Cross-posted on One Million Strong
When considering whether Obama will be able to draw votes in rural Iowa, the Associated Press recommended reflecting on the example of Henderson County, Illinois. A tiny rural county in northeastern Illinois, right across the Mississippi river from Iowa, Henderson County has a population of only 8,213. The population is 98.5% White and a mere 0.25% African-American.
Stefan Schmidt, a political science professor at Iowa State University, said Obama's Senate campaign probably was good preparation for Iowa. "That border along the Mississippi River is a little bit artificial," he said. "Small towns, rural, with some of the same problems, except maybe Iowa is a little more liberal, which would help him."
In 2004 during the Democratic primary, despite winning a commanding 53% of the vote statewide, mainly through a huge victory in Chicago and the surrounding area, Obama received all of thirty votes in Henderson County or 6%. He had however managed 27% downstate in a crowded primary field of seven, a surprisingly solid turnout that was crucial in putting him over the top. (A map of the primary results here.)
By the time of the general election, Obama won over two-thirds of the vote in Henderson County, "getting 2,700 votes in the county, more than twice as many as his Republican opponent, commentator Alan Keyes." Obama won "92 of Illinois' 102 counties as he earned 70 percent of the vote against Keyes. He got 61 percent of the downstate vote.
Even more interesting, Obama did an astonishing twelve points better than John Kerry in the county and a total of fifteen points better statewide. These are rural voters splitting their ticket between Bush and an unabashedly liberal, black lawyer and state legislator from Chicago. </div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left">Statewide, in the ballpark of 700,000 voters --- out of only about five million ballots cast in Illinois--- split their ticket between Barack Obama and George W. Bush. Think about that for a minute.
Obama also earned an astonishing 40% of the Republican vote, compared to 11% that voted for Kerry --- outperforming Kerry by a remarkable 29 points.
How did Obama manage it, why is it significant, and what does it mean for his Iowa campaign?
Yes, a lot of it had to do with his opponent, but the reason the Republican party grasped at carpetbagger Alan Keyes --- after their previous candidate Jack Ryan dropped from the race following a divorce file scandal --- was partially because Obama had already come to dominate statewide polls and be viewed as unbeatable.
Obama also realized early on that his success hinged on building his support in rural areas of the state. He set to work campaigning and "arranged high-profile tours that took him from near the Wisconsin border to the southern tip of Illinois, far closer to Memphis, Tenn., than to Chicago." He built up relationships with rural leaders.
One of those visits took Obama to Cairo, Illinois. Cairo, in Alexander County, sits down at the extreme southernmost tip of Illinois, where the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers join. It was also one of the most famous segregated cities in Illinois into the 1960's and early 1970's: (via Wikipedia)
In 1969, Cairo, the most prominent segregated town in the state of Illinois, was the site of an intense civil rights struggle. The threat of violence resulted in the National Guard being called in to restore order. White-owned businesses were boycotted in a protest led by the United Front civil rights organization.
Obama related the story of visiting Cairo in 2005 at a birthday tribute to civil rights hero John Lewis:
About a week after the primary, Dick Durbin and I embarked on a nineteen city tour of Southern Illinois. And one of the towns we went to was a place called Cairo, which, as many of you might know, achieved a certain notoriety during the late 60s and early 70s as having one of the worst racial climates in the country. You had an active white citizen's council there, you had cross burnings, Jewish families were being harassed, you had segregated schools, race riots, you name it - it was going on in Cairo.
And we're riding down to Cairo and Dick Durbin turns to me and says, "Let me tell you about the first time I went to Cairo. It was about 30 years ago. I was 23 years old and Paul Simon, who was Lieutenant Governor at the time, sent me down there to investigate what could be done to improve the racial climate in Cairo."
And Dick tells me how he diligently goes down there and gets picked up by a local resident who takes him to his motel. And as Dick's getting out of the car, the driver says "excuse me, let me just give you a piece of advice. Don't use the phone in your motel room because the switchboard operator is a member of the white citizen's council, and they'll report on anything you do."
Well, this obviously makes Dick Durbin upset, but he's a brave young man, so he checks in to his room, unpacks his bags and a few minutes later he hears a knock on the door. He opens up the door and there's a guy standing there who just stares at Dick for a second, and then says, "What the hell are you doing here?" and walks away.
Well, now Dick is really feeling concerned and so am I because as he's telling me this story, we're pulling in to Cairo. So I'm wondering what kind of reception we're going to get. And we wind our way through the town and we go past the old courthouse, take a turn and suddenly we're in a big parking lot and about 300 people are standing there. About a fourth of them are black and three fourths are white and they all are about the age where they would have been active participants in the epic struggle that had taken place thirty years earlier.
And as we pull closer, I see something. All of these people are wearing these little buttons that say "Obama for U.S. Senate." And they start smiling. And they start waving. And Dick and I looked at each other and didn't have to say a thing. Because if you told Dick thirty years ago that he - the son of Lithuania immigrants born into very modest means in east St. Louis - would be returning to Cairo as a sitting United States Senator, and that he would have in tow a black guy born in Hawaii with a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas named Barack Obama, no one would have believed it.
But it happened.
In the general election, Obama ended up carrying Cairo and Alexander County by a margin of two-to-one --- a mere thirty years after the city had been riven with riots and racial conflict.
Lessons for Iowa?
First, Obama learned the importance of building local relationships in rural areas. He is working to translate that to Iowa by sending supporters in rural Illinois as surrogates into rural Iowa --- for example, the chair of the Henderson County Democratic Party Richard Bigger.
Second, Obama has launched an unprecedented network of now 33 field offices spread out across the state, not just in the major cities. He's an employing an innovative caucus strategy: planning a mock caucus; and not only identifying supporters but touching base with them every three weeks until election day.
Third, Obama has been criss-crossing rural Iowa for a good part of the summer, holding a series of policy forums on rural America.
The conventional wisdom is that Obama has his strongholds in eastern Iowa, where there is overlap with the Illinois television market and he is better known, and among young people in the various college towns. As in his 2004 Democratic primary win, Obama can not just win Chicago --- he's going to have to hold his own across rural Iowa as well.