In Apache County, Az the Renzi-Simon Congressional vote totals were almost the opposite of the statewide results. "Can generalizing be useful in other rural "red state areas...?"
There were three congressional races in Arizona. Two of them went Democratic. One, decisively so, the other a squeaker. The third, went status quo despite the fact that the incumbent, Rick Renzi carried Abramoff baggage and apparently used the legislative process to engineer benefit to campaign contributors through real estate wheeling and dealing.
Of tantalizing interest is the result in Apache County, the easternmost county (and one of the geographically largest counties in the US) that is the furthest away from the urban population in the southwestern part of the state . In this county, Simon won, almost the reverse of the statewide result. However, the number of voters was relatively small. It appears that voter registration is below potential.
I believe that the state of the netroots in Arizona is about ten years behind. Having moved here from Seattle and Austin, Tx and having been involved in the attempt to use the internet as a networking tool since about 1993, I feel I have some comparison.
I think that this probably compares to rural situations across America, if one looks at general conditions and thus, it may be worth entertaining a couple of main considerations about how to analyze this and maybe how some inroads might be made by 2008.
1. An almost complete lack of media or media diversity.
The bigger the city, the more diversity of energetic people with experience as well as education that is non-local. Media is diversified (comparatively) and the competence level is high. In Apache county, Az the choices are limited. Sharp analysis and the interaction of varied perspectives is stunning for its absence. The only large daily in Arizona is the Arizona Republic, the print equivalent of Fox News. It is to this state what the New York Times is to many people nationwide. The smaller indie papers are hopelessly underfunded. Radio and TV sources of information are Fox and CNN, although NPR can be found if one is interested.
2. Lack of Netroots.
I designed a campaign website in 1993 in Austin. Thus, I have been a keenly interested observer of the netroots phenomenon since the beginning of the web. In that year, not a large percentage of people had email addresses or were able to surf the web at home, although Austin was a leading edge technology center. In 2004, as I worked to organize volunteers calling from home for the Dean campaign in the Seattle area, I was thrilled to find that a lot of people could send and receive Excel file calling lists. The ability to use an online database to call from also was really a great advance. The Dean campaign posted an historic milestone with its online fundraising, and the blogs attracted a national audience of early adopters.
Here in rural America, however, there is a serious lack of infrastructure, particularly in human terms.
Locally, I talked to a retired state senator who was very popular and served for some 18 years. He never had to campaign in the 2006 sense. When he started, he was a popular rodeo figure, and then he turned out to be a very competent public servant that nobody wanted to run against. Thus, no campaign skills were needed and none were developed.
The state party appears to be one of those that does not seem to work very hard to reach beyond the main cities, such as Phoenix and Tucson or Flagstaff. This may account for the wins in the two most urban CD seats and a weaker showing in my county, an eight hour drive away from Phoenix.
The problem in rural areas is that, while the percentage of people who are used to thinking of their computer as an organizing tool, or even a communication tool, is lower than it is in the larger cities, there is still a growing percentage, particularly among student age youth who are used to being online.
It looks to me that the percentage of people registered to vote is a bit low, and I imagine that the whole civic participation range is depressed due to the lack of communication.
It may be that in the West, the Gary Cooper sort of model of being "strong and silent" and lacking a strong interest in communicating - or any need for forming cooperations with strangers - may be a cultural norm.
But it would also seem that there is potential not being reached currently, and that more aggressive thinking and experimenting over the next two years might yield a significant result in 2008 in Arizona and across the "red state" West as whole. Rural populations need to be reached and not written off or ignored.