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This morning as I was showering (which is where most of the world’s problems are solved - at least as it relates to my personal hygiene), I caught an interesting story on National Proletariat Radio (NPR) about the eroding “conservative” base in America’s rural heartland. Apparently this trend is nothing new and began in earnest during the 2006 election cycle. The crux of today’s story was that rural Americans (once staunchly in the corner of “conservatives” like George W. Bush) have become disenchanted with Washington D.C. and most especially the members of Mr Bush’s party who “work” there.

It would seem that the morally majoral have lost faith in the people they perceive to have elected. What’s puzzling and sadly humorous about their feelings is that they’ve gotten exactly what they want. Unfortunately for them they may be discovering that what they think they want and what they really want are two wholly exclusive things.

In his book Invasion of the Party Snatchers (reviewed here), former Barry Goldwater confidante Victor Gold claims that the group most responsible for the Republican Party’s shift toward a strong emphasis on theologically moral issues can be traced to the movement of evangelical voters from Jimmy Carter (Pat Robertson was a significant supporter of Carter) to Ronald Reagan. Recognizing the value of a committed voter base, the Reagan administration and the Republican party placated the evangelicals and Robertson’s Christian Coalition came into vogue. This newly minted voter bloc which prided itself on faith, family and the farm adopted the moniker of Christian Conservatives, but as Gold (and many others) point out they maybe Christians, but they are most certainly not Conservative.

And that’s what’s going on in rural America.

For years the Republican party has done it’s best to pander to the issues that rural America considers important - faith (removing funding restrictions for “faith-based” initiatives), family (becoming decidedly anti-abortion to the extent that proclaiming one’s support of the pro-life agenda is considered the holy grail for a candidate’s position), and the farm (subsidies have steadily increased to the farming industry during this President Bush’s administration) - in essence, God, hand-outs and subsidies: that’s the program the GOP has followed to keep rural America in the fold.

The reality is that none of these things are conservative and that’s where the quandary comes into play for rural Americans today. For years they’ve been calling themselves conservative, but in action they’ve been gleefully operating under the auspices of big government interference and financing. It’s only now that their collective conscience has caught up with them bearing under the weight of an unpopular war and a failed immigration initiative that smacks of a completely “unamerican” approach - amnesty.

Could it be that folks in the Heartland are finally recognizing that God, hand-outs and subsidies are not enough? Or is there something more at play… like perhaps that the federal money gravy train is drying up?

Regardless of what’s driving it, rural voters are moving away from the GOP, and in the end it may help return the Republican party to the kind of conservative that I can support - thank God.