Poll: Rural Vote No Longer a Lock for Republicans

(click on the post title for a link to the story)

This is a very interesting and encouraging story from NPR on how rural America is no longer in the back pocket of the Repugnican Party, and the most important finding is that it was the Repugnican's own arrogance that made it happen.

In Minnesota (at least) the Democratic Party acronym used to be the DFL and DFL stood for Democratic Farmer Labor. There was a time when farmers (who number only 2 million in the United States) were a major component of the political well being of the Democratic Party. That is no longer the case but at least this story suggests that the tide may be turning.

In my former home of Nebraska, one of the most heavily rural states in the nation, Bush took every one of the state's 93 counties not only in 2000 but a repeat in 2004. I remember when I lived in North Dakota, another bastion of Repugnican "thought" seeing a barn in Sargent County with the words VOTE REPUBLICAN smothering the east side of the barn and doing the same when I drove past the west side of the barn. Drive down almost any road in Oklahoma and what evidence you see of political beliefs and leanings is directed at the Repugnican Party. It never used to be that way.

The Repugnicans allege to be be opposed to "big government" but that same Repugnican Party has fed the trough of subsidies to farmers for many many years. Addicted to handouts, the rural voters shifted to where they knew the free dollars were coming. I think that contributed mightily to the shift from the DFL to RFRP (Republican Farmer and Rich People) Party.

For whatever reason people in rural America are coming to their senses (now if we could just get the people of the 3rd Congressional District in Nebraska off their asses and voting for a Democrat). Hopefully they will have seen the light by November 2008.

The most telling part of this NPR story is this paragraph

"I think there are two big headlines out of this poll," says Anna Greenberg of the Democratic polling firm of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. "The first is 'Republican Collapse in Rural Areas.' And the second is 'Rural is the Battleground in 2008."

I love the sound of "Republican Collapse" in any area, rural, urban, extra terrestrial. It makes no difference. Lets just hope that the collapse continues through the 2008 election so we can return an intelligent human being, not a "man of god" to the White House. Someone who will represent all of our interests not just those of big oil. Maybe the place to begin that is in our old stronghold of rural America.