Rural "values"?

Ten days and an unprecedented financial “bailout” have elapsed since the publication of The Economist article excerpted below, and the question it poses may already have been answered. The “Palin effect” has proven to be little more than a vacuous feistiness barely concealing a startling (and as for John McCain, entirely cynical) absence of gravitas.

But he has very little choice, does he?

McCain remains inextricably linked with the disastrously failed presidency of W, a fact that even a foaming-at-the-mouth Neo-Con like Charles Krauthammer recognizes, and the geriatric must campaign on the basis of ceaseless gimmickry, desperately seeking to divert attention from his damning proximity to Shrub’s all-around catastrophe.

McCain still will receive plenty of votes from the bedrock core of the nation, or some forgettable silliness like that. It is this phenomenon that The Economist considers.

Rural voters: Bucolic ballots … Could the economy trump the Palin effect?, from The Economist print edition of Sep 25th 2008.

A new poll for the Centre for Rural Strategies, a think-tank in Whitesburg, shows John McCain leading Mr Obama by ten percentage points among rural voters in swing states. The poll, conducted in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Florida, Virginia, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada, found that 51% of rural voters said they would vote for Mr McCain, while 41% preferred Mr Obama.

Only a fifth of Americans live in rural areas. And Mr McCain’s advantage among rural voters is slimmer than George Bush’s 13-point lead over John Kerry in a similar poll in 2004. But it is still a useful vote bank in a very close election. And the reasons rural voters give for preferring the Republican ticket are revealing.

Asked who would deal better with problems facing rural areas or the economy more generally, rural voters are about evenly divided. But when asked who shares their values, they prefer Mr McCain by a 14-point margin. And they love his running-mate, Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska. Fully 65% of rural voters in swing states think she “represents the values of rural communities”.

Echoing the advice of the ancient Greek philosophers whose wisdom purportedly girds our non-Christian intellectual experience in the Western world, this rural poll result begs a few “define your principles” questions.

Exactly what are these rural “values”?

If they do in fact exist, are they pertinent to our contemporary experience?

Do these rural “values” still embrace the lingering shadow of racism, which might yet trump both the economy and Sarah Palin in the minds of far too many voters?

If so, shouldn’t any such “value” be summarily disavowed?

Speaking for myself, I don’t accept the frequently bandied proposition that “rural values” somehow preface the presumed glory of the American experience, and I suggest that a healthy skepticism be applied to any such claims. The pervasiveness of religious zealotry in the back forty would be enough to arch one or more eyebrows, but too often, the countryside’s prevailing worldview is far less savory than the imagery of a few millennial crackpots behind a pulpit.

But that’s just one man’s hungover opinion.