My chief preoccupations is the gap between rural and urban political values.<\/p>\n
Cities tend to be more “liberal” and Democratic. Small towns tend to be “conservative” and more Republican-leaning. <\/p>\n
One natural side-effect of the tension between city and country folks is that regions with more big cities — say, the East — tend to vote differently than more small-town centered regions.<\/p>\n
A case in point this election cycle is the South, our most rural region.<\/p>\n
If the southern states were electing a president, John McCain would win in a landslide. According to Gallup, he’s currently winning 54% of the vote, compared with Barack Obama’s 39%.<\/p>\n
Compare that with the standings in the East, where Obama leads 51-40%.<\/p>\n
That’s a huge gap in sensibilities.<\/p>\n
In fact, Obama leads handily in every region of the country, except the South. Midwestern voters favor the Democrat by 48-42% margins; and in the far West, Obama is almost as popular as in the East.<\/p>\n
A lot of ink has been spilled about strategies for reconciling these regional divides. <\/p>\n
But it seems clear that for years to come Southern voters will be supporting very different politicians from the rest of the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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