07/27/08 - Post-Crescent: Election Weekly: Who's who and what's what in the campaigns.
When Iowa propelled Barack Obama to prominence in the Democratic presidential contest, rural voters set the tone.
Leading up to those January caucuses, Hillary Rodham Clinton was the odds-on favorite to get the nomination.
Likewise the Republican race was wide open. John McCain's campaign was languishing until New Hampshire. His January victory was a turning point in the race.
The outcome of the primaries is indicative, in part, of how emboldened rural communities are this presidential year.
"We're trying to get rural people to realize, we matter. Our voices ought to be heard, and not only that -- America needs to be prosperous economically," said Niel Ritchie, League of Rural Voters executive director.
The organization represents communities in greater Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin. It estimates 20 percent of the American population, or 55 million people, live in rural communities.
"Rural communities have a right to have vital economies," said Winona LaDuke, an environmental activist and head of the White Earth Land Recovery Project in Minnesota. "Not just certain cities have (a right to) health care in the richest country in the world or an adequate education system that is not third rate."
LaDuke was Ralph Nader's running mate for the Green Party in the 2000 presidential election. Some Democrats still blame Al Gore's loss to George W. Bush on the Nader followers.
Voters everywhere are raising concerns over soaring gas prices, the protracted war in Iraq, affordable health care and education. But nowhere is it greater than in these communities.
Many of those who drive to work, shops, hospitals and other locations that offer essential services travel longer distances, Ritchie said.
He says America's war effort has taken a disproportionate toll on rural communities. "They've been fighting a war with National Guards and Reserves and taken key people away from our communities."
They are struggling to retain their youth who are more drawn to the urban lifestyle.
"A lot of our people move into cities and don't come back," LaDuke said.
There are challenges, but there also are signs that rural America is on the cusp of revival.
Ritchie cites these communities' resourcefulness, for instance, in figuring out how to deliver innovative hospital services in difficult economic times.
Organizations like his are trying to raise the profiles of rural communities.
"How priorities are addressed in Washington (D.C.) is always a crap shoot (with regards to farmers" concerns)," Ritchie said. "We're trying to make the whole of rural America more visible and prominent and having it be something that people, when they think of it, don't think of the past."
A positive development for the Great Lakes and Great Plains areas is the potential development of alternate forms of energy, including harnessing wind power.
"That's rural jobs, not city jobs," LaDuke said. "You gotta have these communities put up the wind turbines and own them."
Election Weekly, a weekly roundup of election news that will run Sunday until the Nov. 4 election, is reported and compiled by Post-Crescent staff writer J. E. Espino: 920-993-1000, ext. 426, or jespino@postcrescent.com.
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