"The non-partisan Center for Rural Strategies was founded to try and keep
rural issues visible in elections that sometimes seem to focus only in the
cities that host $2000 a plate dinners and 50,000 person stadiums. Since the
Kentucky-based group was founded, one thing has been consistently true in the
results of their polls of rural voters -- America's small towns and countryside
have been running red. However, it seems that may be at an end. "
This really is bad news for the Republican Party. If it loses the rural areas, it will be like when the Democrats lost the south, just worse. I think that the reason that the rural areas are being lost is the move away from being the party that supported hard work, and believed in low taxes and small government. I think that rural people more than others understand the value of their work, and want to keep as much of their money as they can. At the same time they question why someone else should get by with a free lunch. Also being more removed from government services, they do more of those services for themselves - garbage, sewer, water, as such they want to see the government smaller and to leave them alone more.
The party has moved away from this base, towards more of the religious concerns. These religious concerns are felt by rural people, but I believe they feel it in a more live and let live attitude.
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