I agree 1000% with Markos over at Daily Kos and how he summed up last night's elections:
There will be much number-crunching tomorrow, but preliminary numbers (at least in Virginia) show that GOP turnout remained the same as last year, but Democratic turnout collapsed. This is a base problem, and this is what Democrats better take from tonight:
1. If you abandon Democratic principles in a bid for unnecessary "bipartisanship", you will lose votes.
2. If you water down reform in favor of Blue Dogs and their corporate benefactors, you will lose votes.
3. If you forget why you were elected -- health care, financial services, energy policy and immigration reform -- you will lose votes.
Tonight proved conclusively that we're not going to turn out just because you have a (D) next to your name, or because Obama tells us to. We'll turn out if we feel it's worth our time and effort to vote, and we'll work hard to make sure others turn out if you inspire us with bold and decisive action.
The choice is yours. Give us a reason to vote for you, or we sit home. And you aren't going to make up the margins with conservative voters. They already know exactly who they're voting for, and it ain't you.
I have a colleague who knew EXACTLY what was happening and not happening on the ground in Virginia, we decided that Deeds was a done deal. In fact, one field worker was not given the adequate resources to perform her job and was just told to "turn out the black vote". All I can type is "WTF" on that one.
People need to be excited, engaged and feel it is worth their time to vote for a candidate, let alone support a party. Virginia and New Jersey, the voters, especially Democratic and new voters were just not that into the Democratic Party.
Lastly, Barack Obama can only do so much. What we saw with the New Jersey and Virginia candidates were problematic, weak, and/or ran badly run campaigns from these Democratic candidates. Though the voters did not blame Barack Obama or as the media tried to frame it a "referendum" against him, the voters were clearly not happy with what was offered, even though Obama campaigned for both candidates. Just because Barack Obama says vote for these people, will not gurantee the base will come out. Voters right now are tepid and watching Washington, DC very closely, especially congress and don't like what they see.
The Democrats and Obama can play around at their peril. If we don't get a strong comprehensive health care bill and this econonmy start turning around, what we saw last night will be what we see a year from now for the mid term elections.
Voters just not into you....
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