Farm Wife Edna
| 👩🌾 | |
| Era | The Fifties |
|---|---|
| Age | 42-50 |
| Home | rural Iowa |
| Demographic | rural, white, farm |
| Lean | small_govt_conservative |
| Race | white |
Edna is a farm wife on an Iowa corn-and-hog operation who keeps the farm's accounts. She is a Midwestern Protestant rural conservative, part of Robert Taft's constituency, and her distrust of Washington stops short of the price-support cheque she depends on.
Who they stand for
The farm vote of the Corn Belt is Republican by inheritance and Taft Republican by temperament. It is fiscally cautious, suspicious of the East Coast and of foreign entanglements, centred on the church, and shrinking because the children are leaving for the cities. Farm income rose during the Korean War and then fell for the rest of the decade in a cost-price squeeze between what farmers paid for supplies and what they earned for crops. The central argument of the decade is over parity, the government's guaranteed price level for farm goods. The Farmers Union and most Democrats want price supports held at ninety per cent of parity. Ezra Taft Benson, Eisenhower's Agriculture Secretary, and the Farm Bureau want flexible supports and less government involvement in farming. Edna sides with the Farm Bureau's position, but she still cashes the support cheque. Truman carried Iowa in 1948 by blaming the Republican Congress for a grain-storage shortage. Eisenhower carried Iowa twice. Falling farm prices then led to a farm revolt in 1956 and 1958 that elected Democrats across the Midwest, including Iowa's governor, because farmers voted their income rather than their usual party.
Playing to them
Edna responds well to a President who spends little, borrows nothing, and keeps government away from the farm. She wants low taxes, a balanced budget, no new federal agencies, and public respect for the church. Farm policy is where she is caught between two dangers. If price supports fall too far, she loses farm income and blames the President. If price supports rise with acreage controls attached, she resents that as government interference in her own barn just as much. The policy that holds her support is a price floor with as few conditions as possible. Inflation is the one thing she will not forgive, because it erodes the savings she manages for the household. After that, she objects to foreign aid, deficit spending, and any sign the President is soft on Communism or city morals.
A President who balances the budget by cutting defence spending loses the support of Air Base Andy. A President who balances the budget by cutting New Deal programmes loses the support of Cannery Carl, Garment Row Saul, and Old Country Olga, because it would touch Olga's pension. A President who keeps price supports high enough to satisfy Edna loses the support of Banker Prescott.
Where they live
The five states where Farm Wife Edna makes up the largest share of the electorate in the fifties:
- Wyoming
- Montana
- Utah
- Idaho
- South Dakota