I have lived in Missouri for ten years, a carpet bagging outsider as it were. I studied Missouri's fascinating cultural geography in graduate school never knowing I'd ever actually move here. Thus, what follows are my views as a transplanted East Coaster living in Central Missouri, a very red rural area of the state.
More below the fold.
For decades, Missouri has been considered a harbinger of presidential electoral politics, as Missouri goes, so goes the nation. However, over the last ten years, Missouri has tilted decidedly "red", and voting patterns from the 2004 elections suggest that redness is now a firmly entrenched reality. For a good overview by someone with a helluva lot more experience:
http://stloracle.blogspot.com/.... But like all sweeping generalizations, while definitely a red state, Missouri isn't Utah or Wyoming. Democratic candidates can run viable statewide campaigns here if they realize the realities of the conditions.
In many ways Missouri has become more of a Rocky Mountain state or even a reverse snapshot of places like Washington and Oregon in terms of the urban/rural divide in terms of how it votes. It really isn't the mixing pot or "national snapshot" of the US electorate that the traditional media (and many professional pols) would have you believe.
For most of the last 30 years, conventional wisdom stated that the rural/urban divide in Missouri determined how elections would be resolved. Generally speaking, rural voters voted Rethug, urban voters voted Democrat. Typically, Democrats campaigned primarily in the KC and STL areas focusing GOTV efforts there in an effort to overwhelm smaller population of rural red voters under the assumption that there were enough Dem votes in those two areas to counter the rest of the state. Since Missouri does not register one to vote by party affiliation, it's problematic in determining the actual number of party faithful, one can only extrapolate based on election results by county. For example, in the recent primary, in my county, 986 Dems voted and 1626 Rethugs voted and that's based solely on the candidates of those parties who received votes. Thus, Rethugs outnumber Dems close to 2:1 here in rural red Missouri and my county isn't terribly different from those you'll see in some maps further down.
Under this previous voting dynamic, the rural/urban divide meant that statewide candidates of either party knew they represented not only their base but a large group of voters who, while they might identify themselves to one party or the other, were also fairly loyal to candidates across party lines if said candidate was seen as at least nominally representing them. A senatorial example of that is Republican John Danforth. A current congressional example is Democratic Congressman Ike Skelton. Neither could be accused of being from the radical fringes of his respective party and yet, both command quite a lot of respect and voter loyalty across party lines. Skelton is in a district that could hardly be called blue by any stretch of the imagination and Missouri Repubs tried to gerrymander him out of office but he won his last election with 60% of the vote. Someone like Danforth realized that Dems existed in large enough numbers in STL and KC so that they could, in theory, vote him out of office if faced with a good Dem candidate and focused party machine. Thus, statewide politicians for many years had to strike a fine balance between the two geographic areas and thus, Missouri tended to send moderates to DC.
However, the changing demographics of the state combined with a radically different economic picture over the last generation has changed the dynamic. As a result, Democratic candidates for statewide office face significant hurdles as their traditional bastions of support have shrunk whereas traditional conservative bastions have not changed or have encroached into previously strong Dem areas.
So, what has changed? First, some historical background.
I jokingly say that geographically and demographically, Missouri shouldn't exist. North of the Missouri River, you essentially have southern Iowa. South of the Missouri River, you essentially have northern Arkansas. Ok, I'm oversimplifying here. But, southern Missouri was settled predominantly by Scotch-Irish frontiersmen who also settled good chunks of northern Arkansas prior to the Civil War. The northern part of the state didn't open up until after the Civil War and when newer plows were developed that enabled settlers to turn prairie sod. One slight odd "burp" in this settlement pattern was the rather significant migration of German Catholics to central Missouri along the Missouri River from Hermann west to the state capitol at Jefferson City. Back then, northern Missouri tended to vote Republican, southern Missouri Democrat; that pattern being the result of post-Civil War politics. There was no significant urban/rural divide until the latter half of the 20th Century.
Disguising a lot of conservative voting tendencies in rural Missouri was the legendary Democratic Machine. It effectively oppressed Republican turnout across the state. However, personal scandals and eventual State Legislature actions brought a much-needed sense of fairness to Missouri's political scene starting in the 1940s and the process was only fully completing in the early 70s.
Offsetting the demise of the Dem machine was the rise of unions during the industrialization during and after WW2. This meant a large union presence in the urban areas and marks the real rise in the urban/rural divide in the state. But that unionization bled over significantly into the relatively conservative rural areas in the form of trade/craft unionists (carpenters, electricians, plumbers, etc). The growing African-American population that moved into the two main urban areas and you have a fair snapshot of how the Dem/Rep voting environment existed from the mid-50s up to the early 90s.
