If the Democrats were actually interested in winning elections, they would behave like Republicans. That is, they would stop pretending that politics is about anything other than building a base from which to exercise power and holding on to that power. If the Democrats had taken a page from George W. Bush and passed everything they had the votes to pass in 2009-10 (and gotten rid of the filibuster to do that) regardless of the shifting winds of public opinion, they'd be in much better shape today. They'd probably not have lost the House and the Senate in 2010, for starters. Politics is all about delivering the 'goods' for your side, rather than having a debate with people who aren't interested in compromising you in the least. The Democrats continue to fail to understand that, and I think they'll never honestly get it, so I really don't think that there's a way that they can truly increase the turnout of their own base when it comes to the midterm elections.
Exactly. Democrats never seem to understand that making grand gestures towards bipartisanship doesn't win you much if the opposing side has no interest whatsoever in reciprocating.
Compare the national Democrats to the Colorado Democrats. The latter has been, since taking control of the legislature, laying the groundwork for a deeply left-wing legislative agenda. And they still did better than most swing states this year, even keeping the governorship when Anthony Brown lost.
Well of course, bi-partisanship requires the "bi-" element to be in place.
In many ways, the GOP continues to be the much better sales people. I mean, push Obama into putting essentially GOP or GOP-lite policies in place... then whine that he hasn't worked with you. Noting that you never intended to work with him and what you define as a compromise is getting exactly what you wanted in the first place.
Then, you run around squawking saying that Washington is broken and it's his fault. And make his own party's candidates so afraid of him they tell him not to show up.
