I'd like to get the perspective on this story from one of this region's local papers rather than a San Francisco paper before I pass judgement. I'd be disappointed if someone with Pelosi's reputation could so easily hornswaggle these farmers into being her buddy. But it wouldn't be the first time profit made strange bedfellows...
On a tangent, nice attack on gun owners with the "like guns, don't like gays" line.
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http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/08/06/MNGQJKC8081.DTL(08-06) 04:00 PDT Redwood Falls, Minn. -- Few folks in rural Minnesota have heard of Nancy Pelosi, and even fewer like her politics.
Guns are popular in this farming community. Gays are not. And many regard legal abortions as genocide. The House Democratic leader's position on each of these issues is well outside the mainstream here, where attitudes toward San Francisco often rely on unflattering stereotypes.
"If you want a little push into the Pacific -- we'll help you,'' offered David Johnson, who grows corn and soybeans near the Iowa border, speaking in a tone that suggested he was only half kidding.
But Pelosi has found an issue that brings smiles to the farmers' faces.
The issue is corn, or more specifically ethanol, a byproduct of smashing and fermenting the grain that grows as far as the eye can see, and is increasingly used to power automobiles as an alternative to $3-a-gallon gasoline.
During a visit to an agricultural festival last week that took three plane rides and a muddy drive to reach, Pelosi preached the gospel of corn fuel that some believe will boost the nation's economy, the fortunes of farmers, and perhaps the Democratic Party's image in the conservative farm belt.
"When I return to Washington, I will tell them I have been to Minnesota and I have seen the future," Pelosi told about 500 farmers, who responded with enthusiastic applause.
For Pelosi to become speaker of the House and overcome the caricature of her as a "latte liberal,'' she must appear at ease in places like Redwood Falls (pop. 5,435), where the nearest Starbucks is more than an hour away and where locals looked at the pouring rain that turned their dry fields and the outdoor festival into muddy slop, and said: "Thank God.''
Her visit to Redwood County's 25th annual FarmFest provided a glimpse at how Democrats hope to chip away at the Republican advantage in rural America, which has long balanced the Democrats' domination of big cities.
Decked out in boots and blue jeans, Pelosi refrained from attacks on President Bush and the GOP Congress, which are a mainstay of her San Francisco and Washington appearances. Instead, she focused on an energy plan she insisted will send dollars "to the Middle West, not the Middle East.''
The presence of a Capitol Hill security detail, her camel blazer and pearly white earrings, and the film crew from "60 Minutes'' -- which emerged from a cornfield like Shoeless Joe Jackson in "Field of Dreams'' -- made it clear she was not local.
But the San Francisco Democrat had no trouble eating pork chops on a stick, talking soybeans and turkey manure with farmers, and promoting the Democrats' commitment to corn-based ethanol and other biofuels.
As unlikely as Pelosi's presence in Minnesota's Seventh Congressional District, the party's interest in rural voters is not. Of the 40 most competitive House seats at stake in the November midterm elections, at least half have a significant rural constituency, and an improved Democratic showing would considerably help their quest to win the 15 seats they need to take back a majority from the Republicans.
Minnesota's seventh, stretching along the South Dakota border in southwestern Minnesota clear up to Canada, is perhaps the nation's largest agricultural district. It is one of dozens of stops Pelosi is expected to make this month, a campaign schedule that will take her to at least 12 states.
Few places are farther from Pelosi's home -- physically and culturally. Roughly 1,900 miles east of San Francisco and 1,200 miles west of Washington, the district is nearly 300 times larger than Pelosi's, consisting of thousands of farms that were the backdrop for Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House on the Prairie.''
District voters gave Bush comfortable victories in 2000 and 2004. And it is an easy place to draw laughs mocking a San Francisco Democrat.
Ron Carey, the Minnesota GOP state chairman, has said "about the only farm products Nancy Pelosi is familiar with are the wine and brie served at her lavish San Francisco fundraisers.''
Michael Barrett, the Republican candidate for Congress in the district, said most people think of her "more as an expert on alternative lifestyles than alternative energy.''
When Pelosi took over as the Democratic leader, many Republicans -- and a good many in her own party -- warned that a San Francisco liberal would be toxic to Democrats such as Rep. Collin Peterson, the conservative Democrat who has represented Redwood Falls and the surrounding district for the past 16 years.
But the efforts to demonize Pelosi have been ineffective.
Republican radio ads in 2004 attacked Peterson for being too cozy with the "ultraliberal Pelosi.'' Peterson won with 66 percent of the vote.
