Editors’ Note: In June, Barn Raiser ran an opinion piece “How the House Democrats’ Campaign Arm Is Getting Serious About Connecting With Rural Voters” by Jacob Burg, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s (DCCC) first Rural Engagement Manager. In his article, Burg made the claim that the House Democrats’ campaign arm is making a historic investment in rural communities. Our readers had a few thoughts of their own. Below is a selection of their responses. You can visit the original story to view all the comments.

Want to keep the conversation going? Join the discussion in the comments section or send an email to letters@barnraisingmedia.com.

Rural tokenism?

Sorry, but I’m not as hopeful as Mr. Burg. Hiring a sole person to handle rural engagement is unwise and unfair to Burg by putting it all on his plate. … The folks Burg worked for as a very junior level staffer with Rep. Delia Ramirez (Ill.-03) and Rep. Chuy Garcia (Ill.-04) do not represent rural districts. They represent parts of Cook County (Chicago, America’s third-largest city) and DuPage County, which is suburban. Also, paying Burg a measly salary of about $70,000 is insulting in a city as expensive to live in as Washington, D.C. The DCCC should have hired a trio of folks instead of just Burg as a token. 

State Democratic party rural caucuses are starving for information on how GOP House members are screwing rural America. So far, I don’t see any evidence that the DCCC is supplying these rural caucuses with any content that they can use to do letters to the editor or posts on social media to educate voters about Republican’s records. Also, less than 1% of Americans are farmers meaning most of rural America is non-ag. Farmers are going to continue to vote Republican so can we stop it with this outside focus on production agriculture at the expense of other parts of rural.

Matt L. Barron

Nothing new

If the entire agenda for rural outreach consists entirely of the standard DCCC script of blaming the Republicans while offering nothing specific the New Democrats will employ to address the needs of rural voters, you’re wasting your time. And from what I’ve read, that’s exactly what’s happening.

Rural voters already know what their problems are; they don’t need some employee of the DCCC waltzing in and pundit-‘splaining it just so it can all be blamed on the other guy. They want to know what you and the politicians you represent plan to do about it.

Elizabeth Burton

Walk the talk

Putting campaign money behind rural Democrats and tying them to campaigns for state agricultural candidates like in Texas is the path to rebuilding the [Democratic] Party in rural areas. Put the DCCC staffer in a rural area like Iowa. Put resources behind candidates for statewide candidates in rural states. BUT one staffer for all rural America is almost silly.

Mike Boland

Party down

Re-found the party (even [Barack] Obama mouthed that idea for “the nation”) or split off the true progressives into a third party that speaks to the populace, the normal people, the disaffected and despaired, not the corporatists / oligarchs. which is what the fraction of 1% that runs things with so many disaffected, that fraction including the Dem rulers who have strangled us

Todd G. GlanzJul

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