How Republicans Lost the Farm

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http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/01/how-republicans-lost-the-farm/283349/



On a recent Monday in San Antonio, Texas, Tom Vilsack, the secretary of agriculture, got up to speak to an auditorium full of farmers. Vilsack, a doughy, wavy-haired former governor of Iowa, wore a grim expression as he gripped the lectern.

"My mom used to caution me to have patience. She'd say, 'Patience, Tommy, patience,'" Vilsack said. "My mother never met the 2013 Congress."

The group Vilsack was addressing, the American Farm Bureau Federation, is the nation's largest farmers' organization, with more than 6 million member families from all 50 states. It is perhaps the most influential player in the American agriculture lobby, which spends more than $100 million each year to influence Congress. Through its state chapters and their political-action committees, the bureau also wields influence in state capitols and elections up and down the ballot. In San Antonio, 7,000 members had gathered for their annual meeting to hear from Vilsack and discuss what they wanted out of Washington.

The members of the Farm Bureau—an overwhelmingly conservative, strongly Republican group—have traditionally gotten what they wanted, between all that lobbying and politicians' never-ending appetite for paeans to the nobility of rural life. But these days, thanks to the Tea Party civil war that has stoppered the House of Representatives, that is not the case.

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1. Kick....

[jwirr]

2. My father was an Iowa farmer and member of the Farm Bureau. IMO they lost the farm when they stopped

supporting small farmers in the 50s. And they say they want a larger audience for their message! They had one - it was called food stamp users. The rethugs that they elected have used divide and conquer to win this game. And it is not either the farmer or the food stamp user who wins.