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Las Vegas -- Democratic strategists meeting with the left-of-center activists at the annual Netroots Nation convention in Las Vegas are worried that progressives – some of them disappointed with President Obama’s performance so far -- might not turn in the kind of hardworking performance they showed in 2008 for Democratic candidates this time around.
Netroots activists must work “so that people don’t give in to despair, that they don’t give up on politics, that they keep fighting and keep active,” said Mike Lux, a veteran Democratic organizer and consultant.
“There’s clearly an enthusiasm gap. That I don’t think anyone can really deny. It’s anywhere from 10 to 15 points between Republicans and Democrats in the national polls. If we do nothing else in the next few months but reduce that enthusiasm gap,” then Democrats can hope to do well in November, said Democratic consultant Chris Kofinis, who is working with the Democratic Governors Association.
“My message to people who turned out for the first time in 2008 is that this is a long-run, serious business and you’ve got to get out” to work on campaigns and vote, said Harold Ickes, the Democratic strategist who ran Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.
In gubernatorial elections last year in New Jersey and Virginia, and in the special Senate election in Massachusetts last January which Republican Scott Brown won, “the falloff has been dramatic” among loyal Democratic voter groups: young people, blacks, Latinos, and unmarried people. A “very scary” decline in young voters in the New Jersey race, Ickes added.
The consequences of a similar falloff in November could be huge. Voters in 37 states will elect governors this November and 6,118 state legislators will be chosen in 46 states.
In most states, it will be the governors and state legislators elected in November who will draw the lines of congressional districts across the nation.
Redistricting follows the decennial Census – and Republican-controlled legislatures and Republican governors drawing the maps would tilt the advantage towards a GOP House.
Nathan Daschle, the executive director of the Democratic Governors Association, warned the Netroots activists that Republican leaders have said “that if they do their job in electing governors this year, they will gerrymander 30 House seats.”
And Daschle noted GOP claims that “it’s going to be impossible for President Obama to be re-elected in 2012 if they win some of these key governors races.” That’s because in states such as Ohio and Florida a governor’s political apparatus and patronage power gives him the ability to mobilize voters in 2012.
Daschle noted that two of the GOP’s smartest strategists, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie, are piloting the Republican campaigns in gubernatorial and state legislative races. “They understand the power to make a decade-long change to our political environment at the state level.”
Michael Sargeant, the executive director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, who spoke at a Netroots Nation panel discussion Friday, pointed to Pennsylvania, Texas, Michigan, and Ohio as battleground states for state legislative races.
In each of them there is a governor’s election this November, as well as legislative races. The Cook Political Report rates Pennsylvania, Texas, and Ohio as toss-up governors races; it rates the Michigan governor’s race as leaning Republican.
There’s some tension between Netroots activists and the Democratic Party strategists in Washington D.C. who run the redistricting effort.
One Netroots Nation attendee asked Sargeant if he could give activists a list of the ten seats in each state that could tip the balance in each legislature from Democrat to Republican.
“State bloggers and people interested in financing these campaigns could then have those targeted seats ready to go -- especially when we have an infrastructure on line that can really rally people at a moment’s notice,” he told Sargeant.
But Sargeant was unwilling to reveal the entire DLCC target list.
“There’s so little news coverage of a lot of these campaigns,” he noted, and in some cases he prefers to keep it that way. He doesn’t want publicity for sleeper races where Democrats have a chance to pick up a seat.
“We’re going to spend, with your help, a lot of money and use a lot of resources to win these races – but we don’t want the Republicans to actually notice,” he said. “We have to work through with our leaders with what they’re comfortable actually talking about,” he told the Netroots Nation questioner.
“Both sides – Democratic and Republican – don’t want the other side to know all their strategies,” Sargeant told me later. “I may have a target list for what races I think are important in Indiana, for example; I imagine my Republican counterpart would probably have a different list. Sometimes it’s very public which races overlap, and sometimes maybe there are a couple of sleeper races.”
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If the sound of 'Speaker Boner' isn't enough for them to turn in a 'hard working' performance like they did in 2008... then they're are not TRULY Democrats!
It's time to wake the hell up Liberals and STOP acting like petulant children!
The thought of the drunk Agent Orange getting anywhere near the speaker gavel SHOULD be enough to get you up and off your a@@es to make sure we continue to let Madame Speaker work on OUR behalf!
If you think there's gridlock in DC now... IMAGINE what it would be if the Republiklans regain control!!
