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Sunday, April 13, 2008

Obama's remarks raise larger issue of rural needs, obscured by coverage of, and commentary on, flap

The controversy over Sen. Barack Obama's analysis of small-town voters has obscured the more important issue of how to revive rural economies, and some of the coverage and commentary about the flap have failed to make an important distinction. All this highlights the need for another presidential candidate forum on rural issues, which the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues and other organizations have proposed.

Dee Davis of the Center for Rural Strategies, right, writes on the center's rural news portal, the Daily Yonder, "As this political tempest runs its course, the challenge is to see if the country can get beyond a debate about whether small town voters are bitter. The real challenge is to follow up on Senator Obama’s earlier candid moment. Rural life is threatened by economic policy that perpetually fails rural communities."

In rural America, Davis writes, "Poverty rates are substantially higher, as are rates of unemployment, substance abuse, diagnosed clinical depression, and deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. The way we have come to address these specific issues is that every four years presidential candidates come to Iowa and take a stand on ethanol subsidies. As if it mattered. That so many small-town voters are not embittered by a national political process that ignores them may be a more unflattering testament than the annotated list of Senator Obama’s stereotypes."

As for Obama's characterization, Davis writes, "There may be a measure of truth in all stereotypes. That is why they are so dangerous to use. Who wants to be on the receiving end? Who wants to be labeled? Even in the context of sharing polling data that correlates professed values with recurring disappointments, who wants to be summed up and explained away for the benefit of Marin County donors? My bet is that the voters across the Bay in inner-city Oakland would enjoy the experience no more than those in small-town Pennsylvania."

The Center for Rural Strategies is among the organizations that have joined our call for a rural-issues forum, and Davis suggests that it's become all the more timely. "In a time when the world is struggling to re-imagine how it will feed, fuel, and heal a damaged planet," he writes, "a full-throated oratory on where rural fits in may find surprisingly attentive audiences both back home and in parlors beyond." (Read more)

Another supporter of a rural issues forum is Barbara Leach of My Rural America, who writes on her blog, "Everything isn't coming up roses in rural America and from our view point, it's a good thing when political leaders start recognizing it." (Read more) Other supporters include Farm Foundation, the Indiana Farm Bureau the League of Rural Voters and RuralVotes.com, publisher of The Field, a presidential-election blog.

Rural newspaper commentary on Obama's remarks is starting, and is not all predictable. Dan Jackson, left, is a Paris, Tenn., businessman who writes a weekly column for The Paris Post-Intelligencer, a 7,800-circulation daily northwest of Nashville. Jackson writes in his column to be published Wednesday that he is for John McCain but is now open to supporting Obama, "for at least attempting to understand the situation of the rural U.S." He quotes Obama's remarks and writes:

For the life of me I can't figure out where something in that paragraph is untrue. Over the last 25 years how many manufacturing jobs have we lost in rural Tennessee never to see them return? How many have we lost in the last year? How are the cities of Nashville, Memphis and even Chattanooga doing? Not a lot of job loss there! . . . And what of the Clinton and Bush administrations? Did either of them implement any policy alleviating the burden on rural America? Did either of them structure any type of economic policy that might at least begin to ease the long term job losses in our small towns? I don't think so. So why haven't they? Why is small-town America ignored? Why have we continued to struggle while those in bigger population areas continue to succeed? Why? Because our voices are small and spread too thin. Why? Because Democrats listen to the cities and Republicans listen to corporations. Why? Because it's too complicated to understand and too difficult to fix. So when Obama says it's not surprising we've become bitter and clung to issues we understand how is that demeaning? After all, isn't this exactly what the Republicans and Democrats of our fine land have done as well? . . . For the first time in what seems like the never ending campaign for President 2008, one of the candidates has mentioned small-town America. So when Obama says we are bitter isn't he correct?

Jackson notes manufacturing jobs lost in the Paris area and writes, "Tell me those same workers, displaced and distraught have not turned in time of crisis to issues they understand? For if the candidates, hell if the Presidents of these United States have not been able to understand the issue of job loss in small-town America, how can Uncle Jimmy or Auntie Jo? Can you blame these people for voting for President based on gun control? Can you blame these people for clinging to religion? Can you blame these people for a fear of Muslims? Meanwhile, we've got Hillary doing shots of whiskey in an Indiana bar. It was Crown Royal; that's a Canadian whiskey! So I guess this shows she's in touch with us?"

