Confessions of a Rural American Who Lives in a City

TITLE FIGHT:

iced decaf triple grande five pump soy no whip Mocha vs. black coffee from McDonald’s

To many, especially those of us who live on either coast, rural America consists of the states that you fly over on your way from LA to New York or vice versa. People on the coasts regard rural American folk as ignorant, whereas the latter adamantly believe that ‘coasties’ are arrogant and out of touch. Since I’ve lived in both places, I believe I can say that both of these statements aren’t just true for each group, they’re actually true statements in general. People on the coasts, politically speaking, are completely out of touch. They have no idea what goes on in the land where corn comes from. They don’t know how these people speak and behave, and they rely solely on media constructions of the “values vote” to inform their thinking on rural people. Rural Americans, who also focus through the media, find big-city livin to be something alien to them… I mean, who the fuck pays $1,000 in rent for a studio apartment anyway?

I used to think that the “liberal” lifestyle was kind of a myth and more of a Republican red-meat for the masses statement. Then I moved to Seattle and traveled more extensively on the West coast. First off, when I told people I worked in politics I got a completely different reaction than I got when I lived in the Midwest. The first response was a hesitant, “What party do you work for?” When I replied that I worked for the Democratic Party there was first a sigh of relief and then a 15 minute explanation of everything that I and the Party was doing wrong…basically someone reciting what they read in the online version of the New York Times. Seattle, for all its political knowledge, is an entire city of people who think alike but adamantly refuse to admit it…people here like to think that their opinion is unique. It’s not unique, Maureen Dowd has already said it, but it took her longer to get to the point. This homogeneity of opinion is different from rural America.

States like Ohio, (and hell, even Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, basically all states with a decent Big City/Small Town mix) are more diverse than places such as LA, San Fran, New York, Chicago, Boston, and Seattle. First off, these states are more diverse, politically speaking, because in order to win these states in an election (a statewide election) you have to win more than certain cities. Ohio, for all its flaws in 2004, proved that if you win 4 of the top 5 cities and lose the rural vote then you lose the state, and ultimately the election. Same goes for Michigan, PA, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky etc etc etc.

Rural Americans are a lot more political than people think, but their politics are far more reserved. They have better things to do than protest about anything (therefore, they know that the people who are protesting are nut jobs). However, if you sit them down (which I’ve done in focus groups), the political animal within the 55-year-old farmer/police dispatch man comes out of the woodwork. I find the rural American voter to be, honestly, less informed than the coastie voter, but this is a good thing. There’s often too much information out there, and people on the coasts, I feel, are often over-informed. Anyone can watch the news, or read the news, and get the answers that they want. I think people that casually read headlines, or even the local paper on occasion, might be as informed as someone who avidly reads and watches the news every night. Sure, they may not be able to write a dissertation on a given topic, but you get the gist.

However, the rural American voter is complex. Here’s a list of common responses I’ve gotten from these marvels of the political community:

“I like that point, but the way he said it made him sound upset about something else.”

“Her face looks good, but you can’t wear that color dress round here at this time of year.”

“I like his position on workers’ rights, and I’m almost against the war…if he didn’t mention abortion a lot I’d probably vote for him, he seems honest.”

“I like his hands, he’s worked before.”

“I like his haircut; he doesn’t give a shit what people think. I respect that.”

“Sweat stains happen, it gets hot here.”

“I agree with about 75% of what he said, hell, bout the same as with my husband.”

This is what I love about rural American voters, the blend of complexity with a desire for authenticity. Message matters just as much as presentation, but there’s no bullshit and they don’t bullshit. If you ever wanted to know why candidates act the way the do in public, especially Presidential candidates, I’d recommend going to a town hall meeting in the middle of nowhere corn country…that’s why. Candidates get all their money from LA and New York, and then turn their back on them. Why? Because candidates on both sides of the aisle don’t need coast votes. Those votes are predetermined. CNN likes to say that a Rudy Giuliani could win in California and New York, but are you fucking serious? You know how far to the right that windbag is already running in order to just win in Iowa and New Hampshire? He doesn’t need California or New York. Rudy needs Michigan and Minnesota. You think Hillary Clinton is a true leftie? Watch her and Obama run to the center for Ohio and PA, leaving Massachusetts and Oregon far far behind. In a society where you only need 1-3% over a majority to be President, what do you expect? Run to the voters, because the ones standing from the sidelines simply cannot be trusted to be there for you (like the youth vote). Rural Americans vote and they want their candidates like they want their coffee: Without all the fucking bullshit.

