Midwest at dusk

Read David Brooks' column with that headline in today's New York Times. In articulating an explanation of the mid-term election outcomes, he references the working class (but what does that term mean anymore?), and he suggests the relevance of geography to the political conundrum of our time. That is, he suggests --by reference the midwest (oddly defined, I might add, as Pennsylvania down to Arkansas)--that the Democrats' difficulty in connecting to the working class is as much a function of geography (the fly-over states versus the coasts) as it is class.

Referring to the "region of America that starts in central New York and Pennsylvania and then stretches out through Ohio and Indiana before spreading out to include Wisconsin and Arkansas," Brooks writes:

[T]his is the beating center of American life — the place where the trajectory of American politics is being determined. If America can figure out how to build a decent future for the working-class people in this region, then the U.S. will remain a predominant power. If it can’t, it won’t.

Hmmm. Can it be that the working class--what Joan Williams calls the "missing middle" is really so important to American politics? And can Brooks be right that the working class in the "midwest" is different to the working class elsewhere in America?

Finally, read a story here about Obama's (and the Democrats') alleged elitism, which arguably alienates the working class as the Democrats' fail to meet the group's needs.

Law and Order in the Ozarks (Part LXXI): Trial delayed

The past several issues of the Newton County Times have not featured much news of law-and-order issues, but the Sept. 29 issue did announce that the trial of a woman charged with first-degree murder in the death of her boyfriend was granted a continuance so that the woman might "find an expert witness who might testify that she suffered from Battered Women's Syndrome." Her trial, initially set for late September, was reset for March 17-18, 2011. An earlier post about the case is here.

The Oct. 6, 2010 edition features the lead story, "Bids for a new jail over budget," which reports that the lowest bid for the new Newton County jail came in at nearly $1 million more than the county has available for the project. The sheriff reported that a meeting has been" scheduled with the architect to review the facility's plan to see if the project can be scaled back even further than it already has been or possibly look at other county-owned buildings to see if one might be modified for use as a jail." One building being considered for this purpose is the former county nursing home, which is now being operated as an annex to the county courthouse.

The battle for Colorado's most rural congressional district

Kirk Johnson reports in today's New York Times on the race for Colorado's 3d Congressional district, where three-term incumbent John Salazar is defending against Republican Scott Tipton. The dateline is Creede, Colorado, population 377, the county seat and only incorporated municipality in Mineral County. An excerpt follows:

In Colorado’s huge and mostly rural Third Congressional District, it was a final-push weekend of consolidating support. Both candidates focused on giving their backers a nudge of resolve — a stiffening of the spine, an inspiration to vote and a rationale for doing so. The far-flung district and the small towns in it made the effort a geographic scramble, with appearances by both men in tiny communities hundreds of miles apart, courting a handful of votes that both sides said could decide the election.

The district’s political culture is prickly and unpredictable — Republican on paper, wildly libertarian in spirit, with pockets of Hispanic voters who lean Democratic.

Reflections on a hillbilly upbringing

I just came across a newspaper clipping a friend sent me about 18 mos. ago. It is about Helen Gurley Brown's (then) new autobiography, Bad Girls Go Everywhere. The book review, from the New York Times, notes that Brown was

born in Green Forest, Arkansas, a tiny town in the Ozark Mountains. Her father died when she was 10; her sister had polio, her family was "hillbilly," she wrote, and poor. Once she got out, she looked back only by force of will. She liked to quote a line from Carson McCullers: 'I must go home periodically to renew my sense of horror.'

The review goes on to comment that Brown's background "allowed her to speak effortlessly, later in her life, to the fears and aspirations of America's often ignored working class women." I admit that this is not exactly how I see Brown--as concerned or "in touch" with working class women.

I also admit that I don't see my "hillbilly" upbringing in the same way she sees hers. My hometown, Jasper, is less than 50 miles from Green Forest, population 2,717, and I know the town well because we played against Green Forest in sports when I was in high school. But my recollections of the Ozarks have, apparently unlike Brown's, softened over the years. What may once have been something akin to horror when I reflected on my hometown has evolved into something quite nostalgic--much more understanding and compassionate.

Maine school responds to declining enrollment by recruiting Chinese students

The dateline for Abby Goodenough's story in today's New York Times is Millinocket, Maine, population 5,203. Here's the story's lede:

Faced with dropping enrollment and revenue, the high school in this remote Maine town has fixed on an unlikely source of salvation: Chinese teenagers.

