If our problem is rural voters

[dsc]

then why not Dean? Dean has a proven ability to win in rural races. He is 8 and 0 in Vermont which is about as rural as it gets. (He won 2 Lt Gov races, 5 Gov races, and 1 Presidential primary) None of our candidates in 2004 could say that. All of them either never ran for office or did so in entirely urban districts(Gephardt, Kucinich) or mostly urban/suburban states(Mosley-Braun, Lieberman, Graham, Kerry). On the other hand Dean won a majority of rural votes in all but one of his races (his last Gov race being the exception). There are very few if any Democratic politicians who get a majority of their votes from rural people. Dean is one of those. If we are really serious about appealing to rural people, then we need to find out how our politicans who have been doing so, do so. Dean should be able to help us do that.

[JI7]

1. Kerry won the rural vote in Vermont also

in the Presidential election.

[dsc]

4. That really is different

Dean bet Vermont Republicans not Bush in Vermont. Vermont is comfortably one party for President but a swing state at the local level.

[JI7]

6. same with many other states

Chuck Schumer and Barbara Boxer won rural areas in New York and California also.

[dsc]

8. I saw Boxer's map

and she didn't win any rural areas. Schumer may have but he also ran against a nobody. Boxer won nothing but costal counties, which in California are almost entirely urban or suburban.

[Syrinx]

2. I agree. Dean is the man.

But you'll probably get a lot of wisecracks about southerners in your replies.

[mark414]

3. hmm

i would say that there is a difference between vermont rural and say, kansas rural or georgia rural, or my own state of wisconsin rural

the northeast is a LOT different from the rest of the country and that's something to remember...

[hfojvt]

12. Ì was going to say the same thing

being from the midwest, I think of the east as being basically one big city of Boswash and with a high population density, but Vermont is still basically the upstate New York that it was when it was created. In 1988 it had a lower population density than the US average. Its largest city is Burlington with 39,127 people. Its capitol city is Montpelier with a mere 8247 people, less than Pierre, SD. The nearest major city is Montreal, Canada. It is on an interstate, but it looks to be about as far as the distance from Ironwood to Wausau as it is from Montpelier to Concord, and Concord is only 36,000 people (of course I just looked it up and Wausau is only about 37,000. I remember it as being much bigger. My standards of size seem to have changed since moving to a couple cities that are 35,000.) True, you could fit Vermont into the area of Phillips and Big Horn counties in Montana, but it is still pretty rural.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[arewenotdemo]

7. Waking up?

Coulda fooled me.

[dsc]

9. by any measure

Vermont is rural. It is among the least populated and the least densely populated states in the nation. Yes, you can find more remote places but rural is rural.

[hfojvt]

15. well I agreed for the most part

but not about the "least densely populated". I am surprised to find that Texas is more densely populated than Vermont, but for 1988 I find Vermont at 58.3, the US at 68.1, Alaska at .9, New Hampshire at 37.8, ND at 9.8, SD at 9.3, Montana at 5.6, Wyoming at 5.2, Kansas at 30.1 (and I am sure it would be much less if you took out the KC metro area). Vermont seems to lack a large city, but Chittenden county has 131,000 people which is slightly more than Minehaha, SD even though Burlington shows as being much smaller than Sioux Falls.

[Lexingtonian]

10. Vermont is a little different

People there don't get most of their news from talk radio and Fox News Channel there, or 'learn' about politicians from fellow churchgoers. And there are rather too many people around who've gone to genuine colleges for massive groupthink to be the norm. Plus, Vermont is populationwise too small a state to support two competitive parties and too small for there to be an urban/rural split- there is no urban Vermont, with only the sprawl of things not quite towns that composes Burlington as vaguely city-ish.

[dsc]

11. Dean was both preceeded by and suceeded by a Republican gov

Jeffords has been a Senator there for 2 decades and was a Republican until 2001. It is ludicrous to suggest Vermont is some one party state.

