Rural Democrats grow scarce

One of the less obvious consequences of Tuesday's legislative elections was the step they represented toward the extinction of an increasingly rare breed of Virginia politician: the rural Democrat.

Crippled by demographics and politics, the once dominant force in Virginia politics has evaporated in recent decades as the party's foothold has shifted to urban areas and suburbs, with Republicans assuming control of nearly all remaining swaths of rural territory.

"We're endangered," said Sen. Phillip P. Puckett, D-Russell, one of only four rural Democrats remaining after lest week's election, which swept out three others.

"One of the things I think certainly hurts us is trying to run as Democrats with people associating us with what goes on at the national level," Puckett said. "A lot of Democrats are saying, 'I'm not leaving the Democrats — they're leaving us.' And there's some truth to that."

Puckett, who considers himself a social and fiscal conservative, hung on to his seat this year thanks in large part to support from the coal industry, which views President Barack Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency as mortal enemies.

Puckett's life vest was his early disavowal of the president, in which he made it clear that he would not support his re-election bid.

"I felt that was necessary, and it's not straying from my record in the General Assembly," Puckett said, touting a long record of supporting the coal industry and its workers. "That's who I am."

Two other longtime Democrats — House Minority Leader Ward L. Armstrong, D-Henry, and Sen. W. Roscoe Reynolds, D-Henry — were unseated by Republicans as was Del. William K. Barlow, D-Isle of Wight. Del. Albert C. Pollard Jr., D-Lancaster, who represented the Northern Neck, is retiring with a Republican taking over his seat.

Remaining rural Democrats, aside from Puckett, are Del. Joseph P. Johnson Jr., D-Washington County, Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath, whose district, while it includes Charlottesville, is largely agricultural, and Del. Lynwood W. Lewis Jr., D-Accomack.

Larry Sabato, a political analyst and director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, called the gradual demise "a major problem for Democrats," and one not confined to Virginia.

The party has become so dominated by its hold on urban areas, minorities and university communities, he said, that Democrats have lost footing in the undeveloped parts of the South.

"They're completely removed in the rural person's mind from the problems of non-urban areas," he said, "and Republicans are the opposite."

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The legacy of rural Democrats in Virginia dates back to the years following the Civil War when Southern Democrats came to embody a conservative anti-government, states-rights stance that had been briefly upended by the Abraham Lincoln-led Republican Party that politically empowered former slaves.

Rural Democrats' power lasted for decades. The Democratic Byrd Machine, named for U.S. Sen. Harry F. Byrd Sr., D-Va., eclipsed all comers in the state until 1969, when Linwood Holton, who backed civil rights, became the first Republican governor of the 20th century, signaling the start of two-party competition in Virginia.

For much of the latter half of the 20th century, the legislature included vestiges of the Byrd Machine, rural Democrats who had substantial power. But a political shift began in the 1950s as the state moved toward urbanization.

"Virginia had an agrarian-based economy until World War II; that was the great break point," said Sabato. "After the war, the growth of the military, the federal government and industrialization combined to begin the transformation of Virginia."

Beginning in the late 1960s as the national Democratic Party moved to the left, a number of statehouse Democrats left the party. Among current House members, Del. Lacey E. Putney, I-Bedford, became an independent in 1968, Watkins M. Abbitt Jr., I-Appomattox, in 2001.

"The big breakthrough for Republicans was with [former Gov.] George Allen," said Sabato. "Allen got two-thirds of the rural vote in 1993. He did much better in rural Virginia than he did anywhere else."

Since then, the decline of rural Democrats has been precipitous, with the holdouts increasingly out of place in the new Virginia.

"It's custom and tradition," Sabato said of those remaining. "Doesn't that fit Virginia perfectly?"

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Puckett, born and raised in Southwest Virginia, concedes that his roots are what made him a Democrat, and what keeps him from jumping ship despite his conservative leanings.

His father, a loyal Democrat, was a local town councilman, mayor, and county supervisor who raised him to believe in the party and what it stood for.

"What I learned about the Democratic Party is what I still believe: It's the party of the working people, the middle class," he said. "It's one of the things I'm very concerned about now — the middle class, I think, is under attack across this country."

While a staunch supporter of unions' collective bargaining rights, Puckett also calls himself a "strong right-to-work-state guy" who occasionally takes issue with union stances. And unlike many of their brethren, Puckett, who is firmly anti-abortion, said rural Democrats such as himself tend to lean toward social and fiscal conservatism, adding that many mistake the 'D' after their names as a liberal brand.

"I can't tell you how many people think I support abortion just because I'm a Democrat," he said. "The values that our people have out here are very different. But in spite of a heavy barrage from the Republican Party of Virginia trying to say I was something else, most of our people know better than that."

Armstrong, too, sought to distance himself from the president, launching a TV ad that said his opponent's efforts to tie him to the president were "a stretch," adding, "I'm pro-life, pro-gun, and I always put Virginia first. That's why I opposed the cap-and-trade bill."

His effort to defeat Del. Charles D. Poindexter, R-Franklin, ultimately failed, a fact he chalks up, in part, to growing public dissatisfaction with the Obama administration, especially in rural areas, and his ties to more liberal-leaning colleagues in Northern Virginia and elsewhere.

"You are put in some very difficult positions sometimes when you're called upon to represent a very conservative area," Armstrong said. "It's a ready-made issue for the Republicans to beat you over the head with."

Armstrong said that he has on occasion voted more conservatively than he would have if he weren't representing a conservative-leaning district.

"Even if you have voted conservatively, it's guilt by association," he said.

And it's not just Virginia. In other Southern states, such as Mississippi, rural Democrats have been losing ground for years. In Alabama, the GOP last year took control of the legislature for the first time since 1874. And Rural Democrats in North Carolina last year lost control of their statehouse for the first time in 140 years.

"Look at North Carolina — they've been wiped out there," Sabato said. "It's redistricting, that's part of it, but it's just difficult to get rural areas to vote Democratic anymore."

He added that the cycle is self-reinforcing, with each loss of a moderate Democrat creating a more liberal caucus, which only serves to further alienate rural voters.

As a result, Sabato doesn't hold out much hope for the species.

"They're not quite unicorns," he said, "but they're close."