S. Oregon elects Dennis Richardson, Jason Atkinson, Alan Bates, Peter Buckley--hard to stereotype an area like that. In past years there were some interesting Democrats representing Baker in the legislature.

What Steve says is much like conversations I have had with my friends Hank and Terry over the years. These are men who in their lifetimes have won and lost elections, and each has ties to a particular area where there are enough small towns so that people actually know each other. That may be as much of the difference with Portland as any ideology.

These conversations have been around the topic of candidates being matched to districts where they run. If the history of a particular rural House district is that the state rep's last name is always a well known local family (farmer, dentist, whatever), then the odds of someone who has lived in big cities moving into the district and successfully running for that seat (even a very bright young person with strong Democratic support)are probably between slim and none. That is so obvious it is what my brother would call "From the DUH file!". Similarly, if the district is known for farming and hunting being major local interests, the odds of a professor living in the district boundaries getting elected there (even if this person's friends think it is a great idea) are probably slim.

On the other hand, if someone has a great idea which unites people across the spectrum, that is another story. Vote by mail, for instance, was popular among people here who live in a rural area and commute to a city for work because then they didn't have to worry about getting home before the polls close. That is the solution which came to me while writing this---I am sure there are others.

And for those of you in Portland reading this, allow me to repeat an old joke. When I was on the Dem. State Central Comm., there were people from Portland who thought everyone should come up there for meetings instead of requiring them to visit other areas of the state. And the crack made about such people among those who had to drive an hour or more to reach Portland was "Oh! You mean, for instance, that it takes longer to drive from Portland to Salem than from Salem to Portland?".

There are 36 counties in this state. Each has unique characteristics. Smart people shouldn't think that what works in one county will work in all other counties.

There are 36 counties in this state. Each has unique characteristics. Smart people shouldn't think that what works in one county will work in all other counties.

Right on, LT! In fact, I'd go one step further -- There is NO one right way. It doesn't matter what topic is being discussed or what solution is being proposed.

To quote the Little River Band (70s band from Australia): "There are so many paths up the mountain...Nobody knows all the ways...There are so many paths up the mountain, but the view from the top is still the same."

Steve in Prineville will certainly take a different path than me in Salem and my path is certain to be different from someone in Newport or Portland.

How about a top 5 list of rural differences from someone living in a rural area? I'd like to understand this much better than I do.

I can see that running buses every 15 minutes won't work in a rural area, and I can see that schools are likely to be smaller (or require much longer travel times) and that would lead to different concerns, but both of those are my guesses as an urban dweller, not necessarily accurate concerns of someone from a rural area.

So how about the top 5 concerns? Probably it should be a new topic.

Pete

Pete - You've asked a good honest question, and it deserves an answer in kind.

I wish it was as simple as there being an over-riding rural agenda. But alas, the rural parts of Oregon are extremely diverse, and my opinion from Prineville is very different than someone's from Baker City or Coquille.

Trey and LT are correct in noting that there are 36 Counties in Oregon, each with different issues.

Having said that, just speaking for myself, there are some issues that are rural from my perspective. You hit on a couple of them. Here are some others:

Schools - Crook Co., just shy of 3,000 square miles, is one school district with one high school. Obviously, when the price of gas goes up, and the State reimbursement for student transportation stays the same, we take a budget hit. We are happy with the current equity in the school funding formula, and will gladly take budget hits like that to preserve equal funding with Willamette Valley schools. Our issue then is to preserve equity in funding against possible attacks on this from the Valley. Furthermore, we are just as much in the boat as the Valley in terms of adequacy of funding. The Crook Co. School District is looking at a $1.275 million budget cut due to the combined effects of reduced State support in light of increasing costs (again fuel, but also salary, PERS, and so on) for the next school year. This is in spite of increasing numbers of students in the district. Our 6th Grade Outdoor School appears headed for a fee to participate set up, 7th grade sports will be cut or reduced, and six teaching positions will be eliminated - including the only art teacher. The rural twist on this is the uncontrollable cost of fuel.

Transportation - In Crook Co. we have the only State Highway that remains unpaved. We don't need it paved, but I point that out because generally those in urban areas wouldn't even know it. We have a number of bridges that need replacement. We have a high dependence upon State funding for highways for our commerce. In Prineville, we waited for about 8 years to get a traffic signal light funded at an intersection where we had several fatalities on a State Highway. Just this last two-years we finally are getting passing lanes on the Highway between Redmond and Prineville. The Highway from Prineville to Madras remains a fairly narrow two-lane road all the way. The State turned over maintenance to the Counties of the Highway that connects Bend and Prineville, leaving that more or less permanently to be a two-lane road. Due to lack of State funds, we ended up building the newest Highway in Crook Co. with County money. The Millican Road connnects Prineville to Highway 20 east of Bend, and is designed to be a short-cut for long-haul trucks. All built with County money. The County has taken over maintenance of two State Parks in the County due to State funding issues. -- The rural part of this is that the cutback of State funding, and the priority of road funds going into stressed urban transportation; has resulted in a continuing pattern of having to beg the State for minimal traffic safety funding.