Never mind that Millinocket is an hour’s drive from the nearest mall or movie theater, or that it gets an average 93 inches of snow a year. Kenneth Smith, the schools superintendent, is so certain that Chinese students will eventually arrive by the dozen — paying $27,000 a year in tuition, room and board — that he is scouting vacant properties to convert to dormitories.

Millinocket is a mill town in Penobscot County, population 149,419.

Navajo consider a turn away from coal, to renewable energy

Read Mireya Navarro's report in today's New York Times. The lede follows:

For decades, coal has been an economic lifeline for the Navajos, even as mining and power plant emissions dulled the blue skies and sullied the waters of their sprawling reservation.

But today there are stirrings of rebellion. Seeking to reverse years of environmental degradation and return to their traditional values, many Navajos are calling for a future built instead on solar farms, ecotourism and microbusinesses.

This debate about the future of the Navajo Nation is occurring in the context of a leadership election to be decided on Nov. 2.

Disputing the proper use of a two-lane highway in rural Idaho

Tom Zeller, Jr., reported a few days in the New York Times about a dispute in Idaho over the use of a two-lane road, Highway 12, in the vicinity of the Idaho/Montana state line, to transport massive equipment to Alberta, Canada, where it will be used in oil extraction from the tar sands.

[I]nternational oil companies see this meandering, backcountry route as a road to riches. They are angling to use U.S. 12 to ship gargantuan loads of equipment from Vancouver, Wash., to Montana and the tar sands of Alberta in Canada. The companies say the route would save time and money and provide a vital economic boost to Montana and Idaho.

* * *

According to plans submitted to state regulators, some of the shipments would weigh more than 600,000 pounds, stand as tall as a three-story building, stretch nearly two-thirds the length of a football field and occupy 24 feet side-to-side — the full width of U.S. 12’s two lanes for much of its course through Idaho.

Husband and wife, Linwood Laughy and Borg Hendrickson, who live along Highway 12, have sued Conoco Phillips and Imperial Oil to stop this use of Highway 12. They argue that "the loads would threaten the integrity of Idaho’s historic portion of U.S. 12, as well as the safety of communities that depend on it as the main road in and out of the area." Environmentalist groups, seeing this as an effort to stop oil extraction from the sands, are supporting the couple's efforts.

Defining "rural states" in the context of political polarization

In his op-ed piece in today's New York Times Ari Berman refers to "small rural states" in relation to so-called Blue Dog Democrats. In "Boot the Blue Dogs," Berman writes of the early promise of the Obama administration, paired with Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. Berman then asks what went wrong and proceeds to answer that question:

One important explanation is that divisions inside the Democratic coalition, which held together during the 2008 campaign, have come spilling out into the open. Conservative Democrats have opposed key elements of the president’s agenda, while liberal Democrats have howled that their majority is being hijacked by a rogue group of predominantly white men from small rural states. President Obama himself appears caught in the middle, unable to satisfy the many factions inside his party’s big tent.

I suppose the reference to "small rural states" is a reference to states with relatively small populations because the states that Berman presumably has in mind are rarely small in terms of territory. These states probably include Alabama, North Carolina, and Tennessee, for example, none of which is particularly diminutive population-wise. This is especially true when the Southern states from which the Blue Dogs tend to hail are compared to states in the West and the Great Plains that are popularly thought of as rural, e.g., Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota, but whose Democratic members of Congress are less likely to be labeled "Blue Dog."

I regret Berman's alignment of the Blue Dog Democrats with "rural states," in part because there are very, very few rural states in this country--at least as measured by population and the U.S. government's definition of "rural" (those living in a population cluster of less than 2,500 or in open territory). Among the states in which rural populations exceed urban populations are Montana (50.2% rural) and North Carolina (50.8%). Only 26.1% of Alaska's population is rural; for Wyoming, the figure is just 37.8%. In Utah, only 12.1% of residents live in rural places. As for the Southern states to which Berman appears to refer, only 43% of Alabamans live in rural places, and only 43.6% of Tennessee residents do. The figure for Arkansas is 46.1%.

Indeed, the most rural states--those with the largest percentage of their populations living in rural places--are in New England, not in the South. In Vermont, a whopping 72.3% of the population live in rural places, while the figure for Maine is 59.6% and the figure for New Hampshire is 55.4%. But not all New England states are so rural, of course. In Massachusetts, only 30.6% of the populace live in rural places. Furthermore, while some New England states are rural by this U.S. Census Bureau measure, their populations are not challenged by remoteness and spatial isolation in the way rural residents of the West and, to a lesser extent, the South, are. Rather, in New England, these rural villages butt up against one another, and I suspect relatively few people live in open territory. In any event, somewhat ironically, these New England states that are most rural by some measures are not the problem states with which Berman is concerned. Indeed, New England is known for its more progressive politics.

