Word: ruralization
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...urban strategy failed. McCaskill lost the general election to Republican Matt Blunt, whose slim victory statewide was fueled by huge majorities in rural counties. McCaskill earned her political stripes as a tough-talking prosecutor in Kansas City before becoming state auditor in 1998. Since losing the governor's race in 2004, McCaskill used her position as auditor to keep her name in the news, launching high-profile investigations into state-regulated nursing homes and cost overruns in St. Louis's MetroLink light rail system...
...victory party was only the first step in McCaskill's new rural offensive. She ran her first campaign ads on Springfield TV stations. She's visited conservative southwest Missouri 27 times so far, says spokeswoman Adrianne Marsh. By mid-August, McCaskill had campaigned in 47 of the state's 109 rural counties. Of course her opponent, Republican incumbent Jim Talent, is also running hard in rural areas. Which means that one of this year's biggest Senate races will be decided in the smallest places, like Fairdealing, Missouri, population...
...Politicians hate to campaign in rural Missouri because it's so sparsely populated," says Ken Warren, who owns a polling company and teaches political science at St. Louis University. "But that's where 50 percent of the state lives. They really have no choice...
...Both candidates have that problem of connecting with rural voters," says Jerry Wamser, a lawyer and state Republican Party activist. "Neither of them is exactly down-home folk...
...McCaskill will have a difficult time wooing many rural Missourians because of her comparatively liberal stances on cultural issues, which are becoming major issues in the race. Unlike Talent, and the majority of Missourians, McCaskill is pro-choice, supports gun control and has opposed banning gay marriage. The war on terror also features prominently in both candidates' stump speeches. Talent regularly projects Republicans as strong and Democrats as weak on national security, while McCaskill hammers Talent on his support for the Iraq War, which just over half of Missourians opposed in a recent St. Louis Post-Dispatch poll...