What Vilsack learned from rural voters: Kathie Obradovich

Tom Vilsack says he wasn’t as shocked as many Democrats were by Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election.

“I travel in different places than most people do and so I was exposed to a tremendous amount of on-the-ground indications of strong support for Trump-Pence in rural areas,” he said.  “So I discounted, significantly, the polling.”

Vilsack, Iowa’s former governor, is winding up eight years as U.S. secretary of agriculture. He’s the longest-serving Cabinet member in the Obama administration. He says the job is similar in many functions to serving as governor to all 50 states.

He’s also a longtime and loyal supporter of Hillary Clinton and was on the short list to be her running mate. So he’s had an insider’s view of a presidential campaign that not only highlighted differences between men and women, white people and minorities, but also city dwellers and rural Americans.

Democrats can no longer count on winning enough voters in urban and suburban areas to offset rural turnout for Republicans. This isn’t exactly new.

In 2008, just over half of rural voters across the country gave their support to Republicans. This year, 62% of rural voters chose Republicans, according to exit polls reported by CNN, NBC News and the New York Times.

“It’s true everywhere. It was true in 2014; ask Bruce Braley,” Vilsack said.

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Braley, a Democratic congressman, lost to Republican Joni Ernst in Iowa’s U.S. Senate race in 2014.  Ernst won 85 of Iowa’s 99 counties while Braley won the state’s urban centers and counties with state universities. But while Braley won Polk County (the Des Moines area) by about 7,100 votes, Ernst ran up the score in northwest Iowa's Sioux County by more than 10,000.

Vilsack, in an interview, offered his advice on how Democrats could better connect with rural voters.

Restore faith in government: Vilsack says Americans lack appreciation for what government actually does. “When President Reagan was in office, he began a drumbeat that all things government were not to be trusted or were part of the problem and not part of the solution. And I think people who believe in government, who believe in the necessity of having a functioning and efficient government, have done a poor job of explaining to people on a regular basis the benefits of government.”

For example, Vilsack won’t leave anyone wondering how many home mortgages the USDA has financed in Iowa in the past eight years. It’s about 10,000, for people who would never get approval from commercial lenders. “I don’t know if the people who receive those loans see that as government, but it is government,” Vilsack said.

Strengthen supporting organizations: Institutions that support government, such as labor unions, have been weakened over the years and some have been slow to change, Vilsack said. He compared the political clout of the Sierra Club to the National Rifle Association. “It can’t just be about good policy. It has to be about messaging and making sure they reach not just urban and suburban voters, but that they make a concerted effort to go out and talk to rural folks,” he said.

Unions, he said, need to broaden their membership to increase their political power. For example, what if AFSCME, the largest public employees’ union, offered memberships to the public instead of just public employees? People who believe in the union’s goals could support them and add to the organization’s political clout, he said.

He noted the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation offers memberships to non-farmers, with benefits such as discounted health or auto insurance. That non-farm membership base adds to Farm Bureau’s political pull when it comes to agricultural and tax policy.

End exclusive inclusiveness: The Democratic Party celebrates diversity. It has created an agenda for Latinos, another one for African-Americans, another for union members and yet another for the LGBT community, Vilsack said.

“But in doing so, we have not been able to create, in my estimation, an overarching theme or connecting message that ties everything together, so it can be appealing outside of a particular group,” he said. “What is the connecting tissue, if you will, that will allow somebody who is not a union member, who is not gay, who is not African-American, who is not Latino or Hispanic or any other group to be able to identify with the Democratic Party?”

Is that another way of saying there needs to be a message for average white guys? Not necessarily, Vilsack said. “There’s a whole series of people who are not included in that laundry list. But the point of it is, there’s no message that a rural voter would necessarily say, hey, they’re speaking to me. They’re speaking about me. They’re speaking for me.”

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Equip rural residents for economic change:  Change in the U.S. economy, including increased efficiency in agriculture, has hit rural residents harder than most. Democrats in particular — and himself included — have failed to properly frame and communicate their strategy to smooth the transition, he said.

“We come in and we say, OK, times are tough. Here’s what we’re going to do, we’re going to provide … debt-free college. We’re going to provide tax credits for health insurance,” Vilsack said. A better message would be to offer to partner with people as they make the transition through economic changes: “We’re going to work together.”

Build the bench:  Vilsack says Republicans have done a better job of cultivating local leaders than Democrats. In many states, the consequence of having GOP governors and legislators is action to suppress voting or at least not expand access, he said.

Improve social media use: Vilsack said Republicans did a better job of using social media. Trump understood the old adage of P.T. Barnum, who is credited with saying, “I don’t care what people say about me as long as they say something.”

Kathie Obradovich is a political columnist for the Des Moines Register, where this piece first appeared. Follow her on Twitter: @kobradovich.