Note to White House: It's ugly out there. The base actually matters. Do something. Fast.

[DainBramaged]

The poll numbers that we're seeing this week should be sending shivers up the spines of Democrats across the country. We're heading for trouble. Big trouble. Hurricane Earl looks like a summer breeze compared to the storm that's coming.

The first question is whether our leaders, starting with Obama, can do anything to fix it. Of course, they can. But, there's another, more important, question: Will Obama do anything to fix it. Based on the track record of the White House for the past 19 months, I'm not hopeful.

First, from Tom Jensen at PPP:

A couple months ago I thought the Pennsylvanias and Missouris and Ohios of the world were the biggest battlegrounds for 2010 but when you see numbers like this it makes you think it's probably actually the Californias and the Wisconsins and the Washingtons.

There's not much doubt things are getting worse for Democrats...and they were already pretty bad. Somehow the party base needs to get reinvigorated over the next two months or there's going to be a very, very steep price to pay.
In a post appropriately titled, The Impending November of Doom, Markos looked at the latest Gallup Generic Tracking Poll, which is also pretty ugly. Actually, Gallup calls the GOP's 10 point lead "unprecedented":


http://www.americablog.com/2010/08/note-to-white-house-its-ugly-out-there.html

[PinkTiger]

1. Maybe this election is not the one that matters.

If you look at it from a purely strategic angle, maybe the plan is to let the Republicans gain some ground and hang themselves before 2010. Just sayin'.

[eleny]

3. They could do a lot of damage in two years

If they get the House and force the President to issue veto after veto, just you wait. They'll rip at their clothes and tear at their hair over "his" obstructionism - irony be damned.

[vi5]

11. That's under the assumption....

that them hanging themselves means putting forth horrible and dangerous policies, and then the democrats and Obama presenting a clear and decidedly different option.

What's likely based off of what we've seen is the republicans putting forth horrible and dangerous policies and the democrats and Obama agreeing with them.

[depakid]

20. That's largely what happened after 1994

[Canuckistanian]

18. You meant 'hang themselves before 2012'

Not 2010. right?

[dflprincess]

23. In 2008 it was pretty clear the Republicans had already nearly hung themselves

in just two years the Democrats have done what we all thought was impossible - revived the Republican party.

[nashville_brook]

2. there's a big problem w/optics when US unemployed hear about "rebuilding" iraq and afghanistan

and, i think that's what the speech tonight was aimed at. i can't wait to learn about the massive New Deal that'll bring us out of this downturn thingy.

[OneGrassRoot]

7. That's what I heard...

I'm admittedly not the sharpest tool in the shed about these things.

I didn't even feel he was talking to me at all (I know, many have felt that way for a long time).

Then when he started talking about how the best way to honor the troops and their service is to rebuild America and join together to make our nation strong -- here -- THEN I got it. I thought it was a brilliant move.

Make THEM unpatriotic (the right-wingers) by not working with him to move this country forward; not doing so dishonors the military effort over the last 10 years which depleted our resources so much.

Now, what he will DO with that remains to be seen, but that's how I interpreted the speech.

[Codeine]

4. Unless the "base" is polling pro-Puke

they aren't the issue. It's the mushy middle we're losing.

[Poboy]

5. Because he is seen as WEAK. He will not fight for anything.

He allows the opponent to define him. Think about that. The damned PRESIDENT is allowing the right wing loonies to define him.

Pathetic.

[Marr]

9. Exactly-- the undecideds wants decisiveness, period.

It seems like everyone accepts the idea that the middle does not follow politics, but for some reason, some continue to claim that the best way to appeal to them is by adopting right-wing policy. The middle doesn't give a shit about right or left. They only look for strength.

[EmeraldCityGrl]

6. I was polled for the second time last night

by a RW research firm. Half way into the the poll ( it was automated) it had been pretty much established I was a Democrat,
the poll was disconnected. May have been a fluke and I'm not saying the Gallup Poll isn't reliable, but sometimes I have to
wonder how these are manipulated.

[Fumesucker]

8. The USA has cancer, the Democrats are half an aspirin tablet..

The Republicans are a cyanide pill..

Decisions, decisions..

[Mira]

14. Not a pretty picture. Albeit acurate. n/t

[Ramulux]

21. Great analogy

I might have to steal it.

[walldude]

38. Man that is the best analogy I have seen in awhile...

not very uplifting but totally on the mark. :toast:

[LaurenG]

10. DFA has online training available for progressives who want to help

with campaigns if anyone is interested.

Welcome to Night School - a People-Powered project of Democracy for America!

Enthusiasm Gap? Not if we have any say in it! Sign up for the first series of DFA's new
and improved Night School, as we spend the next six weeks training you how to
Mobilize Progressive Voters in 2010.

You can sign up for the entire series, or for each individual session.
Best of all? They're all entirely FREE!

If you have any questions, please email us at [e-mail]
or call us at [phone].

Click on the title of any session below for a full description.

http://www.democracyforamerica.com/pages/2428-nightschool_2010

[saorsa]

26. Bless you truly ! and good luck to you...if I could add a bit

about a subject close to my heart,; and please forgive the angry despair underpinning this reply, but not once, not once in recent years has anyone from DFA ( and we had a local group here) ever manifested more than an online presence to me, a lifelong registered Democrat, AFTER an election was over. I complained to the local Democratic Party about the same problem, lack of voter outreach etc., and the result was the same.
All outreach is inside the circle, in the virtual world, or if a street presence was managed it was only for major elections and in the case of the Dems once a year insider parties or fundraisers. You had to be in the know to know, ya know?
Voter records are there to be accessed and yet the only time they use them is late in the game...
DFA certainly has the mainstream Democratic Party beat as far as online organizing and real life campaign training goes, and of course, Progressive Democrats of America are also playing a big part, no disrespect, but again, no commitment to a bricks and mortar attempt to bring in new voters. Just working on outreach at campaign time, for one candidate, will not create the permanent infrastructure that we need, and which I think was promised to us......

