Fri Jan 25, 2013, 08:37 AM
global1 (10,299 posts)
If The Dems Made A Concerted Effort To Appeal To Rural Voters What Would You Recommend They Do?....
I was reading a post this a.m. that garnered a lot of responses about "why Dems don't do well in rural areas". It made me wonder - what could Dems do to appeal to rural voters to get their vote?
Fair enough discussion question.
Of course, they have to be shitheads.
Response to global1 (Original post)
Fri Jan 25, 2013, 08:39 AM
mmonk (47,173 posts)
1. Send them somewhere they can get a quality education?
Like the big city shitholes? To be fair, several DUmmies shot him down over that one.
Response to hack89 (Reply #4)
Fri Jan 25, 2013, 10:01 AM
ananda (11,880 posts)
16. I guess they just don't teach the research and critical thinking skills..
.. needed to distinguish good ideas from bad, and good politicians from bad ones.
---boring squabble about Rhode Island I'll skip---
Response to global1 (Original post)
Fri Jan 25, 2013, 08:49 AM
patrice (44,971 posts)
2. Give them a "DU" & then tighten rules about being polite & avoiding gratuitous insults.
You have to start with people where they are, not where you think they should be.

.
Response to global1 (Original post)
Fri Jan 25, 2013, 09:06 AM
2pooped2pop (2,328 posts)
7. make sure they have internet
I would also do repeat mailers. Repeat because they will be glanced at and thrown away. Use things that matter to them Like what has the republicans done for farmers? What have the dems done? Put a few facts on postcards and mail them several times to them
Dems very nearly made spilled milk an environmental disaster, akin to an Exxon Valdez, with all the attending costs and bureaucratic nightmares. Dems very nearly made it illegal for your kid to help you on your farm.
Poop continues...
In other words you must blanket them with truth to counter the fox crap.
They listen to more am radio because in some areas it's all they can get. So use am radio to advertise.
This is not something that will change overnight but right now they get the fox news view of the world and that is largely it. Send facts, send them again, and yet again. Make in pertinent to their lives, farming, rural roads, schools.
More households are ran by males out here with the woman still being more influenced by what the husbands point of view might be.
Litter their mailboxes with junk from a smarmy politician. Over and over again. That ought to do it. And what does that broadbrush snark at the end have to do with anything?
Response to LonePirate (Reply #10)
Fri Jan 25, 2013, 10:20 AM
leftstreet (21,828 posts)
26. 'emphasize' Single Payer National Healthcare, $20 an hour Minimum Wage n/t

That should work! They'll have to pay the guy who mucks out the stalls a boatload of money! Yay!
Response to global1 (Original post)
Fri Jan 25, 2013, 09:38 AM
tama (8,757 posts)
11. ...
And think further, there are lots of urban folks who want to grow some of their own food. Part time or full time, but can't afford to buy land. Access to patch of fertile land should be a human right and citizen right that belongs to everyone.
Lurker Deluxe (114 posts)
21. Promise them what?
Hell, let's just give them cash.
Vote the way we want you to and we will give you ONE MILLION DOLLARS!!!!
Who would you take this land from that you are going to "give" them?
Access to a patch of fertile land is everyones "right"?? There are about 7 acres of land for every person in the country, should we just divide it up equally? Or does everyone have a "right" to land that can grow oranges? Does everyone then have a "right" to mass transit to get to their little patch of land? Or do the people who live in NYC have the rights to the (8MX7=56M acres) entire state of NY and half of PA?
Response to Lurker Deluxe (Reply #21)
Fri Jan 25, 2013, 10:22 AM
tama (8,757 posts)
27. Land reform
is the classic divide with genuine progressive movements and right wing policies of protecting the haves and robbing the have-nots.
Lurker Deluxe (114 posts)
40. What?
"classic divide with genuine progressive movements"
What does that mean? The USA has property rights, the government can not just take land from people to give it other people. It is against the constitution. If you think that "genuine progressive" means to take from one set of people to give to a different set of people than your movement is going nowhere.
As soon as you start talking about taking land from other people and giving it to someone else you will lose 80% of both sides. Even more so because you want to take land from people who vote one way and give it others to vote the way you want them to.
Response to Lurker Deluxe (Reply #40)
Fri Jan 25, 2013, 11:09 AM
tama (8,757 posts)
47. As you say
It's not yours but all stolen from first nations.
Oh here we go.
And then some honesty:
Response to Lurker Deluxe (Reply #21)
Fri Jan 25, 2013, 10:50 AM
Lydia Leftcoast (46,269 posts)
41. Did you know that the U.S. imposed land reform on Japan and Taiwan after World War II?
Yup, it used to be a Dem value.
Agribusiness made out like the bandits they are after the artificial "debt crisis" of the early 1980s. The double whammy of high interest rates and low crop prices forced the sale of countless family farms to agribusiness, destroying both long-standing family businesses and many rural towns. I was living in Minnesota at that time. Heartbreaking stories of families losing farms that they had owned since the homesteading era were on the news all the time.
The Dems did NOTHING.
Sure, it was the Reagan administration, but the Dems still had a majority in the House. They could have proposed debt relief for farmers in the form of low-interest loans. Even if the proposal had died in the Senate or been vetoed by Reagan, the Dems could have campaigned on "We tried to save you, but the Republicans wouldn't let us."
Instead, they did NOTHING.
That's when they really lost rural voters.
I think some here remember those days.
Response to global1 (Original post)
Fri Jan 25, 2013, 10:12 AM
sadbear (3,640 posts)
22. What does it mean to choose to be rural in the 21st Century?
Is that compatible with social and economic progress? I honestly don't know.
Oh my God, what an asshole.
Lurker Deluxe (114 posts)
43. You can't have it both ways
You can't say get dems in there who will build trust among the electorate, when at the same time you cry foul that those very same people will not vote for gun control.
Anyone who votes for gun control that is from a rural district will not be there the next cycle.
Response to Lurker Deluxe (Reply #43)
Fri Jan 25, 2013, 10:57 AM
Lydia Leftcoast (46,269 posts)
44. Maybe they care about guns so much because their other needs are not being met. Ever think about that?