PILT funds - The Federal Government long ago established that in lieu of paying property taxes, they would make "Payments in lieu of taxes". This got tied to timber harvest dollars. In the timber compromise worked out by the Clinton Administration, the Ochoco Forest near Prineville was cut at a somewhat faster rate than is sustainable for a few years to balance out the overall State need for timber. Now that cutting has been reduced, almost eliminated in the Ochoco Forest, our timber revenue is down, and PILT is reduced. Furthermore, the Bush Administration keeps eliminating PILT altogether from the budget. Currently Sen. Wyden is leading a fight to keep PILT. Revenue from PILT supports our local road fund, and goes in as part of the revenue for education. So, when Crook Co. receives PILT money for schools, it goes to the State, to be redistributed as part of the School fund. -- So, here's a fairness issue for you - When you compare the property tax revenue that Multnomah County pays and compare it with places like Crook Co., do you count PILT money? When PILT is fully funded, Crook Co. gets several millions from that, that offsets that expense for the State. So, PILT is a major rural issue that most urban people aren't aware of.

Pete - the next step in telling you about these issues would go into land use. I was on the Crook Co. Planning Commission for a couple of years, and I have found that this stuff bores people to tears. So, the short version is this - People here see no reason that dry, rocky ground, with so little vegetation that a steer would starve, shouldn't be used as a place to put a house. Most of Oregon is zoned for exclusive farm/forest use (about 97%), and with current regulations, the minimum lot size for a house is 20 acres. That means that effectively the State has set a limit of 32 houses per square mile in most of the State. But that assumes that the land is already partitioned. Another rule prohibits "serial partitioning". If you have a parcel of 40 acres or larger, you can partition it once (and that means forever) so long as the smallest parcel created is at least 20 acres, and a maximum of three parcels are created from the parent parcel. No subsequent partitions of the new parcels are allowed. So, if you have an entire section (square mile) that is one tax lot, you can create two 20-acre parcels, and have a 600 acre remaining parcel that can't be divided. - Maximum of three houses per square mile. Here in Crook Co., we see the pushing of people into urban enclaves, and the vast tracks of rocky unproductive grounds that have to be left vacant - as the basis of unhealthy life. That and the rest of the land use issues that concern further regulation of what we can and cannot do with our private lands is a major sore point here.

Again, I set these issues out as one incomplete answer to Pete's question, but please recognize that each part of the State will have further and different issues.

Although I am sympathetic to the lack of representation that Steve and other rural people have in Salem and D.C., I am growing much less sympathetic to the notion that these problems are due to the patronizing atitudes of Democrats in Portland and other urban centers.

There's definitely some truth to the notion of an rural/urban divide, but there is an even bigger urban/suburban divide in terms of voting habits, and in both cases, the solution has less to do with kvetching about what "urban" Democrats do or do not do than it does with finding messages and candidates who will appeal to people in rural areas, coming up with strategies to get the messages out, and to start winning some elections ( there's no better cure for a lack of representation than to elect a representative in your home district).

I've seen Steve write volumes about what won't work in rural Oregon (canvassing, phone banking, "uppity Portland consultants", etc), but I've seen very little from him on the subject of winning election strategies and effective organizing techniques.

Given that basically every post that he writes takes on this topic, I'd love to see him share more of his ideas about what people should be doing to organize in their local communities and less griping about the "patronizing" urban dems who "just don't get it".

And, in the interests of following my own advice, I'll start with a couple of suggestions: Take Howard Dean's advice and use Google and the voter file to identify community leaders (rotary, ag boards, granges, etc) and lower-tier elected officials (School Board, Soil and Water Conservation District, City Council) and start recruiting them to seek higher office. Set up a signage committee in your county central committee and start identifying locations where people will let you put up a sign for a candidate or another, and save sign location data from past candidates. The biggest act of reframing that party activists need to undertake is to abandon the old way of re-inventing the wheel with each new candidate, and to get into the habit of building and retaining political infrastructure across multiple election cycles and multiple candidate races.

Urban Democrat raises valid points -

Just so you know - Crook Co. was one of the first four Counties in Oregon to complete both of the "Howard Dean" tasks - to identify issues Democrats can win on, and to identify local people and how to contact them that might be future leaders/ or are current leaders. That information was sent to the State Party two weeks ago.

As for the rest of what needs to happen to elect Democrats - I don't lack ideas, in fact I have so many I fear overwhelming this forum/format. I have restricted myself in the past to comments of more State level interest, and have focused (as you point out) on one aspect of that - the barriers to gaining rural support that exist as perceptions or realities about the views of the Democratic Party. That does come across as more negative, but that is the nature of that particular point.

<h2>I will bring to this forum later a more focused response to this concern about the different actions that I believe will result in setting the stage to elect more Democrats from rural areas.</h2>