WASHINGTON, July 25, 2016 - The Agri-Pulse team is
in Philadelphia for the kickoff of the Democratic National Convention. The big
questions this week will be whether Bernie Sanders’ supporters will rally
around Hillary Clinton, especially after she picked a relative moderate for her
running mate, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine.
The convention got off to a rocky start yesterday with the resignation of the
party’s chairman, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida. She
stepped down after emails were leaked showing how the party leadership had been
working in favor of Clinton over Sanders. Donna Brazile, who ran Al Gore’s
campaign in 2000, will serve as party chair during this week’s convention.
Sanders will play a major part in setting the tone for the convention when he
speaks tonight along with first lady Michelle Obama. Although Sanders has
endorsed Clinton he'll have plenty of his supporters in the arena. Sanders has
1,893 committed delegates to Clinton’s 2,814, according to the
Associated Press count.
This convention is likely to have a very different feel than the GOP event last
week, which was very much the Trump family show. The Democratic convention will
be heavy on celebrating the Clinton and Obama administrations. Former president
Bill Clinton will be the keynote speaker on Tuesday. President Obama and Vice
President Joe Biden will speak on Wednesday.
Vilsack vet to manage Kaine campaign. Matt Paul, who served as Agriculture
Secretary Tom Vilsack’s communications director, will be chief of staff for Tim
Kaine. Paul left USDA in 2015 to be Clinton’s state director in Iowa.
Platform pledges stronger rural/farm economy. One of the first orders of
business for the convention will be to approve a platform that pledges to
“protect and enhance family farms” and puts special emphasis on raising
standards for farm labor. The platform specifically endorses the EPA’s new
pesticide regulations for agricultural workers and calls for increased
regulation of work hours, elimination of child labor and improved housing and
sanitation.
The platform doesn’t get into any specifics about farm policy but pledges to
expand local and regional markets and to support a “focused safety net” to help
family operations that need assistance during “challenging times.” The GOP
platform focused on criticism of Obama administration regulations and called
for removing the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program from the farm bill,
an idea that the authors feel would make it easier to pass farm programs.
The Democratic platform, which puts a lot of emphasis on combating climate
change, also endorses renewable fuels and calls for doubling loan guarantees
for development of bio-based products.
Glickman: Don’t forget rural voters. Former Agriculture Secretary Dan
Glickman tells Agri-Pulse he hopes the Clinton campaign will make a
serious run at winning over rural voters this year. “We can’t just capitulate
in small towns and rural America. It’s not only important for the swing states
(in the presidential race) but it could affect some legislative and
congressional races.”
Glickman, who will be attending the convention, admits that the cultural issues
still cut against Democrats with rural and small town voters. But he thinks
that rural voters also may worry about what he calls the “unpredictability,
instability and uncertainty” that a Trump presidency might bring. Glickman also
says that Trump’s attacks on trade agreements could help with voters who see
exports as critical for farm commodities and other goods.
As we reported last week from Cleveland, the Trump campaign is looking to run
up big margins in rural areas and small towns in its bid to win states such as
Iowa, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Pam Johnson, a former president of the National Corn Growers Association from
Iowa, also will be in Philadelphia this week. She’s not a delegate, but she
says she’s hoping the Clinton campaign will be talking about rural policy the
way it did before the Iowa caucuses. Johnson participated in a small meeting
with Clinton in the spring of 2015 and later accompanied the candidate when she
visited the Iowa State Fair last August. “Since she (Clinton) rolled out her
rural action plan last summer people may have forgotten all of the things she
has done,” Johnson said.
Clinton’s
plan included proposals to finance rural infrastructure and it called
for fully funding the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and
strengthening the Renewable Fuel Standard.
Peterson planned to skip convention. The House Agriculture Committee’s top
Democrat, Collin Peterson, told Agri-Pulse earlier this month that he
planned to skip this week’s convention. His reason? He needs to get some cover
crops planted on his land in Minnesota.
Peterson wasn’t clear on when the convention actually started. “I’m going to be
planting cover crops when the convention is going on. First of August, right?”
WhenAgri-Pulse pointed out that the convention started a week earlier,
Peterson insisted that he would still be busy. “That’s when I’m planting my
cover crops.”
Peterson, who is a super delegate, is committed to Sanders, because Peterson
said his constituents favored the Vermont senator.
She said it: “We know there are problems in rural community and small
towns and cities. She’s got a plan to address that.” - Pam Johnson, former
president of the National Corn Growers Association, on Hillary Clinton.
#30
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