Group seeks to reach rural voters

A nonpartisan group has launched a campaign to focus attention on rural issues in next month’s vote. Niel Ritchie with the “League of Rural Voters” says this is the 20th anniversary of the group originally formed when farms were being foreclosed and banks were going under during the farm crisis of the mid 1980s. While communities have changed a bit, he says many issues remain the same and Ritchie says people have an obligation to learn the issues and vote. “Democracy belongs to those who show up,” he says, so people should register and plan to vote, but also check the candidates’ websites where they can get plenty of information about their positions. Ritchie says folks need to decide what’s important to them. Political strategists tend to use polls to design “wedge issues,” things aimed at stirring up voters, but Ritchie says rural voters should set their own priorities. The league’s found people are concerned about their economic future, whether their kids will be able to return to their communities when they’re ready to raise families, issues of healthcare, education and training, whether farmers will be able to make a decent living. He says those are the issues people are talking about, and whether the campaigns are offering plans to deal with those issues is up to people to decide. Ritchie says going to campaign events is a good idea but it’s not the only way people can get involved in promoting rural issues. At the state legislative level “it’s always possible,” he says, and at the congressional level and locally too. Policy that affects rural communities is made at all levels of government and Ritchie says people need to start asking what’s the plan because “at the end of the day we can’t wait for Washington to solve our problems.” He says people became cynical and despairing after years of falling behind economically Ritchie says people are starting to understand the rhetoric of “get government off my back” is beside the point when rural areas have a school trying to keep its doors open and one person with the job of plowing for a whole county, as he says we’ve cut about as far as we can. The league’s put together outlines and background information on some issues at its website, leagueofruralvoters-dot-org