Kerry says he’d convene national rural summit

[leQ]

i have a feeling that the paper's doing their best to project kerry as a pandering politician. it'll be interesting to see how other "political reporters" (read: corpmedia hacks) cover this.

U.S. Sen. John Kerry said Monday he will convene a national rural summit in Ames within the first 100 days of his presidency.

Speaking from New Hampshire in a conference call with Iowa political reporters, the Democratic presidential candidate said the summit will focus on special challenges facing people who live in rural communities all over the country.

He said he chose Ames as the setting because it is the home of Iowa State University, which he said is nationally recognized as a leader in the study of rural issues.

“In the past two years, in my travels to Iowa and all across this country, I’ve met rural Americans who are struggling to find good jobs, affordable health care and quality education for their children. Unfortunately, George Bush has ignored these challenges,” said Kerry.

http://www.globegazette.com/live/local/ni6.php

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. How is this pandering?

I've heard Kerry's position on helping rural America before, and I think it is high time. These areas are usually neglected. People like Bush are only interested in exploiting the natural resources and shipping the kids off to the military.

[leQ]

5. i'm not saying it is, but i know john skipper (author)

and that's one of the things he keeps saying kerry does. and it reflects that way when positioned alongside other articles about rural concerns, and one of bush saying that kerry will say anything to get votes.

[truthisfreedom]

2. excellent! 2 percent of our population provides 100% of our food. Kerry

is doing exactly the right thing here. bush is a clunk who, on his best day, might keep upright on a bicycle.

[Quetzal]

3. I say Kudos to Kerry

The Nation wrote a piece last year advocating that Progressives tune in to the interests of rural voters. Why not? After all, it was in the Blackhills of South Dakota where the Progressive Party was born.

Needed: A Rural Strategy

Helen Waller is feeling lonelier these days. She names the families that have moved off farmsteads along the road where she lives in McCone County, Montana. There are so few folks left that the post office's route drivers deliver mail only three times a week. And when Waller makes the nineteen-mile drive to Circle, the nearest town, she notices that it is emptying out as well. The old hospital is now closed, as is the "junior department store." "I remember when I was a girl, going to town to buy a pair of shoes was a big deal," recalls Waller, a lifelong resident of McCone County. "Now, I can't get shoes in Circle. I used to laugh when people said there might come a day when there was no one left out here, but I don't laugh anymore. I just get angry."

Waller's anger, which is echoed on the front porches of farmhouses and around the cafe tables of the upper Midwest and the Great Plains, is not directed at neighbors who have left the area of eastern Montana where her family settled after World War I. Still farming at age 69, she is well aware of how hard it is to make ends meet in these parts. What angers Waller is a sense that the deck keeps getting stacked against rural America by powerful corporations and by politicians of both political parties who pay more attention to promised rural panaceas--like free trade and a bigger-is-better attitude toward farming--than to the painful realities of the countryside. "I ask myself: How can people in Washington let this happen?" she says. "I wonder if it's because they've gotten so used to measuring everything in economic terms that they don't recognize that behind all these numbers from all these forgotten places, there are people who are hurting."

The hurt Waller describes is a political force Democrats must reckon with if they hope to regain the White House and Congress in 2004. Less than a quarter of America's population now lives beyond this country's cities and suburbs. But even as their percentage of the national population dwindles, rural states still elect two US senators each, and more than fifty US House members represent predominantly rural districts. The electoral votes of even the least populous state can decide close national elections. In 2000, for instance, Al Gore fell just three electoral votes short of winning the presidency. That means that the electoral votes of a single rural state--such as Helen Waller's Montana, where rural support for the Democrats tumbled in 2000--could have rendered Florida's disputed electoral votes inconsequential.

Needed: A Rural Strategy

[UL_Approved]

4. I understand

As a resident of rural Montana, I know full well the plight of sparsely-populated regions of the United States. Your example above I believe aired on Backroads of Montana, a Montana PBS series. The idea of a working rural policy has been put on the table in this state, but it has been given the terminology of "economic development". In Helena, the state capitol, legislators are becoming divided among geographic lines in some surprising ways. A local representative, Bob Sievertsen, in Blaine county, made the claim that his own Republican party was treating eastern Montanans as "second-class citizens". Funding at the state level continues to decrease, and the rural portion of Montana is seeing attacks from urbanized areas in the West and South. This issue is dividing the state, and may upset long-standing political organization. Bob Sievertsen represents the segment of society which the rest of the country would like to call "hicks", a term couched in self-righteousness on behalf of so many uninformed urbanites. He believes in many token conservative issues: no homosexual marriage, no gun control, etc. He does, however, believe that people should have fair representation in government. I have to say that this claim is a core issue of our governance of the state of Montana and of the United States as a whole. Elimination of rural areas in this country is yet again more cultural genocide, not just on rural citizens, but on every member of this nation.

When we exclude one group, we then move on to exclude another, and another, and so on until we are the only ones left in power. This process spawned many wars in the Twentieth Century, and it is a sad fact that what my grandfather's generation fought so hard against is now taking control of our national government. To say that this is an issue with Democrats is too narrow. This is an issue with democrats (spelled as such) who are supporters of democracy. Partisanship means a lot in Montana, but not in having one party, but two. Representation is the critical issue in this upcoming race, and may have impacts far beyond contemporary issues.

As for President Bush, the issue at hand is not whether you support the Republican party, but rather that Bush is not a Republican. If he were a real Republican, we would be in Isolationism yet again instead of Iraq. There would not be highly centralized control over this country. Corporate welfare would not exist. The list goes on. I hope that this nation wakes up to the fact that the "lying liberal Jewish media", the "War on Terror", the "unpatriotic Democrats", and other Orwellian propaganda terms have sold this country down the river for the last 24 years to the point that even stock supporters of the party in power have become disenfranchised. I hope I never see an open revolt in this country, but our leadership now seems bound and determined to test our resolve.

[je11]

6. Access to HiSpeed Internet(s) should be on the agenda

DU for everyone!!