And the political climate is such in the summer of 2006 that Peterson accompanied Pelosi through his district for nearly 10 hours last week, praising her for being focused on the ethanol issue "like a laser beam'' and boasting that "I'm turning her into an aggie.''
Peterson, who could become chairman of the House Agriculture Committee if Democrats win a majority, is up-front about his differences with Pelosi, which he said are about as wide as his differences with House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio.
Peterson is the sort of Democrat who would be virtually unrecognizable in the Bay Area, voting to authorize the use of force in Iraq, in favor of drilling for oil in Alaska, for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, to limit the scope of the Endangered Species Act, to limit legal abortions, against expanding stem cell research and in favor of Bush's tax cuts and prescription drug bill.
"I probably couldn't get 10 percent of the vote in her district, and she couldn't get elected in my district,'' Peterson said.
Yet he was pleased to show off Pelosi to his constituents, saying they agree on "the core issues,'' and if he can get a congresswoman from San Francisco to sign on to his agriculture policies, "that's a pretty good thing.''
Even Peterson's opponent, Barrett, who called it a mistake for Peterson to stand beside Pelosi, said he won't repeat the radio ads trying to link the pair.
"I'm not going to waste my money,'' he said in an interview. "Nancy's not the issue.''
Pelosi was aware of her audience and stuck close to the ethanol issue in her discussions with farmers. To a crowd interested in emergency grazing and haying and feed stockpiles, she talked of the Democrat's commitment to using corn to make the country energy independent in 10 years, of research projects to boost biofuels, and of the Democrats' "innovation strategy,'' which includes making broadband universal.
Pelosi did not mention that San Francisco has a farm -- a mushroom farm -- as she did before an agriculture group in Washington last month, perhaps recognizing that growing mushrooms in San Francisco will only harden stereotypes.
Instead, she gave a brief tribute to U.S. troops in Iraq and to family values and told one crowd she had picked up a present for her husband: "I got the recipe for pork chops on a stick.''
When asked whether as speaker she would push legislation to provide tax cuts to farmers who invest in renewable energy, she responded, "Within the first week.''
Enthusiasm for a new market for corn knows no bounds among locals. Peterson called the ethanol boon "the most exciting thing that's happened in rural America in 100 years.''
Making ethanol widely available will require major changes in infrastructure, including pumps at gas stations that can deliver E85, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline that can be found in only a few regions in the country. By one estimate, it would require a cornfield 20 times the size of Minnesota to satisfy the nation's appetite for fuel.
University of Minnesota economist Steven Taff warned that while demand for corn fuel may delight Minnesota farmers today, eventually production would saturate the market and "what we see now with ethanol cannot last.''
But at a time of $3-a-gallon gas, war raging in the Middle East, and great concern over oil-based energy's effect on the environment, promoting ethanol has an immediate political benefit.
Margaret Kelliher, the Democratic leader in the Minnesota House, said the party has been picking up seats in the southern part of the state in part because of its efforts among farmers.
"Remember we're the DFL,'' Kelliher said, referring to the "Democratic Farmer Labor Party,'' as it is known in Minnesota. "This resonates here very easily.''
Pelosi said the message reaches well beyond the state, saying her office is distributing the party's commitment to 5,000 rural media outlets.
"This helps convey the commitment to rural America that energy independence is our goal -- to make clear to rural America that this is the commitment of the House Democrats,'' Pelosi said as she prepared to get on a private jet bound for Minneapolis for another day of events.
On the day that Pelosi left Minnesota last week, national GOP Chairman Ken Mehlman was in the twin cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul invoking her name as a reason for Republicans to redouble their campaign efforts.
"Picture Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who called the president 'an incompetent leader' and 'morally irresponsible,' '' Mehlman told a Republican gathering.
But Bush's waning popularity is evident in rural Minnesota, where many said they had voted for him twice but were sorry they had. Many expressed frustration with the GOP and voiced little appetite for such partisan attacks.
Even Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who is facing re-election, shared the stage with Pelosi, saying in a brief interview that "the country needs more bipartisan cooperation.''
To bring the House Democratic leader to rural Minnesota is an "opportunity for us to showcase ... the strength of the ethanol possibilities,'' Pawlenty said.
As the odor of the nearby portable toilets penetrated the enormous FarmFest tent where Pelosi spoke, James Derickson, a 75-year-old retired farmer said he had grown weary of Republicans.
"She's all right by me,'' he said of Pelosi. "Let's get more women in there. They can't do any worse.''
E-mail Marc Sandalow at
msandalow@sfchronicle.com.