We have to support the party and candidates, set aside our differences. Several weeks ago the President stated,
"They drove the car into the ditch and now they want the keys back" "No"
Ponder about that, everytime you think, let someone else do it....because this hasn't been passed or that hasn't come up for consideration and change hasn't come fast enough or whatever your reason is to not support your President and the party. There is much at stake, not just legislation.
Nothing in life worth having comes easy, there will always be setbacks, and we have to get out there and fight for what we want. The alternative is going back to the same old, same old..... the rich get richer and the rest of us pay for it.
In Florida we have had a decade long GOP dominance due to gerrymandering the districts and the state has suffered, especially to those of us who live in So. Florida. You better believe that when the 2010 Census is finally calculated it will be important to have a few Dems in high places to help rectify some of the unfair districting we have now.
Hopefully Alex Sink will be our next Governor and throw a wrench in to the ol' boys network.
So in other words, gerrymander the districts to benefit Democrats........This is an arguement that will last for decades.
ITM - And the flip side is gerrymander the districts to benefit Republicans?....That surely is an argument that will last for decades.
Patience, no one has any patience these days. They seem to think Pres Obama could wave a wand and grant their every wish in 19 months.
I agree with Feisty, the thought of the GOP regaining control should motivate them--MEANING any chance of more progressive things being done are gone if Boehner and/or Mitchell are in charge. No repeal of DADT, no energy bill, no nothing.
Gingerbread Mama. It really is a problem in many states, Texas is another. I read an article talking about Iowa's smart system--seems lots of others admire it, there's no gerrymandering, no political involvement. I'll try and post more later this week.
To me it's not about which party - it is about what was supposed to be done, what was promised, and where the country, state, city are going. That is why I will not support/vote any Democrat because I've had enough of us vs them.
My instinct tells me you didn't support any democrats in the first place. Anyone who believes that the mess left to Pres Obama and democrats could be cleaned up in less than two years is living in a dream world. Changing Washington politics was never going to happen overnight. Giving power back to those who made the mess would doom the progress made to date and doom the future. Neither party has all the answers but the GOP has done nothing to help the People or aid in fixing the economy.
Ah, my friend, be honest, you wouldn't support Democrats anyway.....so what's your point other than you wont be voting Democrat.
You appear to be one of the those gimme gimme now types, and if you dont get what you want instantaneosly, I'm not going to play with you. Grow up, not much can be resolved in two years.
Excuse me please, it is the democrats being "us vs them"?
It is amazing how we can both look at the same things and see something different.
Republicans are the party of "my way or the highway" and "NO" when it comes to honest discourse.
The Dem's suck with their watered down meaningless legislation, but the Republicans are worse and have a burning hatred for anyone who isn't wealthy, so i guess I will have to vote for the Dem's.
I agree that it's important to work hard and defeat the Republicans, but I'm afraid negative reasons - we have to beat them because they'll be so bad for the country - while true, will not be enough to energize and activate the grass roots. We need positive reasons - what are we going to accomplish? What have we already accomplished? We don't seem to be very good at getting the word out about our accomplishments - consumer protection, health care, financial reform. Especially health care - they're still demonizing it and we don't seem to be able to point out the good it will do, and is already doing.
Bush-Cheney had eight years for totally messing things up and the eighteen months Obama has had, even though a lot has been accomplished, just isn't enough time to really turn things around. Now the voters fully need to avoid 'cutting off their nose to spite their face'.
There is a sense that the POTUS can fix the messes that were left by Bush and his cronnies in the nearly two years that he has been in office is just not fair. It took Bush 8, count them my friends E I G H T years to get the USA in the mess that we are in and no one seeems to remember that.
Well it will take just as long to get the USA out of this mess. Obama didn`t cause the melt down on the housing market, the meltdown on wall-street, the meltdown on the banks. It was the Bush admin that took the eyes off the regulations for all of the above. The oil industry no regulations, the banks no regulations, the housing market no regulations, But oh the wealthy of the bunch they kept the tax breaks for and now the republicans want to keep it that way, i should think not.
It is up to us all to make sure that theh repubklicans know that we are not going to give them back the keys and they can just sit in the corner and say no, no, no all they want, because if we all work very hard together we can make that change we all want. Michael Jackson said it better, let`s start withthe man in the MIRROR. We are gonna make a change and we need to start with the person in the MIRROR..