Well, I don't know about you, but I'm now officially over it. Perhaps not the way I was expecting, but in the end, when you look at Bush's across-the-board popular support -- particularly in rural America -- you just have to tip your cap to the winner and move on. Certainly, there's really no longer any doubt about Bush's legitimacy this time around.
Then he took it all back. Me, I woke up this morning thinking you can only ignore reality for so long. Then reality bites back. Unfortunately, when that happens, people rarely look in the mirror. They usually find scapegoats.
I think it's gonna be a rough ride.
There was an important lesson in those red-shaded electoral maps Tuesday night -- one that, in fact, could point Democrats to their way out of this morass, if they're astute enough to see it.
It wasn't just the sea of red in all those rural Bush states, though that was certainly sign enough. It wasn't just the fact that they were a deep red, representing a substantive increase in Bush's vote totals in those states. The real sign was when you looked at the interior maps of the battleground states, particularly Ohio.
Ohio was a sea of red with urban islands of blue numerical strength. And all those red counties were, again, a deeper red. This tells you that, in particular, Bush gained real strength -- more than enough to offset Democratic gains in urban areas -- in all those rural Ohio counties. And it was the same way in state after state.
It's important to understand that these precincts are hurting economically and culturally, and have been for years, but particularly under Republican policy. But as Thomas Frank recently demonstrated in What's the Matter With Kansas?, Republicans have been able to consistently take these votes by making simple but sustained appeals to their values. The percentage of Bush voters for whom "moral values" (read: homosexuality) were the decisive factor was unusually high, and the bulk of these came from rural districts.
It doesn't have to be this way. If Democrats were to actually pay attention to the problems of rural America and try to address them in a serious fashion, they would begin to make inroads on this nonsensical monopoly on the rural vote. They might not immediately win those rural precincts, but they can certainly lighten their redness.
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