In a survey last week of 742 likely voters living in rural communities, McCain led Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama 51 percent to 41 percent, according to the Center’s poll. In a September 2004 poll in battleground states, Bush led Kerry by 13 percentage points — 55 percent to 42 percent.

How the debates play with rural voters could be crucial for determining the outcome of the election. Can John McCain — who has been openly hostile to ethanol and other farm interests — hold the lead with rural voters who may be paying more attention to account balances than social issues this year? And will Obama be able to a bridge a perceived cultural disconnect with rural Americans?

“While land values are up and commodity prices strong, few in rural America feel prosperous, and the last couple of weeks have heightened uncertainty,” said Iowa Republican insider David Oman, a former GOP gubernatorial candidate.

“Sen. McCain’s opposition to ethanol subsidies probably gets buried by the much larger economic issues of the day,” Oman said. “Both candidates should keep rural voters in their vocabulary as they speak to these issues; rural voters often feel forgotten.”

While the first debate tonight is supposed to be about foreign policy and national security, it would be unthinkable for economic issues to be sidelined for the full 90 minutes considering the momentous decisions facing Congress right now.

In the arena of foreign policy, the only issues of specific interest to rural voters that might come up have to do with energy and trade, said Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues in Lexington, Ky.

Al Cross

“Here’s a logical question on that front, one that folks in farm country deserve an answer to: How would each candidate resolve the new Farm Bill’s failure to comply with the World Trade Organization?” Cross said. “But I don’t expect such a question to come up Friday night because, as a national security and foreign policy issue, it ranks relatively low.”

Cross speculated that, on energy and the need for independence from foreign oil, Obama could point out McCain’s opposition to the ethanol subsidy and the renewable fuels standard, and McCain could counter by saying he opposed the Farm Bill as a whole because the subsidies are too large and gas prices are too high.

“That would be off-topic, and perhaps risk losing some farm-state votes, but in the current credit-crunch climate, where voters are fed up with lobbying interests’ influence in Washington, such an exchange about ethanol could benefit McCain,” Cross said.

In later debates, Cross sees more opportunity for questions on rural interests.

“I’d like to know if they favor a ‘hard cap’ on total subsidy payments to any one recipient,” Cross said. “(North Dakota Sen. Byron) Dorgan and (Iowa Sen. Charles) Grassley proposed a $200,000 cap, which failed to make it into the Farm Bill because it couldn’t get 60 votes in the Senate. Main reason: Opposition from cotton and rice farmers, whose states are not much in play this fall. Also, do they favor a ban on meatpacker ownership of livestock, which is squeezing independent producers as packers consolidate? The ban, pushed by Grassley, was removed from the Farm Bill in the conference committee.”

Carroll County Attorney John Werden, a Republican who served as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s county chair here during the caucuses, says rural voters are generally interested in the same things as urban voters. But there are some distinctions.

“Rural voters also tend to be more interested in economic polices spelled with a capital E for energy,” Werden said. “We have more single-family homes and drive cars to go to work. We want an economic policy with everything for energy. Do it all: drilling, wind, renewables and nuclear. But that doesn’t mean that we need huge subsidies for some particular industry when alternative technologies already make economic sense.”

Werden expects that McCain will stress traditional family values and support for a free market economy during the series of debates.

“We don’t believe in the ’soak the rich’ class rhetoric,” Werden said. “First, because we understand that there aren’t enough rich people to pay for all of Obama’s new programs, and second, because we like to pay our own way.”

John Werden

Werden acknowledged that Obama could have an opening in farm economics.

“People understand that an infant industry subsidy is very difficult to ever repeal even after the industry should stand on its own merits,” Werden said. “I agree that McCain’s ethanol stance may hurt him somewhat in Iowa. He needs to explain why it is that ethanol should no longer be subsidized with gas over 3 bucks a gallon.”

Oman, a Des Moines businessman who has worked for Republican governors, says Obama clearly has more work to do than McCain in Middle America.

“Most of the swing states are in the belt east to west from Pennsylvania to Minnesota, with the lone exception being Illinois,” Oman said. “These states and others are full of folks who live in small towns. Like other Americans, they are measuring Sen. Obama versus presidents they’ve watched over the years and their expectations for the next one.”

“Older, rural voters may gravitate to Sen. McCain as the older, more seasoned candidate during this time of incredible stress at home and overseas,” Oman predicted.