Things began to unravel during the 60s and the Civil Rights movement. Okay, no news here, we're all familiar with how southern Democrats deserted the party in droves and modern Rethug politics play the race card and "southern strategy". Here, Missouri is often overlooked as being more "southern" than it is usually given credit for (those Scotch-Irish settlers in the south come back into play here). This in part contributed to the cementing of rural voters as Rethugs. Don't ever discount the amount of bigotry that exists in rural America; I've seen it first hand, time and time again, here in rural Missouri. It remains shocking and isn't isolated to my little corner of Misery. Ten years ago, National Geographic of all publications ran a piece on southern Missouri. Another carpet bagging outsider like me had purchased a farm there and was amazed at the bigotry he encountered. People here will still only semi-privately talk about how you can't trust anybody not white. Part of it comes from being so insulated from the outside world, I mean nobody leaves but part of it comes from generations of racial politics being shoved at them by the Rethugs.
Then add into this the decline in union membership, again, nothing new here that hasn't happened elsewhere in the country, as manufacturing jobs have fled in droves. But, the decline in union membership is also part of a 20 year Rethug campaign to make Missouri a "right to work" state, which is Rethug-speak for "SCREW UNIONS". Thus, in rural areas, you don't see nearly the number of union plumbers and the like as you did a generation ago. The irony here is that while non-union folks will bash unions every chance they get, they all still want a union job and never turn one down should the occasional one plop into their lap.
Further minimizing the impact union members have on voting outcomes, in rural Missouri, you often have union households that split their vote. The union husband, while not having read "What's the Matter With Kansas", can speak the language of that book quite well and as such, usually votes Democratic. OTOH, the wife is usually very culturally conservative, particularly here in Catholic central Missouri, where one-issue Rethugs (pro-birth) predominate.
Meanwhile, white flight from KC and STL means the exurbs tend Rethug for a variety of economic and racial issues--believe me, I work with people that absolutely don't want their kids going to school with black children. They won't say that out loud, instead they'll say "well, we send our kid to private school" or "we moved because there are `problems' with such and such school". You find out that said school has no problems other than....you guessed it, it has a significant black student body. And I'm not talking inner city school districts with chronic problems of their own. You'll find this type of attitude alive and well in places like Jefferson City. But, it's another reason why KC and STL, while Dem at the core, are Rethug at the ring: lots of white, middle class people who only care about tax cuts and making sure their kids don't rub elbows with minorities.
As a result, all of this has combined to change the voting dynamic statewide.
This means that while white rural Missouri votes overwhelmingly Rethug, the disparity between who votes Dem and Rethug has grown out here. Toss in the also white professional exurbs who vote Rethug, the decline in union representation and it's fairly easy to see why Missouri has tended to elect more hard core wingnuts (Bond, Ashcroft, (no)Talent(less) and our buffoon of a governor, Little Blunt) than moderate conservatives of the old school (Danforth).
This makes it generally harder for Dem candidates to successfully run statewide. This has been compounded by the national loser strategy (pre-Howard Dean of course) of blowing off campaigning in places one has no hope of carrying. Missouri Dems really had a head start on this bonehead strategy given the voting dynamic of the last generation. That's one of the main Claire McCaskill lost her 2004 gubernatorial bid: she campaigned as if this was Missouri of 1980 and not 2004.
The following maps show the dynamic (many thanks to Kos member and fellow Missourian RBH for these maps):
2000: Mel Carnahan vs Ashcroft
http://img130.imageshack.us/...
2002: Jean Carnahan vs (no)Talent(less)
http://img130.imageshack.us/...
2004: Claire vs Worst. Missouri.Governor. Ever. (and we've had some doozies)
http://img130.imageshack.us/...
And that campaign strategy was stupid, heh heh, but we all know that now. For one thing, it overlooks the fact that while I and others use broad sweeping "this state is blue, that state is red" generalizations, obviously that doesn't look into the local areas with the granularity required to get a complete picture.
So, the first thing any statewide Dem candidate should set out to do is CAMPAIGN STATE WIDE!!!!!!!. Sure, you're not going to actually win a rural county but all you need are enough of us coming out to vote. And this time around, Claire is doing that....and other things.