[Lexingtonian]

14. it isn't

Neither Party seems to be able to lock up enough of the limited local talent to make it a one Party state. It means that races tend to be between a talented and persuasive person and a competitor who really isn't at the same level, and elections tend to be 57-42 kinds of affairs where no one is surprised at the outcomes.

Jeffords is sort of the last survivor from when Vermont was pretty solidly New England Republican, up to the late Seventies. (Btw, it's come up very recently that he may not be running for reelection in '06 and Bernie Sanders seems to want to run for the seat, which puts regional Dean fans in a bit of a quandry.)

http://www.dcpoliticalreport.com/VT

[kerrygoddess]

13. Excuse Me?

Take a drive through MA and then on into NH there is still a lot of rural in both States. Kerry won NH and has obviously won every race (except his 1st) in MA.

And Duh! It was a given Dean would win the primary in VT... hello? Of course none of the other candidates could say they won 5 Gov races, they were never Gov's.

If we want to attract rural votes we need to stop making lame arguments about how to attract them and talk to the rural people instead!

[hfojvt]

16. none of the other candidates won in rural areas

was the point. and rural areas in Massachusetts? I do not believe that. The most rural area I see on the map is Franklin county and it has more people than Rapid City, SD and about 100 people per square mile. Where I come from it is not rural if you have more than ten houses on a section.

[kerrygoddess]

17. Excuse me, again?

I'm from Massachusetts. THERE ARE RURAL AREAS. I grew up in a rural area, and it's still rural there! And evidently you know nothing about Yankees from MA. I'm not talking about Boston Blue Bloods, I'm talking about the families with generations in the farming and fishing industry. These people don't come close to being city folks by a landslide.

The population has grown in many areas of rural MA because it is fashionable to live there, but the locals are none to pleased by it. They are rural people and they are very much like rural people all over this country.

[hfojvt]

23. you are excused

again.
Maybe the areas were rural, but once the population soars to the size of a small city, then they no longer are. Besides which, you seem to be missing the whole point about proximity. I am from places like South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin. The rural there is so totally different from what you have in Mass that the two cannot have the same name.
For example, look at Hand County, SD. There are farms there which are five miles from the nearest paved road. The average is about one farm per section. Just in case we do not speak the same language, a "section" is a square mile. Once you get to a paved road, it is say twelve miles to the nearest town, Miller, population 1678. The nearest "city" would be Huron, population 12,000 and falling, which is forty miles away from Miller. That is what I mean by rural, not only farming country, but sparsely populated and isolated.
The most isolated place I can see in Mass is Barre or Worthington or Charlemont. They all look to be closer to fairly large cities than my Dakota farmer is to Miller.
I think I know something about Yankees, although except for the Kingsburys and the Halls my people were from Connecticut. Maybe they were bluebloods, some branches went to Yale.

[kerrygoddess]

25. Trying to compare apples and oranges

Yes the two can have the same name and rural areas basically fall under the same clssifications of population.

There are more sparsely populated rural areas in other parts of the country, such as SD, as you note, but approximately 50% of the towns in MA are classified as rural.

These areas still face the same challenges that other rural areas face, regardless of whether or not they have dirt roads or are isolated.

"Not very rural, Massachusetts ranks in the bottom 10 on most Importance indicators. But rural education is still fairly important to the Bay State, with more than half a million people living in rural communities (more than either Vermont or New Hampshire, or for that matter, South Dakota and Wyoming combined). Rural schools are big, lag in making use of classroom computers (4th worst nationwide), and many are declining in enrollment. But rural teachers are paid well and few states get a higher percentage of rural school expenditures into the classroom."
http://www.ruraledu.org/states/ma.htm

The town I grew up in had a population of about 3000 when I was growing up. My parents were depression era children, my Grandfather raised, grew or hunted to feed his family of 9 children.

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

27. If Massachusetts is a rural state...

then I'm a monkey's uncle



Look at Iowa, then look at Massachusetts.
Look at Minnesota, then look at Massachusetts.
Look at Wyoming, then look at Massachusetts.

