Homestead mailing list

[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

> On the homefront, Democrats are talking about how to reconnect with rural 
> voters. It's an important conversation, as much about the decline in the 
> party's fortunes can be traced to the fact that people who live in small 
> towns provided President Bush with overwhelming support in 2004.

I expected just that. I have long found it an fascinating phenomenon that 
ruralites, who tend to be lower on the economic scale, many below the 
national poverty level, are conservative in their values and their votes. 
In hill country, this dates to moonshiner run-ins with revenooers and no 
doubt earlier. When you are scraping a living in a hard way, you don't 
appreciate being taxed on your efforts. Democrats must do more than pander 
to rural social needs if they wish to overcome this condition.

What will change some small town attitudes more than what either party does 
is changing demographics. As urbanites move to rural venues, they carry 
their dependency attitudes with them. This often creates conflict in their 
new areas.

I consider Bush to be an anomaly. He is not a typical conservative 
Republican. Cut taxes, yes, that is conservative and appealing to rural 
voters. But increase national debt, enlarge social programs and the size of 
the government, no, those things are antithetical to rural values.