Campaigning Statewide. She's campaigned tirelessly in rural Missouri. What has this gained her? Well, she's definitely not going to change the minds of most rural Missouri voters. As I've said in comments in other diaries, conservative rural Missouri voters would rather convert to Islam AND wake up one morning to find out their skin color is black rather than vote for a Democrat. Find the most conservative Democrat from anywhere, plop him or her in rural Missouri and it still wouldn't make any difference. But, by campaigning out here, Claire shows the smaller minority of rural Dem voters that she's serious about representing all of the state. What that means is that rural Dems are more likely to come out and vote as opposed to staying home thinking that while Claire's a Democrat, she only cares about the urban Dems of KC and STL. She's not, this time, overlooking the fact that DEMS DO EXIST OUT HERE IN THIS SEA OF RURAL MISSOURI RED!!!!!!! And we need a reason to vote, well, some of us do. And if we don't see a statewide candidate putting forth the effort to "court us", we sit at home. Okay, I don't but I know plenty of rural Dems who do. By campaigning here, it sends a subtle message to rural voters who might be inclined to stay home that she's talking to them.
Scrappy. She's not backing down and as recent diaries here have shown, she's hitting (no)Talent(less) on things beyond issues. Remember, rural Missouri is a snapshot of "What's The Matter With Kansas", if they're not voting God, Guns and Gays, they're voting Pro-Birth, thus, all the issues that we Dems always tout are lost on a vast swath of the population here. What my neighbors like to see is grit and this is one HUGE advantage Claire has over (no)Talent(less). She's showing that there is a difference in style and while we might decry style as being a determining factor in who wins elections, it's important, often overlooked and should he leveraged for whatever benefit it brings. Harry Truman was scrappy. Like it or not, Kit Bond is scrappy. Missouri voters like that regardless of party affiliation. Lord knows (no)Talent(less) is as far removed from scrappy as one can get..
Issues. This is a balancing act. As others have stated in diary comments, many rural Missourians care about nothing other than tax cuts and Jesus. Gas prices come in third but as that has impacted their ability to drive the family stable of various assault vehicles, ATVs and boats, they're looking for somebody to blame. And most issues Dems tout don't really come into the day-to-day lives of rural Missouri voters and no amount of touting said issues is going to change that. Moreover, rural Missouri voters are an insular lot, for example, here where I am, everyone is either 3rd or 4th generation descended from the German immigrants of the 1840s and they don't like being told by "outsiders" (and an outsider can be considered someone from a town just 12 miles away) what to do and how to live their lives. Thus far, Claire has bent over backwards to not rub rural voters noses in the fact that she's for example, pro-choice, anyway, the pro-birthers are lost to her so it's not something she has to scream from the mountaintops. But by not trumpeting the "cultural" issues while remaining loyal to them, again, she presents herself to rural Dems and independents as someone not so much interested in dictating from the outside but standing up for what she believes in while offering to listen and represent unique rural interests.
Timing. (no)Talent(less) beat Jean Carnahan by less than 23K votes in 2002. Given the voting climate in Missouri and the fact that Mrs Carnahan was by no means a seasoned politician, that's incredibly narrow and shows he can be beaten. Combine that with the incredible incompetence the Worst. President. Ever. has shown on just about any issue he's touched, you have a climate here ripe for electing a Democratic Senator. Claire is also being helped by something we've apparently lifted from the Rethug playbook of 2004: get stuff on the ballot that almost ensures the base will come out to vote. Rural Rethugs aren't going to get up and vote against something, however, they will get up and vote for something. Thus, typically strong Dem issues in this state like stem cell research and minimum wage are on the ballot and provide incentive for Dems, urban and rural alike, to get out and vote. Most of my culturally conservative neighbors don't care one way or the other about these issues, thus, are more inclined to stay home. When we had the "right to carry" (ie, concealed weapons) initiative on the ballot, that was a prime mover in getting the rural voters out in droves and that carried over into electing Rethug candidates across the board.
Claire is the right candidate at the right time and we Dems in the Show Me state might never have a good a chance as this again. (no)Talent(less) is widely seen here as a do-nothing party hack and his campaign to date has done little to excite voters beyond his base and there's nothing on the ballet to prompt them to vote in November. Having an empty suit Senator opposed by a good politician with a known track record statewide helps keep them at home.
The potential downside is the voter suppression law just passed into law. It could get really ugly here. One reason the Rethug controlled state gubmint moved on this was precisely because (no)Talent(less) is in serious trouble, even in this red-ish state.
Let's hope that the national Dems start to toss some money, people, whatever in here because Talent's gonna blitz the airwaves anytime now. He's got money to burn, the state Rethugs are good at getting out the vote and the suppression law could cause problems.
http://www.claireonline.com/