Columnists: Candidates must realize rural America is more complicated than sound bites suggest

Sen. Barack Obama's campaign is still trying to move beyond Obama's remarks about small-town America, and as part of that effort, the campaign conducted a conference call on Wednesday to discuss the candidate's rural agenda. (Obama's rural platform is here; Hillary Clinton's is here.) The Daily Yonder's Bill Bishop participated in that 45-minute call and came away with this thought: "In a call meant to show that the candidate was knowledgeable about small towns, I learned that the campaign, at least, was stuck with an outdated, cliched view of what's going on in rural communities. It was a baffling experience."

Bishop writes that the call illustrated the fact that rural America equals agriculture for most candidates, an impression that needs to change. "Obama's rural handlers spent 90 percent of a conversation about rural Pennsylvania talking about an economy that provides only 6.5 percent of the rural jobs — a ratio rhetoric to relevance that, unfortunately, has held steady through much of this campaign," Bishop writes. In Pennsylvania, small towns have many concerns beyond agriculture, such as sprawl or the loss of young people to other states. (Read more)

For Bishop and geographer Tim Murphy's look at the declining economic fortunes of both urban and rural Pennsylvania, click here.

In a recent column, The New Republic's Jordan Stancil addresses one of the key problems facing rural towns: a loss of local ownership. Stancil writes that Obama's comments need to be used to further discussion about rural economic issues, not just be part of a debate over "elitism." In recent decades, "Rural Americans have seen their ownership of their communities hollowed out by relentless consolidation in the retail and financial sectors -- to say nothing of agriculture," Stancil writes. "While Obama is right to emphasize the fact that rural areas are hurting financially, the problem is not just cyclical changes in the economy but a deeper crisis of ownership."

Stancil later writes that he believes independence is the key value in small towns, and its loss, especially economically, is the root of any small-town bitterness He explains:

This independence is not threatened by Northeastern "cultural elitism," but it is threatened by economic policies that relentlessly favor bigness. The Democrats, because they are more likely than the Republicans to favor limitations on bigness, might be able to benefit from this truth -- and cut into the Republican lead in rural areas -- if their candidates can understand the real nature of small-town malaise. The challenge is not, as the candidates imply, simply to create jobs, but to help small towns reestablish local control of their economies. (Read more)

Like Bishop, Stancil notes the many problems facing small towns: how to attract and keep good teachers, the need for broadband access, etc. These columns are worth a read, because they begin to address the larger issue of rural needs, not just the controversy over Obama's remarks.