in Vermont early on in my life and than moved to NYC and lived there for 24 years, couldn't I call myseld a city guy?

[ProfessorPlum]

3. I didn't know David Brooks was the Queen of Sheba!

You learn somethin' new every day.

[Cheswick2.0]

4. I have lived in Pa for most of the last 25 years, but I was born in TX

And grew up in NYS. Would I get laughed at for saying "us pennsylvanians"?

[slinkerwink]

5. He's been in Vermont half his life.

[MrBenchley]

6. Sorry. But even for right wing loonies

David Brooks is a pathetic idiot...

Dean's lived in Vermont most of his adult life. Vemont is rural. The issues he's dealt with have been overwhelmingly rural.

Here's more on the Times' newest idiot:

http://www.pandagon.net/mtarchives/000186.html

http://rogerailes.blogspot.com/

(scroll down to "A Whore On Hollywood Boulevard(s)")

"Why, none but a boob would speak of international affairs and national defense so close to a high-end retail shopping district. Any man who would do such a thing is unqualified to be president, and likely insane....
If you don't know where this set up is going by now, you've been in a coma for six months and you've never read this blog before.
Yes, that's right, on June 27, 2003, George Bush held an election fundraiser at the Century Plaza Hotel, which is a brisk 30-second walk away from the St. Regis. You'll recall that Bush's warmup act on that occasion was the washed- and sobered-up beer and satellite teevee pitchman, Dennis Miller. And Bush spoke at length on Iraq and Afghanistan to the assembled throng of Hollywood rightys who paid handsomely for the privilege of Bush's company.
And you thought the Times couldn't find anyone with less insight into politics than Maureen Dowd. "

[MuseRider]

7. Well,

I have a small farm so I am out there, not really rural (I do not live there yet) but out there with the rural folk every day. I can say this, there is one hell of a lot of difference in being someone living in a rural area with a gazilion dollars than the folks who are trying to scrape out a living on the land. That is not a line that will be bought by "real" rural folks, in fact they will hate him simply for implying that he understands their way of life. He will look like the "typical elitist back East politician" to them. Just a warning to Dean folks, I am not making my own judgement here, this is how he will be seen by them.

[Patriot_Spear]

10. So now you're saying he's not a "real" rural person?

This qualifier seems a bit disengenuous to me.

Yet even though people who live rurally may have disparate incomes, I imagine they still share some values that make them choose the country over the city.

[MuseRider]

14. As I said in my post

I was not making a judgement just reporting what I know to be true. Dean, at best, would be referred to in these parts as a "Gentleman Farmer" and only that if he indeed has a working farm that he lives on. If he just lives in the country in a big house then pretending to be a part of the farm culture will seem disingenuous. This is NOT my judgement but one that I know to be true.

[LuminousX]

18. I'm from Montana

Didn't grow up on farm or ranch. I'm still, according to all the cityfolk I deal with here in Chicago, rural.

Your definition is whacked.

[eileen_d]

20. Well, being from Montana myself

that says a lot more about the ignorance of the "cityfolk" than it does about anything else.

"Rural" is in the eye of the beholder. Personally I think the "slam" in the article cited is pretty pathetic.

[LuminousX]

27. That is the point

'Rural' and 'not-rural' are perception based terms.

Here in Chicago, people who get their water from a well are rural. People who have septic tanks are rural.

Back home that is normal. The fact I lived on an unpaved road up in the mountains is what made me rural.

To say Dean isn't rural really is to say "the person saying that doesn't consider Dean rural." In my opinion, he is just as rural as I am. Or conversely since I've lived in Chicago for a great length of time, I'm as citified as he is ruralized.

The question I have - does this matter one iota?

[MuseRider]

34. OK, can we back up a minute?

I am not discussing the article so possibly that is the problem. I am also talking about perceptions. Dean's statement may very well be true, he lives in the country. The people who make their lives farming/ranching will not look at this guy with all the money and his past as one of them no matter how many years he has lived in the country. I am just trying to state what I know from being out here, I get the same shit from them no matter how hard I work to run my place, all by myself, I am still the city girl and I do not quite belong because I go home to a big house and have some money not from the farm. I am not and would never presume to include myself with them entirely, that is a place you earn. He can most certainly understand what they need, what their lives are like but to presume to be one with people whose experience is one of very hard work for very little monetary gain when you come from his background is presumptuous and will be seen that way.

