July 2, 2004
Bush and Kerry Vie for Support of Rural Voters
By ROBIN TONER
LOQUET, Minn., July 1 — Four years ago, George W. Bush won some of his biggest and most decisive margins among rural and small-town voters.
But Democrats say economic troubles and the war in Iraq have taken a disproportionate toll on rural communities. They vow that the struggle for these voters will be — must be — far more competitive this time around. So Senator John Kerry will come on Friday to Cloquet, not far from Duluth, and kick off a three-day Independence weekend bus tour across Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa, trying to connect with small-town America.
The Republicans are hardly ceding this political ground. The Bush campaign fired off a rough bon voyage to Mr. Kerry on Thursday, with a news release headlined, "Top 10 Reasons Why John Kerry Is Wrong for Rural America." (No. 1 was his opposition to Mr. Bush's tax cuts, while No. 4 was his "F" rating from the National Rifle Association.)
And Vice President Dick Cheney will embark this weekend on his own bus tour, beginning in Parma, Ohio, passing through West Virginia's northern panhandle, ending up in western Pennsylvania, at a baseball game in Altoona.
It will be a battle of heartland imagery as Mr. Kerry tries to show a different side from the urban, liberal Northeasterner so often caricatured by his Republican opponents — to show rural voters that "he looks like them, talks like them, and cares about them," as John Norris, his national field director (who hails from Iowa), puts it.
Mr. Kerry will listen to the concerns of farmers in Bloomer, Wis.; eat barbecue with voters in Independence, Iowa; and watch the fireworks on the Mississippi River near Dubuque. He might even do some shooting, as he did during the Iowa caucus campaign last year. He will also meet with veterans and military families along the way, in a region where many have a personal connection to a soldier in Iraq.
Past elections show just how important this effort is for the Democrats. Bill Clinton held his own among rural voters in both his presidential campaigns, losing that bloc by only a few points to President George Bush in 1992 and Senator Bob Dole in 1996, according to surveys of voters leaving polling places..
But the rural vote, which amounted to 23 percent of the electorate in 2000, broke decisively, 59 percent to 37 percent, for Mr. Bush four years ago, according to those surveys, while Vice President Al Gore carried the cities and the two men split the suburbs.
Republicans say they are confident that rural voters in the end, will make the same judgment about Mr. Bush in 2004 that they made four years ago — that he understands them, shares their cultural values on issues like abortion restrictions and the rights of gun owners, and is, essentially, one of them.
Matthew Dowd, the pollster for the Bush campaign, said that, if anything, Mr. Kerry, given his background and voting record as a Massachusetts Democrat, would have an even harder time making inroads with these voters than did Mr. Gore, who had represented Tennessee in the Senate.
The Republican trend among rural voters has been building for a decade, Mr. Dowd said, in large part because "they finally decided on a variety of social and cultural issues that the Democrats don't stand for the same things that they stand for."
That was clearly reflected in the views of Jon and Fay Haataja, a police officer and a stay-at-home mother of three from nearby Esko, heading to breakfast this morning at the Family Tradition Restaurant. Mrs. Haataja said "moral issues" were uppermost for her, and added, "We're going to vote for the president."
Bill McInturff, another Republican pollster, said that "the notion that there's some consensus in rural America shifting in this race seems to me to be substantially overblown." Mr. Bush may have slipped some among rural women because of Iraq and the economy, he added, but Republicans can make up that ground by election time.
But Democrats say that times have changed. The loss of manufacturing jobs, the "out-sourcing" of jobs overseas and the continued troubles in the farm economy have put the economic agenda front and center in these communities, they say. Dealing with the rising cost of health insurance, a main part of Mr. Kerry's program, is even more important in towns with many struggling small businesses. And with the disproportionate number of retirees in many of these communities, preserving traditional Medicare and Social Security looms large, Democrats say.
At the same time, Mr. Kerry's aides say, the campaign is not giving ground on some of the key cultural issues. "We will do things to make sure people understand that guns should not be an issue because John Kerry is a sportsman, a hunter," said Mr. Norris, who helped Mr. Kerry win the Iowa caucuses earlier this year. While Mr. Kerry has supported some "gun safety" issues like the ban on assault weapons, the Kerry campaign says, the candidate is firmly committed to protecting the Second Amendment.
His latest biography advertisement, in fact, declares, "He's a husband and father, a pilot, a hunter, a hockey player" and shows an image of Mr. Kerry hunting.
Moreover, Kerry aides say that they will simply fight harder for rural votes this time. They are sending organizers to many rural communities, they said. "And we are going to talk to them more directly than any Democratic presidential candidate has talked to them in years," Mr. Norris said.
Anna Greenberg, a Democratic pollster who says that Mr. Bush has already suffered erosion with these voters, added, "I think Bush is still going to win rural areas, but he needs to win them at the margins he won in the past."
The most recent New York Times/CBS News showed some decline in Mr. Bush's approval rating among rural voters this year, reflecting the national trend, but he was still, on balance, given a positive rating.
Mr. Kerry is beginning his small-town America tour in an area of Democratic strength, in Minnesota's Eighth Congressional District. Representative James L. Oberstar, the Democrat who has represented this area since 1974, described his voters as interested in "progressive economics" — "people who belong to strong unions, want a strong wage, strong Social Security, a strong Medicare drug benefit" — but "cautious on social values" and "very, very strong for gun rights."
The war is felt heavily here, Mr. Oberstar added. "It's the uncertainty of people being ripped out of their homes and their families," he said. "This Iraq incursion has created a great deal of disruption among the guards and reserves."
A small group of Kerry supporters who met in a tavern here Wednesday night reflected that. Mike Sundin, chairman of the Carlton County Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, said that his son had just returned from Iraq the day before. State Senator Becky Lourey said her son had just returned from Fallujah. And, she added, "I've been to three funerals of really wonderful kids."
