The Boston Globe's Joseph Williams travels to South Boston, Virginia, to report on the "uncertain" turnout among rural black voters. Williams reports , "Though black people make up more than 30 percent of the population of Halifax County, where South Boston is located, voter participation rates are well below the national average, and about 20 percent lower than their urban and suburban counterparts, according to the American National Election Studies, an independent organization that tracks voting trends. The gap is even wider when rural black Southerners are compared with blacks in rural, urban and suburban communities in the North."

Lower turnout among rural African Americans can be found across the South. "Between 61 and 64 percent of Northern blacks vote, according to the American National Election Studies, but in the South, according to the survey, about 53.8 percent of urban Southerners and 48.2 percent of suburban black residents voted during that period," Williams reports. "But the rate of rural black Southerners who voted is just 44.1 percent."

Philip Brasher in the Des Moines Register this morning suggests that "Democrats may have finally found a wedge issue to pry away some rural voters from the Republican Party: Ethanol." Barack Obama supports ethanol subsidies. John McCain doesn't. In corn-rich Iowa, Brasher writes, "McCain's position on ethanol has proven in some quarters to be the gift Democrats needed."

The veteran Iowa farm writer reports that McCain has been doing "aggressive outreach to farm groups." But, get this, six former presidents of the National Corn Growers Association recently signed a letter endorsing Obama. "I've been farming for 35 years, and I've never seen a more exciting time to be involved in agriculture," said former Corn Grower president Fred Yoder of Ohio. "I'll be darned if I'm going to let these opportunities slip by because of somebody having a grudge against ethanol."