Posted on 02/23/2005 6:28:48 PM PST by NCjim
RENO, Nev. (AP) - Sen. John Kerry lost the presidential election partly because Democrats "neglected rural America," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said Wednesday.
"I think around the country people just thought they could win in the cities," the Nevada Democrat told The Associated Press.
Reid said he expects new Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean to help reverse that trend, especially in the South and West, and he predicted Democrats will close the gap Republicans hold in the Senate in the off-year elections.
"We are going to pick up Senate seats in 2006, it's only a question of how many," Reid said at a Reno news conference before his scheduled address to the Nevada Legislature in Carson City.
"First of all, history is on our side. Secondly, George Bush is on our side," he said.
"I don't like to give grades to the president. It's kind of early in the term, but it certainly wouldn't be a good grade at this stage," Reid said.
Democrats lost three seats in the U.S. Senate in November and gained 76 among the 3,000 state legislative seats across the nation, Reid said.
But in the presidential race, Nevada was representative of what happened nationally as President Bush carried the state even though he lost the two urban counties that have 91 percent of the voters - Clark County surrounding Las Vegas and Washoe County surrounding Reno.
Kerry carried the urban counties "certainly by enough to win the election, everybody thought," Reid said. But the 9 percent of voters in Nevada's 15 rural counties "was absolutely dramatic in Nevada and around the country."
Douglas County turned out 94 percent of its registered voters and voted heavily against Kerry, he said.
"There is not one of those 15 counties that had a voter turnout less than 84 percent. Think about that. They went heavily against John Kerry and as a result of that, Kerry lost the state by 2 percent," Reid said.
"Same in Ohio. Same all over the country. We neglected rural America."
How do Democrats change that?
"All we have to do is be there and let them know we care," Reid said in an interview after the news conference.
"In the farm programs, we are the ones who support the farmers, (Republicans) support the bankers," he said.
"In the Medicare bill, that is Democrat stuff in there related to helping rural hospitals," he said.
Reid said he questioned during the campaign why Vice President Dick Cheney took time to make a personal appearance in Elko in rural northeast Nevada.
"Well, he got the last laugh on that one," Reid said, "He was gathering votes. They did a good job in rural America, we didn't."
Republican Rep. Jim Gibbons, who won a fifth term in Nevada's sprawling 2nd District, offered a similar analysis immediately after the election.
"I believe rural Nevada carried President Bush to victory," Gibbons said.
One of Kerry's worst showings was in Elko County, where 54 percent of the registered voters are Republican, 26 percent Democrat and 20 percent independent or third party. Bush won there with nearly 80 percent of the vote.
Cheney's visit to Elko - the first by a sitting vice president since Richard Nixon in 1958 - was tremendously important, Gibbons said.
"It showed the people of Elko County that this administration was serious about everybody's vote, every state, every county," the congressman said.
Reid, who said he talks with Dean regularly, expects him to help win the party votes in rural areas. Dean plans a visit to Nevada on Monday.
Reid said he told Dean that he was not his first choice for party chairman. Reid backed Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack early on.
"But I'm so impressed how he has taken the darts that were thrown at him," Reid said.
"Say what you want about Gov. Dean, he is an organizer. In the state of Vermont, they know what kind of person he is. He is not some wild-eyed, left-wing nut," he said.
"Gov. Dean balanced the budgets of the state of Vermont. He's been supported by the National Rifle Association in eight successive elections. He handled the same-sex marriage thing as well as has been handled any place in the country. ... with civil unions."
"We're off and running."
Governors have to balance the budget according to their constitutions. Not to mention Vermont's budget is the same size as a small city.
Pray for W and Our Troops
These so-called "men of the people" are being exposed for what they are - hypocrites of the first order.
A turd wrapped in pretty paper and presented with a lovely card with beautiful poetry on it is, after all, still a turd.
Like those large blue counties in the southwest? There aren't many of them, but the ones that are blue are very large counties (in land area) indeed. In most instances they comprise Indian reservations.
The point is, Kerry did not and could not carry rural America. Even Reid himself was roundly defeated in 90 percent of Nevada, rural Nevada.
Democrats cannot carry rural counties. And they lose almost as bad in middle class suburban counties with high birth rates.
Democrats do especially well in dead and decaying large cities, like Detroit. That is not a sound strategy for long term success. But what can they do about it?
I can't wait till we nationalize Howard Dean; he will kill Democratic candidates in Virginia, Nebraska, and anywhere else that is turned off by the first governor to legalize gay civil unions, raise taxes at the fasest pace in the 90s, and says the following:
"We've gotten rid of (Saddam Hussein), and I suppose that's a good thing" -- Howard Dean, April 9, 2003
"We're going to tell all those white boys who run the Republican Party to stay out of our bedrooms." -- Howard Dean forgets what color he is.
Believes Bush was silent on 9/11: "I don’t know. There are many theories about (9/11). The most interesting theory that I’ve heard so far—which is nothing more than a theory, it can’t be proved—is that he was warned ahead of time by the Saudis. Now who knows what the real situation is? But the trouble is, by suppressing that kind of information, you lead to those kind of theories, whether they have any truth to them or not, and eventually, they get repeated as fact. So I think the president is taking a great risk by suppressing the key information that needs to go to the Kean Commission." -- Howard Dean
"From a religious point of view, if God had thought homosexuality is a sin, he would not have created gay people." -- Howard Dean
"Dean himself moved from Episcopalian to Congregationalist "because I had a big fight with a local Episcopal church about 25 years ago over the bike path." He does not hesitate to reveal this information or to declare that he seldom goes to church." -- Robert Novak
This is sad.
They are completely delusional. Oh, I know in leadership positions someone such as Reid is epected to put a good spin on their status but the problem is that I don't believe its spin. They believe this. They believe G.W. is on their side.
If G.W. is on their side what would they do if he was against them? Thie party is verging on irrelevance. It'll only take a few more lost seats to banish them completely.
'Aight. Mmm. Looks like Lakoff, rhymes with [blank], advised Dingy Harry to fool rural America by acting "folksy."
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