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Patterns emerging in the bailout vote for 2008 and beyond

Dante Chinni

Posted: 10.01.2008 / 7:40 AM PDT

There are many ways to view Congress’s rejection of the financial bailout bill on Monday.

You could say it was about politicians who did not want to cross angry voters on Election Day. You might point to President Bush’s diminished ability to lead the country after eight years in office. You might say Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain were ineffectual in their leadership.

But viewing it through the lens of Patchwork Nation, you might see signs of a backlash in a certain type of community – places that are more rural and less wealthy.

It’s impossible to completely match up the House vote with Patchwork Nation’s 11 county types: The footprint of congressional districts does not match US county lines. But if one looks at a map of where the “no” votes came from and compares it with the Patchwork Nation map, some large overlaps emerge.

Most noticeable, the vast majority of our agricultural “Tractor Country” counties and our semirural “Service Worker Centers” (which both tend to have lower incomes) fall within congressional districts that voted no on Monday.

Some entire state delegations with heavy numbers of those communities voted no – consider Nebraska, Kansas, South Dakota, and Montana. In Iowa, meanwhile, the footprint of the districts that voted no matches closely the footprints of those communities. Or look at Michigan, Minnesota, and New Mexico, where almost all of those two community types, along with other communities, fall into the “no” districts.

The correlation is not perfect. In some states, many districts that do not hold “Service Worker Center” or “Tractor Country” counties voted no. But on the whole, counties that fall into those groups are in “no” districts.

Is it just coincidence or something more?

As we noted Monday, stock ownership is spread around all 11 of Patchwork Nation’s community types. In every one of them, more than 44 percent of the adult population owns stock in some form. On average in the community types, more than 54 percent of adults have some money on Wall Street.

But “Service Worker Centers” and “Tractor Country” were among the communities with fewer investors. In both of these community types, fewer than 50 percent are invested.

On the whole, these are places that are tightknit and removed from big money and big population centers. They are places, in other words, that aren’t as much a part of Wall Street’s finances.

The towns that we are watching in this election that represent “Service Worker Centers” – Lincoln City, Ore. – and “Tractor Country” – Sioux Center, Iowa – could hardly be more different from lower Manhattan. There are no skyscrapers, most people are longtime residents, and going to work rarely involves a jacket and tie.

In terms of the 2008 election, it remains to be seen what Monday’s vote will mean. Just because a local member of Congress voted against the bill doesn’t mean he or she will necessarily be viewed as a hero in November.

In terms of the presidential race, Senators McCain and Obama have both called on Congress to pass some kind of bill.

But beyond the 2008 campaign, the vote on the bailout raises some questions about where the nation is moving politically. One could look at the map outlining the Monday vote and that of Patchwork Nation and see the early signs of a rising populist movement.

Indeed, our trips to those communities have found some of the strongest notes of dissatisfaction with Washington and the way business is done there.

That doesn’t mean one should expect people in places like Lincoln City and Sioux Center to join forces anytime soon. Those voters have different motivating factors. For instance, our “Tractor Country” communities are heavily Republican and socially conservative, while our “Service Worker Centers” are more evenly split politically.

Still, judging from Monday’s vote, both types of places seem to agree on one thing: They are angry.