Elected Democrats are merely benefiting from the fact that the Republican leaders have managed to sap the energy out of their own supporters, bringing their enthusiasm down to roughly the level the Democratic leaders had already reduced their own base to months ago.

Democrats and Democratic leaning independents are not enthusiastic about voting in the upcoming Presidential election according to Gallup polling. There is some very bad news for President Obama and the rest of the Democratic Party when it comes to the issue of base engagement in the upcoming election.

At any other time, this might have seemed like a pretty good couple of days for progressives.  The Democrats in the House of Representatives showed unusual unanimity today in opposing the social-Darwinist GOP budget devised by Paul Ryan. And after an abortive attempt earlier this month to throw a wrench into the Republican majority’s legislative [...]

I love speculating on turnout. But it’s more like trainspotting than anything, a hobby and not rigorous electoral analysis.

I went around knocking on doors for the state Democratic Party last weekend. Does this make me a traitor to the progressive cause?

But all of this “hippie punching” isn’t about turning out voters. To do that, as Obama well knows, you have to inspire them. Notice that nobody actually running for office is wagging their finger at voters and scolding them like a bunch of children.

No, this isn’t about GOTV. It’s about setting up a narrative for who will take the blame for a disastrous election. And once again, the White House doesn’t care if they make matters worse in order to deflect responsibility from Obama.

I’ve never seen a politician run an election with the message “Don’t be stupid, quit your bitching and vote for me.” This goes orders of magnitude beyond “Here are the stakes, my opponent would vote against everything you care about. That at least has a certain time-tested quality. That would make the election a choice and not a referendum. But “vote for me, you simpletons”? There’s a reason that strategy has never been employed: because it’s so insane to think that open berating would inspire a voter to action.

For Democratic leaders, threatening unenthusiastic voters with vague pictures of doom and gloom, when much of what the voters see right now is already pretty gloomy, is not going to “wake up” very many of the rank and file. Promising little else in terms of benefits if Democrats stay in power—little beyond “there’s more to do”—does not provide enough positive motivation to engender enthusiasm.

Joe Biden is your cable provider screaming that they are better than the phone company, and you know they are better than the phone company, and if you don’t know that, no matter what your experience, then it is your problem, you fucking idiot.

The propaganda tour has failed – 6 in 10 Americans want an end to the war in Afghanistan. Will Obama stick to his timeline, or will congress be forced to take drastic measures?