It seems the more closely one follows the news, the more it seems that Obama may be finally beginning to awaken to the reality that he and the Congressional Democrats have thoroughly f*cked things up with their delusional quest for bipartisanship and their sickening lack of courage to move forward the agenda they promised to voters last year. Would that this possible realization had begun months ago. Now Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight - who is an amazing numbers cruncher and prognosticator - has a piece that suggests that if the Democrats don't act fast, the bottom may fall out for them as the Party's base gives up on them. What happened in Virginia last November and what happened this week in Massachusetts need not have happened had the national Democrats provided a reason to believe in the Party. Merely, saying that you're not the GOP is NOT enough to win. Here are some highlights from Nate's post:*
So then Barack Obama gets elected, whose very trademark is Hope, and whose very election signifies progress. He promises a lot of things, and you look over the political horizon and see large Democratic majorities in both chambers of Congress, a logjam of popular, progressive initiatives, and a neutered and discredited opposition party. And you think to yourself: "Well, knock on wood, but this looks pretty fucking good!". And for a little while, things are pretty fucking good. Al Franken -- Al Franken! -- wins in Minnesota! Arlen Specter switches parties! Man, Republicans are so screwed!
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In the fall, you begin to see some of your friends on the left question the President. You remind yourself that you're the Adult in the room, and that some people are never going to be happy -- don't they remember Ralph Nader? Truth be told, you have a few questions yourself, especially about the health care bill.
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After the New Year, there are a few more signs of trouble. A bunch of Democrats retire. Polls -- not just Rasmussen -- show Obama's approval below 50 percent. Then one shows that things are closer than expected in Massachusetts, where they're having an election to replace Ted Kennedy. A Republican can't possibly win the Kennedy seat, can he? Yes. He. Can. Oh, shit. Which brings us to where we are today.
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But it would be hard to overstate just how demoralizing this particular sequence of events has been for base Democrats. And when people get demoralized, they tend to dig in and make their problems worse. That holds for voters, certainly, but unfortunately it also seems to hold for Democratic members of the Congress. What they need to remember is that while financial reform and the bank tax are the jobs bill are nice -- things that certainly ought to appeal to swing voters and which could mitigate some of the electoral damage -- they mostly fall into the category of cleaning up the mess. Financial reform isn't what gets any Democrat out of bed in the morning.
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The risk is that, when we get to November, the base looks at the fact that significant progress has not been made on any of those core, defining issues, that the political and procedural hurdles are immense, that Democratic majorities will (at best) shrink, and that the party leadership seems nonchalant in good times and panicky in bad ones. And they'll conclude that the progressive party is incapable of making progress.
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[I]f the base doesn't believe that you can actually push the country in their direction, they become less likely to donate to you, work for you, and vote for you, and that in turn makes such successes harder to achieve. I don't know if the Democrats have any good moves right now, but watching the base give up hope isn't one of them.
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I believe that Nate accurately describes what is happening currently. The question therefore is whether or not Obama and the Congressional Democrats can get off their asses, grow a back bone, and get something done. I'm not holding my breath in the hope that they can.
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