Cold Shoulder or Thaw in the Political Ice?

By FCUSA Executive Director Teresa Platt

OVER THE LAST FEW DECADES, resource providers received the political cold shoulder from DC. However, after the 2000 elections, countryside folk are wondering if the results signal a thaw in the political ice.

An Associated Press map used by USA Today of the 2000 presidential election is a case study in the boundaries, county by county, of the urban/rural split which is reality in today's industrialized US. Gore took 676 counties covering 580,000 square miles while Bush took 2,436 counties, covering 2,427,000 square miles. USA Today tells us that 127 million people live in the counties that Gore carried while 143 million live in the counties taken by Bush.(1)

"If you just look at the big numbers - the national totals, the electoral college count, and even the squeakers in key states like Florida - the election was among the closest in history," observed Creators Syndicate columnist Robert Tracinski, "but if you look at the US map, you'll get a different story. Al Gore captured the heavily urbanized centers in the Northeast and West, with a few states in between. The rest, a huge swath of the South, West, and Midwest, and practically every rural district in America, voted for Bush."(2)

The heavily populated urban areas (covering an area roughly the same as Alaska) came out strongly for Gore, while the countryside (an area equal to the continental US) voted overwhelmingly for Bush. More surprisingly, the annual population growth rate (measured 1990-99) in Gore counties was 5% while in Bush counties it was 14%!

Due to technological changes, the countryside is actually gaining population (and votes!) as telecommuters take to the hills. One or two fire seasons and the newcomers soon learn about fuel load reductions (logging and grazing). And after beavers flood the basement, they become wildlife management experts and sport beaver jackets and coonskin caps!

Urban/Rural Split? Again?

But what is causing such a dramatic and continuing split between city votes and country votes?

Some say it is social issues, and that the Republicans have a reputation for being less inclusive than Democrats. Some say it's the remnants of union voting patterns going back generations. Some say it's the result of the Democrats' outreach to city-based immigrants. For some, this is a battle over local control versus "national" objectives, a battle in which rural people are outnumbered in the face of city-based initiatives that often leave countryside people off the agenda.

Whatever the reason, it is painfully obvious that the players are geographically separated.

In 1995, Sierra Club president Michael McCloskey commented on this split.(3)

"A new dogma is emerging," he said, "[which] embodies the proposition that the best way for the public to determine how to manage the interest in the environment is through collaboration among stakeholders ... that this is best done at the community level through a consensus process, ... [that] collaboration must be place-based ... [C]ommunity activists ... complain bitterly that the national environmental groups were cold-shouldering this process and missing a great opportunity."

This is a point that all the locals appear to agree on. When it comes to control of their own local environment, decisions are often made much too far away, generally in DC by big business, big government or big green.

Recognizing the urban/rural split in power struggles in industrialized society, McCloskey went on to say, "A fundamental problem ... lies in the disparate geographical distribution of constituencies. This re-distribution of power is designed to disempower our constituency, which is heavily urban. ... It is curious that these ideas would have the effect of transferring influence to the very communities where we are least organized and potent."

McCloskey also recognized that his corporation, the Sierra Club, and its legal extensions traffic in conflict and that local solutions dissipate conflict. Stated McCloskey, "such processes tend to de-legitimate conflict as a way of dealing with issues and of mobilizing support. It is psychologically difficult to simultaneously negotiate and publicly attack bad proposals from the other side. This tends to be seen as acting in bad faith. Too much time spent in stakeholder processes may produce the result of demobilizing and disarming our side."

Both McCloskey's statement and the 2000 Presidential election asked us to look at what constitutes a majority.

McCloskey continued, way back in 1995: "Instead of having national rules hammered out to reflect majority rule in the nation, transfer of power to a local venue implies decision-making by a very different majority - in a much smaller population. But it gets worse. By then adopting a consensus rule for that decision-making, small local minorities are given an effective veto over positive action. This process, thus, has the effect of disempowering both national as well as local majorities. ... Local interests do not necessarily constitute the national interest."

And national interests are often in conflict with local interests. But why shouldn't local communities be empowered to represent their own interests? And why shouldn't local communities be protected against geographically distant "majorities"?

The battle for local control over local decisions and local lives continues.

Rural Swing Vote?

Do you recall the Alliance for America's Fly In last May? It was held under the theme: "Providing the Swing Vote in Election 2000".

At that meeting, Alliance president Bruce Vincent stated, "Some 20% of Americans live in rural areas. However, since only 36% of the American voting public exercise their right to express their opinion at the ballot box, that 20%, if energized, is a powerful voting block. Consider the national implications: 20% of 270 million is 54 million. If only 70% of eligible rural voters walk into the voting booth armed with information on who is good for our families and who is harmful, we have a whopping 30-million-plus potential voters that will change the face of politics and ensure that our voice, our issues and our communities are heard."

Bruce was right in many ways, but he neglected to mention that absentee ballots were pivotal in this election. Many people didn't "walk" into voting booths; they voted in the privacy of their own homes.

We are all busy and many in rural areas are working further from home. So, next election, read the back of your voter information booklet when it's mailed to you. If you'd like to vote from home but don't see this offered, ask your county registrar of voters for an absentee ballot.

Oh, and once you vote, make sure there's no hanging chad before you put that ballot in the envelope!

Where Are We Going?

For the 107th Congress, there are new players finding their legs and old hands who survived another election. Have you called to let them know who you are, how your family and business are doing, and what concerns you about America?

The latest presidential election will surely go down in history. But only time will tell if the cold shoulder to which US resource providers are accustomed will now be warmed by a great political thaw.(4)

NOTES:

(1) USA Today's math appears to be a bit off. Its data covered 3,007,000 sq. miles of a US that covers 3,536,342 sq. miles, excluding Alaska which did not report by county. In other words, 529,342 sq. miles are not covered. Yet Alaska covers 570,374 sq. miles. USA Today also published its figures before the new census placed the US population at 281 million.

(2) As quoted in "Election 2000: America vs. the Intellectuals", Nov. 9, 2000, the Ayn Rand Institute.

(3) Report to the Board of Directors, Nov. 18, 1995.

(4) For a guide to changes in DC, see USA Today at www.usatoday.com/news/politics/polifront.htm

To take a cyber-tour of a fur farm, visit Fur Commission USA's Fur on Film at http://www.furcommission.com/video/index.htm

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