Abstract

Ominous pattern

The article discusses voter trends in rural America prior to the 2004 presidential elections. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry should be reaping votes in the Upper Midwest. Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa rejected President George W. Bush's candidacy in 2000, just as they have every Republican presidential contender since 1988. But Kerry is running into trouble in the Upper Midwest. Even where grassroots activists are ready to save Kerry from himself, they complain that they cannot get the support they need from a campaign that still has a hard time understanding the politics of rural America. Developments in what should be the big issues of this campaign tended to favor Kerry--particularly with regard to the war in Iraq. There is an almost equal level of frustration with the economy. This fall, however, after an ugly August that saw more media attention paid to Kerry's Swift Boat service in Vietnam than to his stands on trade policy and rural healthcare, Kerry backers are not nearly so confident.