Democratic candidates who relied on rural voters to take control of the House and Senate in 2006 have largely ignored rural Americans the past several years, and it could cost them seats this election year in key races in mostly rural states, Matt Barron reports for The Hill. "With Senate
control hinging on the outcome of races in four of the nation's 10 most
rural states (West Virginia, Arkansas, South Dakota and Montana),
Democrats have allowed what little rural electoral and policy
infrastructure they once had to wither away and atrophy."
"With the exception of a Native American outreach effort, the national party committees have no rural vote components anymore," Barron writes. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee largely ignored rural America when it announced its community outreach chairs in March 2013, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has no rural desk and the Democratic National Committee's Rural Council "is unstaffed
and still stuck in second-class status, unable to become a full-fledged
caucuses. Why? Because under party rules, the group must represent at
least 2 percent of the DNC membership, and its members must share an 'immutable characteristic.' As a result, the roadblock is that being
rural is not a permanent trait. I swear, you can't make this stuff up."
"Things are no better at the state level—only a handful of state
parties have a rural caucus to recognize geographic minorities," Barron writes. "Despite
running on platforms that included pledges to form rural caucuses in
their states, the Democratic chairmen in Georgia and South Carolina have
yet to create them. In Massachusetts, a rural subcommittee adopted by
the state party in February remains stillborn, having never met."
The Senate Democratic Steering and Outreach
Committee folded its Senate Rural Outreach operation after led
by former Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark) lost the 2010 election, while the House Democratic Rural
Working Group no longer exists, Barron writes. David "Mudcat"
Saunders, one of the party's premier rural strategists, told Barron, "For them to
turn their backs on the South and rural America is electoral insanity, and it's damned immoral." (Read more)
No comments:
Post a Comment