[MuseRider]

22. Why thank you!

I grew up and reside in Topeka, Kansas (pop. about 120,000). I do own a farm/ranch and I am considered a city girl. Funny, that.

[Mairead]

23. "Your definition is whacked"

"I'm still, according to all the cityfolk I deal with here in Chicago, rural."

It's not the opinion of cityfolk that's at issue here. Muse's is not the definition that's 'whacked', bubele.

[bahrbearian]

31. Your right!

there is a difference between a Gentleman Farmer and Us Poor Rural Folk. But I'll give him a pass on it. At least he's not some oil chimp trying to pass himself off as a Rancher.

[LuminousX]

8. This one,again?

I will reask my question I ALWAYS ask when this comes up:

How long do you have to live in a 'rural area' to be considered rural? And if you've raised your children there, does that count for something?

[GreenPartyVoter]

9. I guess he counts as a transplant

from the city.

[LSK]

11. how to email that writer

I'd like to ask him why he left out that little detail about Dean living in Vermont for the past 2 decades?

Im getting so sick and tired of people leaving out HUGE DETAILS when they talk about stuff.

[Patriot_Spear]

13. It's SOP for Dean bashing...

And it borders on being a canon for republican political tactics.

[Mairead]

12. Sorry, folks, MuseRider has it nailed.

And are any of you really going to try to claim that Dean uses the accusative form ('us') in place of the nominative ('we') in everyday speech? That's Essence Of Phony, undiluted.

[Patriot_Spear]

15. You must know Howard pretty well to make that statement.

Exactly how many times have you meet him and for how long?

It must be fairly extensive for you to make a statement like that.

[Mairead]

21. And which statement is that, exactly? I made 2.

[Patriot_Spear]

24. This one...

"...are any of you really going to try to claim that Dean uses the accusative form ('us') in place of the nominative ('we') in everyday speech? That's Essence Of Phony, undiluted."

You must know Howard pretty well to know what kind of coloquialisms he uses.

How long have you known him?

[Mairead]

32. mwahahahahaha

Yeah, right. Find speeches that have him using that dialect form. You can't. He doesn't. Someone who was educated at the finest patrician schools doesn't, except in a contrived way.

If I'm wrong, you should easily be able to find many speeches in which he uses the accusative in place of the nominative. So let's have the pointers.

If you can't produce them by tomorrow, we'll all know you're talking through an orifice not normally employed for speech.

[Name removed]

33. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

35. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Patriot_Spear]

36. Luckily I don't have to take logic again for Grad school...

I did well enough to the first time anyway. Do you know Howard Dean personally or not?

Have a nice day.

[MuseRider]

19. Thanks,

I am known as one who is not a Dean fan but these posts of mine are from a lifetime of being of those people, not meant to bash on Dean. This is important if he is indeed to be successful and to not pay it any heed is dangerous because these people vote, aways.

[no name no slogan]

38. Speaking as somebody who grew up 'rural'

...and is married to a German Catholic farmgirl, who was one of eight kids growing up on a family farm in southern Minnesota during the farm crisis of the 80s.

My wife grew up in one of the most sparsely populated congressional districts in the country-- a truly "rural" district where a "big town" might have 2,000 people in it. It is a place where farming is not just some quaint hobby, but a way to pay the bills and hopefully survive another season before the bank comes to seize the farmstead your family has owned since Abe Lincoln signed the papers over to your great-great-grandfather.

Some city-dwelling high-faluting doctor/politician worth many millions coming out to the farm to get a little shit on his Gucci loafers is not going to win over the vote of "us rural folks" by trying to endear himself to them. They'll treat him just like he was a martian who landed his flying saucer out in the bean field.

"Rural folk" who work the land for a living, and who have been getting shafted over by the banks, politicians and agribusiness monopolies won't give a good goddamn about some doctor/governor who's here to sell them his bill o' goods, especially if he's not talking about getting them a fighting chance against the corporations who dominate farming today.

While growing up on Park Avenue and the Hamptons, how much hay did the Governor have to bail? What time was he roused from bed to go out and walk the bean fields, pulling stray weeds from the rows? How many late nights in the fall did he spend helping his old man run the combine, so they could get the corn out of the fields before it got too wet to harvest? How many times did young Howard have to go out to the hogshed, and slop the hogs with the house's daily leftovers?