[kerrygoddess]

28. I'm not saying it is rural State

I am saying there are still a lot of rural areas in MA and a lot of rural type voters.

MA is densely populated and even back in it's early days, homes were built close together in many towns and cities, particularly in the coastal areas that relied on the ports for industry.

Even Kerry talked about the fact that there are still many rural areas in MA.

It's astounding that people here want to dispute this with someone who has openly stated they lived there and know the State.

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

30. You know why we lose rural voters?

Because Democrats can't tell the difference between Massachusetts and Iowa. And if you don't think there's a difference, go ask an Iowa farmer.

[kerrygoddess]

34. There is a difference...

I'll grant you that. However, there is also a difference between the VT rural voters and the Iowa rural voters. This is something that Dean supporters also need to get.

Rural voters are different all over the country, yet they all have some basic inherant ideals, I believe and those are more or less transmuted into their "values".

[arcos]

18. Dean won the VT primary after dropping out...

did Gephardt win MO?
did Lieberman win CT?
did Graham win FL?

No, no, and no.

[dsc]

24. Two things

One, You can easily win in Massachusetts without a single rural vote. Both Mosley-Braun and Graham also have rural voters in their states. But my point is that all three won due to urban votes not rural ones. Dean won with rural votes.

Second, I can think of only one other case where a candidate who was as out of it as Dean won his state's Presidential primary. Simon in 88 and that was to keep him viable for 1990. The best analogy would have been Brown in 1992 who lost California to Clinton. It is very impressive that Dean won that primary and with 60% of the vote. It shows that those who knew Dean best had an enormous amount of respect and love for the man.

[Radical Activist]

19. Rural Vermont

is a far cry from the rural south and midwest. It's like apples and oranges. I think you have to make a real strong effort to ignore that fact and pretend otherwise. Ivy league New England millionaires don't have a broad appeal in the rural south and midwest.

[ProgressiveConn]

20. I've got a case that proves you wrong. =)

"Ivy league New England millionaires don't have a broad appeal in the rural south and midwest."

George W Bush is an ivy league millionaire new englander and he did just fine didn't he? =)

[Radical Activist]

21. Look at the lengths Bush goes to

in order to show how Texan and average he is. Your example just shows that Bush understands I'm right because he makes such big efforts to compensate. The average Bush voter doesn't think of him that way. Can Dean be as big a fake as Bush and put on that much of an act? I hope not. Of course, Dean already got elected from Vermont, not Texas, so its too late.

[ProgressiveConn]

22. I agree with what you're saying partially.

Bush has embraced southern redneck-hatemonger elitism. Kerry embraced New England elitism. Even though in reality both are rich ivy league NE brats. I don't think that Dean needs to embrace the redneck style elitism that Bush has. Dean is real.

Clinton was "real." Gore and Kerry were not. =(

We won't win by trying to elect people who come off as fakes regardless of what state they come from.

[kerrygoddess]

26. There you go using Rovian talking points

"Kerry embraced New England elitism"

[ProgressiveConn]

31. I'm a New England Elitist.

As was Kerry. Just as anyone who would ever fly a confederate flag can safely be called a southern elitist. Although I prefer the term redneck-elitist. =)

[kerrygoddess]

32. That's your opinion then...

But it's still a rovian Talking Point and not everyone looks at Kerry as being an elitist.

[ProgressiveConn]

35. Yep my opinion, nothing more. nt

[NewYorkerfromMass]

29. more like acorns and pineapples

the comparison of Vermont ANYthing to another state is a waste of time.
Dean is a NE liberal and he would be at a handicap anywhere in any red state.
Rural has nothing to do with it.

[2Design]

33. problem is truth against religiousity - and also blk vs white

rich vs poor
redneck vs other
science vs religiousity
sanity vs insanity

confederates vs union

the south is rising again - in complete and total discrimination again