The death of the rural Democrat?

I think that for the first time ever, a Democrat is going to be elected President while winning hardly a single rural county anywhere (except in Vermont, Hawaii, and a few smaller areas). It seems far-fetched, but there's some real formidable factors at work here.

I know there's a lot of rural areas where, as much as they've trended against the Democrats lately, folks absolutely cannot stand Republicans like Bush. But if the GOP puts a less sinister tone on its extremist agenda, it could pretty much seal the deal. I'd be a bit disappointed if the Republican losers win counties they haven't won since 1972, but I think it'll happen (only to be offset by Democratic gains in urban areas).

A lot of this is of the Democrats' own making. Under the DLC, they caved to the Republicans, and they ignored the recession of the late '90s (which resulted from Republican policies). Either one of the 2 remaining Democrats can perform well in truly rural areas - but won't, because of DLC baggage. Still, a lot of this loss is due to vote suppression and outright fraud by the GOP.

But one fact that's often ignored is that one of the reasons rural Democrats hardly seem to exist anymore is that rural America hardly exists anymore. How many rural counties are there left in the U.S. and A. that aren't an exurb of some larger city? Even the smallest county in Kentucky is now nearly an exurb of, what, Maysville?

And everyone knows exurbs are where the suburban GOP conservatives are going. Rural Democratic populists end up going...away. Or so the polls make it seem. A lot of this loss of rural Democrats is obviously a case of them losing transport to the polls, because where else could they possibly go? They can't just pack up and move when they depend so much on living in a rural area.

The trend today is that inner suburbs become urban and rural areas become suburban. It looks like the urban areas will completely carry the day for the Democrats this time. The exurbs will complain (like they do about everything), but it was the outer suburbs that carried it for the Republicans for decades, so what goes around comes around.