Measured by the ratio of whites to blacks, the ratio of city to rural folk and past election returns, Missouri is a microcosm of the nation that surrounds it.
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The survey's sponsor plans to measure the success of the rural appeals of the candidates with two more rural polls before the November election.
Still, the government maintains that employees of Proshika campaigned for the Awami League in rural areas during the 2001 general election.
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And Mr Blair's mind may be focused on the issue by defeat in February 3rd's parliamentary by-election in Ceredigion, a rural Welsh constituency held by Plaid.
Republicans oppose any assault weapons ban and rural-state Democrats facing tough re-election fights are unlikely to support it as well, meaning that proposal has little chance of passing Congress.
President Bush won rural counties by 16 percentage points in the 2000 election and 19 points in 2004.
These were distributed a few days before the election and more than 70% of rural voters received them.
"We don't want rural to be used as a poker chip in an election game, " said Ballinger administrator Lance Keilers.
"Rural voters have been base supporters in the last two election cycles for George Bush, " notes Anna Greenberg, the Democratic pollster who conducted the survey.
Mr Latham gave a hint of the populist approach he plans for the election campaign by making a bus tour of rural constituencies in New South Wales during the first week of February and speaking to packed public meetings.
John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, cannot count on rural voters to provide him a winning margin in the November presidential election.
The biggest drama, however, comes in an election to fill a vacancy in a congressional district in rural New York, a Republican stronghold near the Canadian border.
This time he has put more energy into campaigning in rural areas, still the MMD's base, so that is where the election may be decided.
Rarely has any pro-gun-rights Democrat representing a rural and Southern district broken with the NRA's position on key votes, especially in an election year.
Conservative rural affairs spokesman Tim Yeo said he was now looking to Mrs Beckett to clarify Mr Blair's pre-election promise that Britain was in the "home straight" against foot-and-mouth.
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