How many times did Howard's daddy have to tell him that he wouldn't get any money from mom and dad for college this year, because the price of corn was too low? How many brothers and/or sisters did Howard have to share his bed with growing up, because they couldn't afford one for each child? How many hand-me-downs did he have to wear, and how much "free" government cheese did he get to eat because the transmission in his daddy's tractor blew, and it was either fix the tractor and starve, or don't fix the tractor and go bankrupt?

Dean trying to be "us rural folk" is a laughable as the white kid at the mall in dreadlocks acting like a Rastafarian. They're both completely wrong and for the same obvious reasons. Unless you've actually LIVED in rural America (and not in some city of 30,000+ people) you have NO CLUE as to what it is to be "rural folk" in the midwest.

[dsc]

39. The entire sentence isn't reported

You have no idea what case it should have been. Had the sentence been "Us rural people to whom Washingon elites refer." I think that would be a gramaticaly correct usage of us. And that clearly wasn't Brook's point as you well know.

[maxanne]

16. gimme a break

I moved to NH in 1984, from a city in Massachusetts. I've been here almost 20 years. My daughter grew up here. I wear Sorels - wore 'em in Concord yesterday with a suit - and laughed like hell when I saw other women mincing along in heels during a freezing rainstorm. I've worn Sorels with evening clothes.

I was born in Hamilton,Massachusetts - the East Coast polo capital of the USA. Home of the (aptly named) Myopia Hunt Club. I was supposed to be Muffy when I grew up. I've been a failure in that regard. I've recovered from my early years - and I suspect Howard Dean has, too.

I am a rural person - and to suggest that Dean is not is laughable. To suggest he doesn't understand the problems of rural people is even more laughable.

The lengths people will go to to smear Dean are boundless.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

17. I guess this guy's idea of "rural" people is corncob toilet-paper

and chewin' tabbacca and bathe annually.

"Dean grew up on Park Avenue and in East Hampton. If he's a rural person, I'm the Queen of Sheba."

I'm a "rural" person that grew up, and spent most of my life, in L.A. Have lived the last 20 years in the hills of Washington State. Actually read books, watch PBS and like it, don't have a dog named Blue, or kids named Goober. Prefer Beethoven to Jim Jones, think Picasso was genius, contribute to Amnesty International and Planned Parenthood (among others), and am a socialist.

However, I do drive a (Toyota) pickup, and own and use a chainsaw (for windfall trees and branches). I even have a cap that says John Deere on it.

I didn't know that there was some sort of qualification test for being considered "rural".

[MuseRider]

25. I am much like you

but there are MANY just like you described. I am not using my posts to bash Dean but just to warn you all as somone who comes from these kinds of people that his inclusive "us" will not be looked on favorably by some. THAT is all I am saying. Those people number enough to make entire states go one way or the other. Just telling you what I know from life experience, this is not my own opinion.

Edit for mistake

[Patriot_Spear]

26. Let's be honest Muserider- using an attack piece as a foundation...

... in my opinion, taints the conclusions and assertions you've made.

That's all.

[MuseRider]

28. Nope, won't go there.

This is honest concern about a bad (IMO from my experience) statement made by one of our top nominees. It is honestly something to worry about, that is all. If I did not have a candidate avitar would you be so sure I am bashing?

[Patriot_Spear]

30. I disagree, this is a canard...

...and I think it's pretty clearly a non-issue for those who are knowledgable on Dean's background. No offense, just my view.

All the best to you.

[IronLionZion]

29. I'm a rural person

I grew up near Somerset, PA That's right, I wasn't even in a town. However, I was born in Brooklyn, NYC and now live in Rochester, NY. In any of these three places, there are people who call me an outsider, and there are people who welcome me as a local.

Saying he's not a rural person after living there for 24 years is like the racist assholes who tell my dad he is a "ferner" even though he has lived in the US for 25 years and is a US citizen.

That is so narrow-minded and is what I expect from Republican rednecks.

How 'bout them apples!

[MuseRider]

37. Them apples

is wormy. Sorry folks, did not mean to come off as a basher/ republican/racist or anything elseist but this city girl needs to make the long haul back out to the farm/ranch where I am most definitely gonna haul some more hay, chop the ice outta the water tanks, feed the stock, chew on a nice piece of brome and most likely bust my butt just like I did this morning. Wish I too was a rural person.