Dear Democratic candidates
You can’t fake roots, so please stop trying
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This year, I decided I will no longer even try to grow vegetables.
Family, friends and wildlife will thank me for the fewer cuss words that will scatter across the universe because of it.
The timing is good. Our market farmers could use the business with Trump yanking $11 million in local food funds out of Iowa. Maybe they invested in a new barn, a larger wash/pack shed or a better walk-in cooler, believing the government would hold up its end of the deal. But no.
So, we’re buying a share from Sundog Farm. It’ll support them and relieve me. It’s hard not to feel like a failure, though.
You see, I really wanted to be self-sufficient, donate to food pantries, give away jam at Christmas. I even pulled that off every few years. But I was never humble or patient enough to study up, observe carefully and put what I learned into practice so I could get consistent results.
Just like Democrats who come out here from the city, tell us about themselves, ask for votes and money, then leave. They really want to win as much as I wanted bountiful, beautiful produce.
They just aren’t doing their homework.
Play to your strengths, not to your voters
Last year, we watched a law professor from Iowa City run for a second time against a rural incumbent Republican. She always started her speech with her poor childhood. She never mentioned she grew up in Florida.
This year, a state senator from Iowa City is likely going up against Sen. Joni Ernst. He started his speech with the story of his two moms, in front of people from four rural counties.
They’re not listening.
#1 There’s a deep divide between Iowa City in Johnson County - where the University of Iowa is located – and everyone else in Iowa.
#2 Candidates from Johnson County ignore #1.
Compared to the residents of counties on three sides of them, people in Johnson County are wealthier, more educated, enjoy nicer parks, better roads and have more job opportunities. They’re famous for voting Democrat and more importantly, for being transient.
See, most university professors don’t stick around long. Their allegiances are not to place but to profession. It’s like having a military base in the district, except with better pay and more attitude. And when people outside of Johnson County think of Johnson County they think of professors.
The thousands of university admins, janitors, maintenance workers and clerks tend to be locals. They are more likely to commute from an adjacent county, where homes and taxes cost less. They buy their groceries, clothes and housewares in Iowa City, leaving a chunk of their paychecks there where they earned them.
Life in rural Iowa
Cedar County locals are different from both. They seldom leave the county for work. Their money and their kids stay here. They grew up with a handful of county parks and small, local grocery stores that sell stuff with a long shelf life. They pay six bucks to get into their kids’ ballgame because taxes don’t cover that anymore, and that’s OK. People swim, boat and fish amidst the farm and processing plant runoff of the Cedar River that runs through the county. It’s free, after all. It’s just silt.
More than 60 percent of people here don’t have a college degree, and that bothers them not one bit. Women tend to make less working service jobs. Men who drive heavy equipment or work construction (wages still boosted directly or indirectly by unions), do better, but nothing like a professor, or at least how they imagine it.
Big Ag’s vertical integration sucks money out of the community so fast you’d think between that and the whining there wasn’t a dime to be made in farming. The only tells are the lucky few with the big houses, multiple outbuildings and millions in new green paint. (Everyone else making a living in ag either works for them or sells to them.)
Don’t look up or you might see the profit margins of Bayer, Syngenta and Cargill soaring overhead, higher than one of those satellites we see at night.
Local folks know each other’s names. Most grew up together. Land titles and plat books are like roadmaps of local history. The same names from 100 years ago are on the plumbing and heating companies, the largest farms and the swine trucks driving by.
People are known by their reputations, too. “That Wayne, he’s got nine lives.” “I ran into Ginny at daycare. She’s fighting cancer.” “Dale is somethin’ else.” Heads shake or nod. Silence speaks volumes. Newcomers like me feel good when we can pull off just one exchange like that and feel just a little less new. You can’t do that if you don’t live here.
And what does anyone from Iowa City know about life out here anyway?
So, if candidates decide they want to represent us, well then, they had better treat this relationship like a garden they want to grow – show some humility, be curious, observe, learn something, then do the hard work of putting it into practice.
As for me, I’m set. My dear friend and neighbor started seven tomato plants for me.
The rest of my retiring veggie gardens are planted to Milpa. “Chaos gardening” is what they called it before some marketing department got ahold of it.
Chaos gardening. Oh, if only it worked that way.
Scenes from Draco Hill
We’ve got a new barn going up. Very exciting! But Roger and Ryan getting the posts in the ground was a work of art!
If you’re missing these photos, be sure to check my Notes every day as I put up a new bloom or other sign of life around Draco Hill Nature Farm.
Remember to sign up for free events all season long at DracoHill.org. Paid subscribers get a personal tour and a free goodie from the farm.
Note to Readers: Paul and I are going on vacation! Your next postcard will come later than usual. Enjoy the rest of Spring and thank you for reading.
Excellent and should be read by everyone, not just those in rural places in Iowa, even though you make a great point for your neck of the woods. This applies to the big cities and the suburbs as well - candidates need to have the humility to know their constituents, or would-be constituents, instead of arrogantly talking about themselves and then asking for money before they fly out the door. I have gotten very good with the Delete button.
Agreed. Democrats in Iowa have the same “astroturf” roots problems that the Republicans used to have. Rather than trying to win everywhere, work to develop a bench and then fan out. To win in our district, perhaps look for candidates in the rural counties who are serving on soil conservation boards, are legit farmers, or county supervisors might be a better strategy than what had failed us more recently.