Stupidest post of the day. WTF.
They don't "need" anything from you, Lydia. These people stand on their own two feet. Ever think about that?
A dose of wisdom:
regjoe (171 posts)
33. Could start by
understanding and respecting the fact that our way of life is much different than those of you in urban areas, and that because of this, our beliefs and values are different.
Urban areas need and desire a collective sort of rules and laws that we do not, so forcing them unto us creates resentment which causes many to vote for the other side.
Another big thing would be to stop pretending that anyone who has a differing opinion is unintelligent or misinformed. That we would agree with you on everything if progressive opinions were on the 'talking box' 24 hours a day.
Response to global1 (Original post)
Fri Jan 25, 2013, 11:43 AM
quinnox (14,507 posts)
79. tell them to wise up
And stop clinging to backwards notions about politics. It is the twenty first century, not 1950s or before.

Genius!
Response to global1 (Original post)
Fri Jan 25, 2013, 11:43 AM
patrice (44,971 posts)
81. Passenger rail service. nt

Is this a mole?
Response to global1 (Original post)
Fri Jan 25, 2013, 12:46 PM
B Calm (17,217 posts)
105. HIGH SPEED INTERNET
Look at that. They can only see a Santa Claus type of POV. What free ponies can we come up with? They have no clue.
Response to global1 (Original post)
Fri Jan 25, 2013, 01:18 PM
Lurker Deluxe (114 posts)
109. Reading this thread
In reading this thread it shows me how many people have absolutely no clue at all about "rural" towns and the life the people in them have.
I was born and raised in upstate NY on a dairy farm in village of Cattaraugus in Cattaraugus County NY. My family moved to Houston when I was not old enough to influence that decision and although I have been back to see family that remains their way of life is just as foreign to me as mine is to them.
Build infastructure? LOL! The main road that leads through the village is, to this day, red brick. When we moved here in the late 70's it was a culture shock, the crowding, the pace, the things people in the city deal with every single day. Those things simply do not exist in places like Cattaraugus.
Teach critical thinking? LOL! When that truck is stuck in the snow drift or the tractor will not start because it's 10 below I wonder how many of you "critical thinkers" would even have a clue on what to do?
Alternitive energy? ROFL! Most homes have no central air, and the majority are heated with wood or coal fired boilers. Oil lamps, candles, and cords of stacked wood are the things that people there make sure they have in plenty ... not windmills.
Well people certainly live "in poverty" there are no homeless people and no one goes hungry. There is food everywhere, milk by the bucket, and no lack of fresh anything. There is no McDonalds ...
If you have never lived somewhere like that you will never understand, and when you think that you are somehow better, smarter, or enlightened is why they will have nothing to do with you. People there vote R because the R's preach "no government intervention" which is what they believe in. That is how they live.
Lurker Deluxe, you're in the wrong place.
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