So yea, I’m a political Consultant who specializes in message making, ad making, and campaign strategy…all I can say is this: Seattle does not make me better at my job, it makes me worse. Hence my three-day trip back to the farm. I don’t know what it is, but just sitting in a Bob Evans helps me write attack ads. How does everyone agreeing with me make me better? I’ve actually found myself defending things I don’t believe in just to have a debate and stay sharp. But I’m happier in Seattle; it’s a love hate thing I guess. It’s like Joe Rogan said, “I love Texas, I do, but I make more money in LA so fuck you guys.”

Living in a city has really de-sensitized me, and my mom noticed this when I was talking to her the other day. I’m going to be really candid here, so prepare yourself: I hate homelessness. I really do. It kills me. Growing up where I did, farmin country, I wasn’t really privy to it that much destitution, so when I went to the “big city” (which was Cincinnati folks, yea, I’m a yokel), I always gave people money. I did the same thing when I would go to cities for work, like D.C., Boston, and Kansas City. Hell, I think I did it everywhere. I gave money when I first moved to Seattle too.

In Seattle people stand by stop lights in popular areas of the city with signs asking for money. I’d only seen this in a few places before, but it’s everywhere here. It hurts. It hurts me to see society like that, and it hurts me to see human beings so desperate. But I don’t give out money anymore. I sit there, in my car at a stoplight less than a mile from my home, like an asshole. The whole time I hate myself. I always want the light to be green so I don’t have to stop, but most of the time I just sit there with the windows rolled up thinking, “Am I just a paycheck away from being that person?” I wonder about their life and the decisions that they made. What if they were part of the dot com bust? What if they had no health insurance and lost it all? How many of them are just fucking nuts, and if so, why are they on the street and not being taken care of by professionals? I hate the fact that I treat homelessness as an everyday part of life, because for 24 years of my life it wasn’t part of my everyday experience. Earlier today I called a public official and talked with him at length about this issue. We concluded that America is so fucked up that we have to chip our way down the issue line to homelessness, and he’s from a state that doesn’t even have a city the size of Seattle. Now that he’s in DC he has the same concerns. It’s just so goddamn sad.

I think I’ll always be a rural American in my heart. I’m still so dumbfounded by people here in Seattle, and people on either coasts in general, and I think a lot of comes from the people who live both here and there. When people in Seattle refer to the people in the Midwest as “ignorant” I get personally offended…and I mean red in the face pissed off. Red state America is who I am, and while my professional goals in life is to turn the entire fucking country Blue, I hardly want it to be a LA, NYC, or Seattle shade of blue. I want true blue. A progressive stance that really reflects all Americans and speaks to issues that all Americans really believe in…nothing too radical but nothing too central either.

Red State America made me who I am, for if I wasn’t upset at what I saw around me and went above and beyond to change it I wouldn’t even be here today. A desire for change has made me the person I am today, and I don’t think people who live on either coast understand that. I don’t even work campaigns in Seattle. The closest I came to actually taking a paying job was for some City Council seat in an upper-crust section of the Pacific Northwest. No crime? No poor? No non-whites? No thank you!!

In the end, the money may be made on both coasts, but the heart of America is called the heartland for a reason. Being a Seattle transplant from the “Heart of it All” state makes me wiser and more accustomed to actual America than New Yorkers or people in LA. Not to downplay these people as people, but the mentality of togetherness just isn’t there when I travel or meet people who live on the coasts. It’s a different world, I guess, but we’re all in the same country. It’s time we realize that the majority, and the decisions, are made in between the coasts, with coast big city money. That’s kind of a togetherness, isn’t it?

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