Palin attempts to play identity politics in rural America

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s acceptance of the GOP nomination for Vice President of the United States raises questions about rural voting patterns that outsiders seem to misunderstand. In small town Iowa, at least, the assumptions I hear made on television aren’t likely to prove true.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin speaks to the Republican convention in St. Paul (Photo: 2008 Republican National Convention and Reflections Photography)

Palin’s speech to accept her nomination used the words “small town” five times.  “I had the privilege of living most of my life in a small town,” she remarked.

“I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities,” she continued, ripping into one part of Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama’s biography.

But while highlighting her small-town past might make some rural voters like Palin, it is too simplistic to assume that such statements will make them vote for her.

When Iowa’s then-Gov. Tom Vilsack launched his short-lived presidential campaign shortly after election day in 2006, pundits wondered aloud whether his candidacy would take his state’s first-in-the-nation caucuses off the table for other candidates. It took only about a week before it was clear that it would not.

I heard Iowans in coffee shops say things like, “I liked him as governor, but he thinks he can be president? Really?”

In the folksy corners of our state where retail politics reigns supreme, voters get to know their local political leaders. In many cases, they like them. They are proud of them when they succeed, and they call or stop by to comfort them when they lose.

But because of their closeness, they also know what being a small-town mayor, county supervisor, or state legislator entails. Glamorous, high-minded, and sophisticated work, it ain’t.

As Sen. John McCain’s campaign attempts to win rural votes by claiming that criticism of Palin exhibits a lack of respect for small towns, Iowans will begin to ask themselves, “Do I want my mayor to be a heartbeat away from the presidency?” If they had trouble wrapping their heads around the idea of their governor leading the free world, then the thought of the local mayor commanding the world’s strongest military, running the world’s largest economy, and setting the national agenda won’t likely hold much appeal.

It is true that in Iowa’s shrinking, economically depressed small towns, there exists a resentment of big city politicians who try to run their lives. Both Republicans and Democrats have used the divide to their advantage when it suits them.

Recall now-Gov. Chet Culver’s series of 2006 campaign ads proclaiming that GOP rival and former congressman Jim Nussle had “gone Washington” and Culver’s slogan: “Iowa Common Values. Iowa Common Sense.”

But Culver’s small-town bona fides were relatively thin, even when stacked up next to Nussle’s. It was Culver who spent some of his childhood near the Washington, DC, beltway. His attacks on Nussle were not based on where the Republican had lived; they were based largely on claims that Nussle, as part of the Washington establishment, had been fiscally irresponsible in his role as chair of the House Budget Committee.

The rural-urban split doesn’t turn on identity politics. It isn’t simply a question of where the candidates were born, or where they live now. Rural elections are influenced by all the same factors as elections everywhere else. Small town voters question candidates on economic policy and social issues. They hear ads on the radio and read the glossy attacks that hit their mailboxes.

To the extent that rural voters support different candidates than urban voters, it’s because they have different policy interests and priorities. If there’s anywhere that identity politics — questions like “Where is he from?” and “What is her ethnicity?” — have determined the outcome of elections, it is in America’s urban centers, not out in the country.

To win rural America, campaigns must shoot straight and stick to the issues. More often than not, voters will see through the rest.