Great Plains Politics

by Peter J. Longo

University of Nebraska Press, 2018

As a lifelong resident of the Northern Plains, I am intensely skeptical of works that claim to capture the spirit of the Great Plains. Many authors stumble into stereotypes, struggling with the breadth and complexity of a region that stretches from Canada to Texas, and encompasses not only the hundreds of thousands of people in Oklahoma City, but also the singular resident in Monowi, Nebraska. Picking up Peter Longo’s Great Plains Politics, I feared a reductionist narrative that capitalized on the oddities and fear of the current political moment. Instead, I encountered a brilliant snapshot of the Plains—a place I recognized as home. The civil and balanced treatment of regional politics restored my faith in discourse. The personal treatment of political figures earned my affection. The end of the book, sprinkled with personal reflections, felt communal and left me with the urge to email Longo—a complete stranger—and catch up on old times.

In Great Plains Politics, Longo profiles six political figures: Cherokee Chief Wilma Mankiller, U.S. Representative Virginia Smith, potato king Junius Groves, U.S. Senator George McGovern, U.S. Senator Bob Dole, and Wyoming State Representative Harriet Elizabeth Byrd. Longo’s sketches depict a politically, racially, and culturally diverse region. He addresses the gender barriers posed to Mankiller and Smith as they ascended to office, as well as the racial barriers posed to Mankiller, Groves, and Byrd. As he tackles the breadth of Plains politics, Longo eschews easy party lines and declares, “In our partisan-charged political milieu, we lose sight of the reality that we can make a difference. Political scientists like to blabber about red states and blue states. Care for neighbors is not spoken of by the so-called experts” (105). He asserts that simple, partisan explanations are “inadequate to explain the cohesive nature of communities strengthened by those who love the land” (102) and that “[t]hose who appreciate the Great Plains as a special place know that ‘fly-over’ country is worthy of more thoughtful and informed consideration” (103). Longo offers agriculture, community, love of the land, and food as the basis for the region’s politics, and these themes are threaded seamlessly through all six profiles. Longo puts his six subjects in conversation with each other, pointing to Dole’s (R-Kansas) and McGovern’s (D-South Dakota) joint food policy efforts and musing on how Mankiller, Smith, and Byrd all used cooking as political strategy.

Great Plains Politics not only highlights the complexity of the region’s politics but also takes the reader on a successful search for common ground. No matter how disparate the views or how delicate the situation, Longo and his subjects demonstrate an overwhelming love for the land and the people inextricably tied to it.