Until we reach out in the real world to the missing margin who would vote with us if they had the info, we are looking at a long slow slog that may succeed in 'growing' ( hate that term) a movement over 10 - 20 years, and we no longer have the time.

Can you put in a word for continuous real world voter education and outreach to all potential voters, new and occasional voters ?

They told us to "Be the Media" ....and I think we have to have more than an online interface with voters to speed up the pace of change.
jill
sorry to whinge on, but I am in California, where it really should not be this hard here to beat the right; but I think we've all learned what one nutty right wing governor can do by now?

[Coyote_Bandit]

12. I have to wonder

what exactly happened to all that 2008 poliical capital?

[Fumesucker]

13. In a word: Bipartisanship...

Which basically means sucking up to the right wing and dissing the fucking retarded professional left who should report for their drug tests and reeducation..

[KakistocracyHater]

17. how unfortunately true, what were they thinking? except that then they

could pretend the Republican Majority is holding the "Dems" back. Isn't true, but whatever.

[Nite Owl]

15. I don't know what he can do to invigorate the base

but it is really bad. Very few volunteers. I remember in '06 we would have a meet to canvas and at least 90 people would show up. Now 10 on a good day.
Some sort of apology for the way we have been treated and not listened to, some firing of certain people at the WH would certainly help, but won't hold my breath.

[TheMuse]

16. I get the feeling that the President and his team

....actually have more disdain for their base. I think they expected us to be like the Republican base and follow in lockstep. Unfortunately for them (and fortunately for us) liberals tend to think for themselves. We evaluate and we criticize. We don't criticize the President because we dislike him. We criticize and push because we know he could do better. We hold him accountable.

And we will never be sheep. If you want sheep, you should have been a Republican.

[bvar22]

19. Predictable AND Predicted:

"I've seen it happen time after time. When the Democratic candidate allows himself to be put on the defensive and starts apologizing for the New Deal and the fair Deal, and says he really doesn't believe in them, he is sure to lose. The people don't want a phony Democrat. If it's a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time; that is, they will take a Republican before they will a phony Democrat, and I don't want any phony Democratic candidates in this campaign."---Harry Truman

"If we don't fight hard enough for the things we stand for,
at some point we have to recognize that we don't really stand for them."
--- Paul Wellstone

[Raster]

30. !!!

:kick:
And thank you for the picture and quote from Senator Paul Wellstone.

[lib2DaBone]

22. How did this country get so far to the right?

It's either far right, super-far-Christian-right or Evangelical whacked-out-hyper-right.

No in between...no discussion.. no alternative. No need for facts, they just get in the way.

Mr. Obama rolls over... not even able to offer a new deck chair on the Titanic?

Pathetic.

[DainBramaged]

27. Corporate greedy fucking media, that's how.

[krabigirl]

33. It isn't.

[stray cat]

24. If the base chooses to throw the election to the GOP -they deserve the gop

[Codeine]

25. +1. + fucking 1. nt

[L0oniX]

35. It's more like the battered wife syndrome.

[Faryn Balyncd]

28. K&R....Getting out of bed with Simpson/Bowles and repealing the FIX that requires NO-AMENDMENT......

.....no-modifications vote on proposals written by an un-elected, undemocratic committee packed with opponents of SS - - - repealing this the special Simpson/Bowles back-room fix that requires an up-or-down vote by the lame duck Congress before January 11 - - - would be a show of faith to the base and to the American working & middle class.

As long as Democratic leaders are in bed with the enemies of SS, what more can be expected besides a demoralized base and disillusioned electorate?



:kick:

[VMI Dem]

29. If they choose to disregard the base, fuck 'em.

[L0oniX]

34. Progressives not wanted ...that is clear.

[L0oniX]

31. What is there to be "reinvigorated" by?

[kentuck]

32. It is extremely unwise to lose your base...

..and anticipate that they will support you no matter what. The President is being attacked from all sides and he needs his supporters to defend him. He needs his base to counter the attacks on the right. They are the only ones that can save him and the Democratic Party.

[backscatter712]

36. I don't think we're losing the base. We're losing the independents.

Aside from a few nutcases, most of the Democratic base is going to get out there and vote for Democrats, even though they're pissed.

It's the independents that are sitting out or voting Republican or third-party.

And my diagnosis says there's one reason. The economy. Obama now owns it. The stimulus was half the size it needed to be, there's still the structural brain-damage: outsourcing & free-trade undercutting, Wall Street criminality, the liquidity trap, the Senate blocking effective action because the GOP wants the economy to fall apart so they can blame Democrats, etc.

Ironically, if the elected Dems were more liberal, pushed more progressive policies, it would have put us in a much better position - we win elections not by being GOP-lite, but by having genuine alternatives. If we passed a health care bill with a public option, passed a stimulus that was twice as big, and passed Wall Street reform that was tougher, the independents would respond to that. We win by properly educating and selling progressive policies, then delivering on them, not by being DLC DINOs.

[TBF]

37. List of people to replace -

Geitner
Summers
Emmanuel
Duncan
Gibbs

When they're gone we'll talk.

[indepat]

39. For every neocon gained by constantly sucking up to and accommodating the far right,

I suspect a veritable plethora of progressives are getting uneasy, if not downright queasy. :P