OHIO Rural vote helped to negate advantage of cities, poll says

Rural residents worry more about morality than they do about the economy.
OTTAWA, Ohio (AP) -- Glen Beutler lost his job making patio doors when his employer shut down three years ago.
He was exactly the kind of voter John Kerry was counting on to help him defeat President Bush.
Instead, Beutler and many of his neighbors across rural Ohio worried about the economy voted for Bush because they felt he shared their values on issues such as abortion, gay marriage and gun owner rights.
"Around here, family and values still comes first," Beutler said.
Conservatives in Ohio's small towns and farm communities came out for Bush in much greater numbers Tuesday compared with four years ago -- so much that they are a big reason why the president won a second term.
Kerry drew more votes out of Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus than Al Gore did four years ago. But the vote in rural Ohio helped negate the Democrat's advantage in the state's big cities, an analysis of vote totals and an Associated Press exit poll found.
In past campaigns, it was the cities and suburbs that mattered most. Not this year.
"It was nice to see the rural people have the advantage this time," said Cora Bour, the GOP chairwoman in Seneca County.
"In our area, we have a lot of farmers and people who are just down to earth," she said. "A lot of people see that in President Bush. A lot of it had to do with his faith too. That's the way we are around here."
GOP chairman
Bob Bennett, chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, said Bush made great strides in Ohio's smallest counties.
"This is your victory and you should be very proud of what you have accomplished," Bennett wrote in a letter sent Friday to party leaders in rural Ohio.
He credited early organizing and volunteers who made more than 2.5 million phone calls in Ohio and dropped off fliers on doorsteps that reminded voters that Kerry opposed a ban on partial-birth abortions.
The Bush campaign had at least 78,000 volunteers in Ohio, and they made a huge push to make sure that conservatives would turn out.
"The whole game was the last 96 hours," Bennett said.
"A lot of the Bush voters may not have agreed with the president on every issue, but he had the likability issue going for him," Bennett said. "They knew where he stood on every issue."
Bush peppered his speeches at campaign stops around the state with one-liners designed to connect with folks just as concerned with what their children see on television as they were with the war in Iraq.
Often it came at the expense of Kerry's connections to the East and West coasts.
"At one time in this campaign, he actually said the heart and soul of America can be found in Hollywood," was one crowd pleaser Bush said at rallies in Findlay and Toledo during the last week of the campaign.
The Bush campaign also continually painted Kerry as flip-flopper.
Jeffrey Sikkenga, associate professor of political science at Ashland University, said conservative Christians believed that Bush's straight-talking reputation reflected integrity.
"For some people, that steadiness is a moral issue; it's a moral quality," Sikkenga said.
Beutler, who found work doing maintenance at St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Ottawa, said he was bitter after he lost his factory job.
Finding work has been tough for some in the northwest Ohio town about an hour's drive south of Toledo.
But he doesn't blame Bush for his job loss or the loss of t3
he area's biggest employer, LG Philips Displays, which closed its television picture tube plant two years ago and moved 1,500 jobs to Mexico.
Ohio voters who responded to the exit poll on Election Day didn't give Kerry an edge on the economy. In fact, slightly more said they trusted Bush to deal with the economy.
The top issue in determining how folks in the rural areas voted was moral values.
"I liked John Kerry, but at this time, I think moral issues are more important," said Herb Corbat, a retired autoworker from Ottawa.
He said he worries about what young people are seeing in the movies and on television. "We've started putting things on TV that a few years ago you would have paid $5 for behind some counter," he said.
A vote on morality was one way conservatives and Christians could send a message to politicians that they don't like the direction the country is heading.
Around Putnam County, Bush picked up 1,359 more votes than four years ago while Kerry got 285 more than Gore.
A proposed amendment to ban gay marriage, which was approved easily, also helped the conservative turnout in rural places.
So did concerns about gun owner rights and the lingering memory of President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, said Barbara Martin, a former GOP party chair in Darke County.
"You sort of lump all those things together," she said. "Probably that had as much to do with Bush's success in this area as anything else."