Rural journalists writing their own commentaries on this should be sure to note the context in which Obama was speaking: how he gets votes in rural areas and small towns. He was talking about voting behavior, not general behavior, but that important distinction has not been made in much of today's commentary. The best coverage gets it right; as Perry Bacon and Shailagh Murray write in The Washington Post, Obama "explained his struggles appealing to working-class voters" and quoted him speaking in Muncie, Ind.:

"So I said, 'Well, you know, when you're bitter you turn to what you can count on,' " he continued. "So people they vote about guns, or they take comfort from their faith and their family and their community. And they get mad about illegal immigrants who are coming over to this country or they get frustrated about, you know, how things are changing. That's a natural response."
The Post reports that aides "described Obama as frustrated with himself for word choices such as 'cling' and references to hot-button issues including religion and guns, but also stunned at the uproar over what to him seemed a fundamental fact of American life." (Read more)

1 comment:

  1. As a small town mayor's wife, ethnic groups are not the only people taking advantage of public assistance programs. More white, poor and middle class people take advantage of anything that is offered free by the government than the Hispanics. The majority of Hispanics in this county work two and three jobs per household, by necessity. That does not even take into account the many wealthy ranchers and farmers who take advantage of every USDA rural/free money that is offered either. One could argue that many of them are wealthy because they have been gifted lots of free money through so-called 'subsidy based' programs. They are also the majority of people who employ so many of the illegal aliens in this county and the majority of them are Republicans, by the way.

    Obama did not say one thing wrong. He spoke the truth. Those of you that have read my many posts on this site will remember that I have been speaking to some of the same issues of disgust in our rural society. Disgust? Disenfranchisement? Disengagement? Bitter? Hell, yes we are!

    How many times have I said that our government, state and federal, give us little more than lip service. Most of the assistance rungs on the ladder are so high for our little communities to reach that they are completely out of reach most of the time. As a democrat, I have watched the state party and the DNC come into this region as true political elitists and promise us the moon and the stars. For 28 years, they have allowed the GOP to control Congressional District 1 in New Mexico. Why, because the elite of the Dems made out good regardless of the GOP in the seat. When politicians claim that they care about rural areas, I say "Bologne!" Change is the last hope that small town America has. The Dems have ignored small town America for the last 25 years and now they claim to care? I don't know whether to cry or laugh.

    How disengenous of Clinton to call Obama an elitist. Both her and McCain are multimillionaires, and if America buys this, we do get what we deserve. How sad.

    We cling to our faith because we have had no other choice. We have learned that our Government, Dems and GOP lie to us time and time again, so how in the world could we place our confidence in someone the likes of Clinton or McCain? The gleeful manner in which the MSM has jumped on this is truly despicable and goes to some of my earlier views that they truly do not want like Obama to win and clean up our government. If he were actually successful, the pig trough of greed would dry up and the media makes more money as long as we are divided. Divided is what they want and candidates like Clinton and McCain are what the culture of corruption wants.

    My God in Heaven, to compare a poor choice of words to outright lies and a long history of treachery to the working class of America is unfathomable to me. Ultimately if white America is truly as racist and stupid as the media, Clinton and McCain hopes, we are truly doomed. Is he guilty of being a city slicker with little or no understanding of rural life? Maybe, but so what. Is that his biggest crime? He on the other hand, is not out of touch with the overlapping foundation of concerns and frustrations in small town America, because those things are shared by working Americans everywhere.

    Please forgive the tone of my comments. Finally rural America is getting attention, but from my view, Clinton, McCain and the media are attempting to trivialize the seriousness of the larger problems. There are approximately 60 Million people living in rural America and 30% of that population produces a large percentage of the world's food supply and our importance to the strength of America is very important. If rural America is ignored and marginalized, we are in real trouble as a nation. The crumbling or non-existant infrastructure of rural areas is not dissimilar to the struggles and challenges that were exposed in the Katrina tragedy. These challenges are the things that we must face as a nation that puts people and prinicples ahead of greed. Greed is the real enemy of us all and Indifference and Ignorance are its helpmates.

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