Summer in Northern Michigan Highlights Causes of Republican Victory: By JOANNE KOWALSKI
“According to exit polls, Bush supporters tend to be culturally and religiously conservative married rural voters, a large majority with an annual salary of over $150,000.”
—Rebecca Paris, “Divided We Stand”, Berkeley Daily Planet, Nov. 5-8.
Last summer, I spent three months with family in rural Northern Michigan (a red zone in a blue state) where almost everybody owns a gun, drives a pick-up and is a member of a faith based community. Except for some tourists, I met only three people who made over $150,000 a year—a real estate broker who sold properties to Wal-Mart, a retired developer from the city who built a mansion in the woods and a drug dealer. Not even the president of the local university makes over $150,000 a year.
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The most pervasive issues were economic. The center of the towns in virtually every part of this country are dying. Good buildings, houses, factories and stores, stand empty. Strip malls are in disrepair. Full time, permanent jobs are hard to find. Since NAFTA, local factories have either closed or been forced to move. Big boxes have destroyed local businesses. The multinationals that have moved in, often over local opposition, are either dangerous or destructive to the environment - chemical plants, strip mining, toxic waste dumps and factory farms. Wages are low, benefits negligible, job security non-existent. Many men take temporary jobs hundreds of miles away. One WWII vet and “loyal American” told me the new corporations were destroying the community with their greed.
Even with the media blackout, because of the war, the escalating debt and his ties to greedy corporations (Enron, Halliburton, the S&Ls) Bush is not well liked. Even die hard Republicans said they would have to hold their nose to vote.
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Unfortunately, Kerry did not present an attractive alternative. From the backwoods, it looks like the Democrats care more about the right of gays to marry or gun control than they do about the rural economy or the war. Even when Kerry said something meaningful, he was not trusted, partly because of his rich-boy demeanor, but also because he had no record of taking principled stands on the economy or the war. Then, too, there were those who felt betrayed when Clinton signed NAFTA. Others consider Reno’s massacre at Waco an attack upon the religious right. Because of this, distrust of Democrats runs deep.complete article:
http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/article.cfm?issue=11-19-04&storyID=20136