(California, by the way, is a tiny 9% rural, while New York is just 22.3% rural. Texas is 24.4% rural.)

In any event, what Berman seems to be getting at is the fact that many Blue Dog Democrats represent districts with significant rural populations. Furthermore, these Blue Dogs tend to espouse values that are typically associated with rural populations: tradition, stasis, conservatism. The Blue Dogs as a political phenomenon are yet another way in which the culture wars are increasingly aligned with the rural-urban axis. That is unfortunate, and a topic I've written about elsewhere.

Still, Berman makes a good point re: the need for greater ideological unity among Democrats. I tend to agree with that point and agree that it could benefits the Democrats--especially in the short term. I regret, however, some of the political consequences that would flow from pushing the Blue Dogs out from under the Democratic Party tent. Specifically, I worry about further ostracizing a constituency that the Democrats should be courting--socioeconomically disadvantaged people who would benefit from the Democrats' fiscal agenda.

Nebraska's rural counties shake off recession, though they are still far from affluent

This story in the Lincoln (Nebraska) Journal Star last week-end reports that the economic profiles of several of Nebraska's poorest counties--sparsely populated rural ones, of course--have improved in the last decade, at least relative to other counties. Here's an excerpt:

A decade ago, the per capita income in Blaine County ranked second from the bottom among all 3,110 counties in the United States.

It was one of seven Nebraska counties in the bottom 12.

But now Blaine County -- about 150 miles north of Grand Island and home only to Uncle Buck's Lodge at Brewster and a handful of other retail businesses -- has climbed to the top half of the per-capita list at No. 1,384.

All six of the seven Nebraska counties, except McPherson, escaped the dubious, bottom-of-the-barrel distinction in the 2008 rankings, the most recent available from the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Blaine County, population 583, is in central/north central Nebraska. McPherson County, population 533, is in the central/west central part of the state. The photos of the respective county courthouses, in Brewster and Tyron, respectively, are shown at the wikipedia links for the counties. The one in Brewster (population 29)looks old; the one in Tyron (population 90), new-ish, but about the size of an average ranch-style home.

For more recent demographic and economic data on Blaine County, click here.

For more recent data on McPherson County, click here.

Read the rest of the Lincoln JournalStar story here.

UC Davis med school trains physicians to serve rural areas

A story on the UC Davis website spotlights "country doctors" and reports on the recently launched Rural-PRIME program at the University's medical school. The program trains medical students for careers in rural primary-care medicine. Here's an excerpt:

“We will have a doctor shortage of 17,000 physicians in five years and a large part of those are in rural areas,” said Donald Hilty, medical director of Rural Medical Education at the UC Davis Health System. “The population is growing and we have a generation of physicians that are about to retire and the ones that do train disproportionally settle in urban areas.”

With training in public health issues, telemedicine and other technologies, students receive a combined medical doctorate and master’s degree in public health, medical informatics or another health field. The training sites in California are located in Truckee, Reedley and Jackson.

Our campus is a partner with six other UC schools, with 250 students at seven UC campuses (Davis, Irvine, UCLA, San Diego, San Francisco, Berkeley and Riverside). Rural-PRIME is expected to grow to 300 students next year.

See a related video here.

More on Democrats' vulnerability in the rural South

The New York Times has run several stories in the past few days about southern Democrats' struggles in U.S. Congressional and Senate races this fall. Here's one focusing on Senator Blanche Lincoln from Arkansas, and here's one focusing more on race, which I blogged about a few days ago. The most recent headline is "Democrats Grip on the South Continues to Slip," and in it journalist Jeff Zeleny's analysis attends briefly to the rural-urban axis. He writes:

The Southern white Democrat, long on the endangered list, is at risk of being pushed one step closer to extinction.

From Virginia to Florida and South Carolina to Texas, nearly two dozen Democratic seats are susceptible to a potential Republican surge in Congressional races on Election Day, leaving the party facing a situation where its only safe presence in the South is in urban and predominantly black districts.

Zeleny briefly profiles a number of Congressional races in Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi, and he notes the campaign rhetoric Democrats are using to separate themselves from President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. One Democrat candidate, Roy Herron, who is seeking the open seat in Tennessee's Sixth District, "said he was trying to persuade people that he is still 'a Tennessee Democrat, a conservative.'" Zeleny's report indicates that Herron plays the rural card in how he presents himself as a "truck-driving, shotgun shooting, Bible reading, gospel preaching, crime-fighting, family-loving country boy.”

Other posts, from 2008, about politics in the rural South include this, this, and this.