For Democrats, winning over rural voters isn’t as simple as talking to a few rural people

For a number of years, Kathy Cramer, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has been studying rural resentment towards Democrats and political elites, and seems to be one of only a handful of people who understand why Democrats are so awful at winning over rural voters in Wisconsin.

Recently, Cramer studied Donald Trump’s appeal to rural voters in Wisconsin, and you can read her findings at the end of this article by Jessie Opoien (last name pronounced oh-POY-en) of the Madison-based newspaper The Cap Times. Another thing that I enjoyed reading about in the article is Cramer’s epic response to a person who volunteered for the failed Hillary Clinton presidential campaign:

After Cramer presented her findings, a woman in the audience who said she had volunteered in Madison on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign asked Cramer what advice she would give Democrats on how to talk to the people in rural areas who voted for Trump.

“It’s not speaking to people,” Cramer said. “It will require just spending time with people and asking them, ‘What’s on your mind?’ for months — then trying to deliver a message.”

If winning over rural voters was a simple as talking to a few rural voters here and there, we’d still have Pat Quinn as governor here in Illinois. Obviously, that’s not the case. For Democrats to win over rural voters across the country, Democrats are going to start needing to emphasize agricultural policy proposals designed to give farmers a fair price for their crops and find other ways to connect with rural voters without alienating the progressive urban base of the party. Even better, Democrats should try to use rural resentment to their advantage by trying to paint Republicans as the party of urban and suburban political elites.

While there are several candidates that political insiders have floated as potential Democratic candidates for Governor of Wisconsin in 2018 (such as State Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling, State Senator Kathleen Vinehout, Dane County Executive Joe Parisi, Former State Senator Tim Cullen, U.S. Representative Ron Kind, State Representative Dana Wachs, and Jefferson County District Attorney Susan Happ, just to name a few), I’ve wondered for some time whether or not Kathy Cramer would be a good candidate for a statewide race in Wisconsin, such as governor or lieutenant governor. Given that she seems to know how Democrats can win over rural voters (or at least enough rural voters to win a statewide race in states like Wisconsin), I think that she could be a great candidate for a statewide race in Wisconsin. However, I highly doubt that Cramer would even consider the idea of running for public office.

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Why I’m alarmed that Jill Stein requested the Wisconsin U.S. presidential race recount

Failed presidential candidates Jill Stein and Rocky De La Fuente have officially requested a recount in the presidential race in the state of Wisconsin, which has 10 electoral votes.

While Stein and De La Fuente have the legal right in Wisconsin to request a recount, I’m really worried that Democrats could lose a ton of voters to Stein’s Green Party over this.

Currently, the Democratic Party is in what is perhaps its weakest state in modern American history, having just lost control of the White House to a fringe-right Republican, handing complete control of every major lever of power at the federal level (the Presidency, both houses of Congress, and the Supreme Court) to a far-right Republican Party.

The fact that Stein, not Hillary Clinton, is the one leading the charge for a recount in Wisconsin, and the fact that Stein has raised a ton of money for her recount fund, is, in a way, downright alarming to me. You have to remember that the Democratic Party is not in anything resembling a strong position right now, the current Democratic Party establishment is completely untrusted by many left-wing Democratic voters, and many left-wing voters are going to perceive the Green Party, a minor left-wing political party, as the party of election integrity.

The political structure in this country incentives a strong two-party system, which is what we have in this country. One thing that I like to say about the American political system and electorate is that we have a strong two-party system, but we don’t have a strong two-party electorate. By that, I mean that, while there are enough hyperpartisan voters for one of the major political parties in this country to keep the two-party system going, there are plenty of voters who don’t like the two-party system for whatever reason(s). I consider myself to be part of the anti-establishment left, but I realize that the structure of the electoral system in this county incentives a two-party system, so I vote for Democratic nominees in the general election, even though Democrats typically don’t nominate candidates who are as left-wing as I am.

If the Green Party can gain enough of a political foothold in this country to get several percent of the vote nationally and in most states on a regular basis, then the Republicans are going to have complete control of this country at the federal level for a generation or two, if not even longer, even if they only get 45% or so of the popular vote nationally. The fact that Stein has been able to raise millions of dollars for a recount fund tells me that scenario is certainly possible going forward, and that frightens me.