Observing the bellwether of American politics

In the ‘show me’ State, actions speak louder than words, reports John Breslin in St Louis, Missouri.

IN Missouri, the middle of middle America, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton split the vote nearly 50-50 in this week’s primary face off.

The percentages the two Democrat candidates polled were close to identical to their national numbers. To even casual observers of United States politics, this was not a surprise.

Missouri, the “show me” state, as in actions speak louder than fancy words, is often referred to as the bellwether of American politics. It most closely reflects in economic, demographic and political terms the country as a whole.

The State’s Phelps County is the country’s mean centre of population, a distinction that a few hundred years ago was held by Maryland but which slowly arced south and west.

That means, according to the the US Census Bureau and which, frankly, cannot be improved upon, the “point at which an imaginary, flat, weightless, and rigid map of the United States would balance perfectly if weights of identical value were placed on it so that each weight represented the location of one person on the date of the census”.

Along its eastern and western borders run the two great American rivers, the Mississippi and Missouri. On these “coasts” are the two big cities of the state, Kansas and St Louis, diverse, northern looking and, to a large extent, socially liberal.

The south of the state is part of the bible belt, that vast evangelical Christian arc running from Texas all the way to the Atlantic coast.

Historically, it’s been a crossroads, sometimes a bloody one. It was the gateway to the west, where Lewis and Clark set off on their epic journey that did much to ultimately open up the rest of the country to settlers.

Before the Civil War, it was nominally a slave state but did not secede from the union, it then was split in the most vicious way, in many cases brother against brother, and was the scene of some of the most bitter fighting of the conflict. It has welcomed successive waves of immigrants, mostly German in the early days but including a large number of Irish, who in the late 19th/early 20th centuries dominated the political machines of the two large urban centres.

Way back in 1904, St Louis Democrat boss Ed Butler decided to finally give up on politics. The Irish-born Butler, who emigrated to America aged 14, was often referred to disparagingly as the illiterate millionaire blacksmith, but was one of a remarkable group of Irishmen who managed, through fair and sometimes foul means, to dominate the political landscape of so many major cities.

He was the puppet master of Democrat politics in the city for 40 years and, on a number of occasions, only narrowly avoided jail time after being tried and acquitted on corruption, fraud and bribery charges.

Stepping down, as reported in a local newspaper, Mr Butler said he would die a Democrat but claimed a lot of elections had been stolen from Republicans since the Civil War. In his own words, he confessed: “I’ve put many a queer lick in for the Democratic Party, but I ain’t going to do anymore. In other words, I’ve got conscience stricken too.”

That same year, Missouri backed the winner in the presidential contest, the Republican Theodore Roosevelt. And its electorate has done so in every general election since, bar one. It’s been, as Missourians would like to be believe, honest, down the line politics ever since, whether Democrat or Republican, may the best man, or woman, win.

Whether the State is mirroring, leading or following really doesn’t matter, the numbers won’t lie. And the returns from this week’s Democrat primary in Missouri brings into focus just exactly where that party stands.

Hillary can say she took the big states, New York, California, New Jersey, while Barack’s people argue their man took more states.

Every demographic and sub group is parsed and analysed — Hillary got older women, Hispanics, blue collar workers; Barack the black vote, and the more urban, younger, privileged and those who never voted before.

As the candidates head to Louisiana, Oregon, Virginia, then on to Ohio and elsewhere, each camp will keep close track on the delegate numbers, not just in each State, but every district.

Mr Obama, who calmly talked of a bruising battle all the way to the August’s Democratic convention, said this tumultuous and exciting campaign could all change within a month.

But the Missourians will tell you this straight, the two are neck and neck and that mean arc is not dipping so quickly that they’ll get it all that wrong this time.

They will also tell you that Mitt Romney, for whatever reason, never set foot in the State ahead of the Republican primary.

Mr Romney came in third, behind Mike Huckabee, who overwhelmingly took the southern bible belt, but trailed behind John McCain, almost certainly the 2008 Republican presidential candidate.