"Democrats are now more excited about voting this fall than Republicans are..."

[babylonsister]

http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/08/10352348-a-new-enthusiasm-gap

A new enthusiasm gap
By Steve Benen
-
Wed Feb 8, 2012 12:30 PM EST


It was hard to avoid discussion of the "enthusiasm gap" in 2010, when excitement among Republican voters easily trumped Democratic zeal, en route to major GOP gains in the midterm cycle.

As attention shifts to the 2012 cycle, the Republican advantage seems to have largely disappeared. In fact, a new report from Public Policy Polling suggests it's Democrats who enjoy the enthusiasm edge.

...Democrats are now more excited about voting this fall than Republicans are, reversing the enthusiasm gap that plagued the party in 2010.

Our last national survey for Daily Kos found that 58% of Democrats were 'very excited' about voting this fall, compared to 54% of Republicans. Six months ago the figures were 48% of Democrats 'very excited' and Republicans at the same 54%. Generally you would expect voters to get more excited as the election gets nearer. That trend is occurring on the Democratic side, but not for the GOP.

Here's that breakdown in chart form:



Also note how this dovetails with the turnout troubles Republicans have had for nearly all of their presidential nominating contests thus far.

Taken together, the wave of excitement GOP officials hoped to ride to 2012 triumphs not only appears to have crested; it seems to now be moving in the opposite direction. Democratic voters, meanwhile, appear to be increasingly eager to vote after having gotten a good look at the GOP presidential contenders.

[southernyankeebelle]

1. Great news. However, I worry about the Superpacs playing negative all the way. Obama can't keep up

with their superpacs.

[grantcart]

3. Romney had super pacs in Minnesota

and got nothing.

Superpacs can only drive up negatives but they can't get your people excited.

It is possible that the superpac war will further disillusion Republicans and their base and cause an even lower GE turnout on their side.

[southernyankeebelle]

5. I pray your right.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

7. He also had super pacs in Colorado, spent more time there, and banked on the fact

that CO has a large Mormon population. He STILL couldn't get the job done.

[Obama3_16]

10. it would be great if Obama had some SuperPAC howitzers ready if needed

but found it unnecessary. Then, the messages out of the SuperPACs could be all about telling the story of Obama and where we've come from since the cratered fall of 2008.

However, I think Obama IS GOING to have to remind people about Mitt's extremely negative views and past actions. It is better for SuperPACs to do that work and let Obama2012 focus on positive messages.

[FSogol]

2. Will Obama have enough coattails to get the House back under Democratic control?

Can we increase our lead in the Senate?

[vi5]

4. Probably not...

Especially since apparently unless we get.....what's it up to now?......90 Democrats in the Senate and.....what? 700 votes in the House?.....then nothing can get done.

"Well, you know. We'd just looooooove to enact those liberal policies but ya know.....votes just aren't there. Oh well. Darnit. And we reallly wanted to. Trust us.".

And sadly I think the Democrats like it just the way it is. Just enough to keep them in the majority, but just shy enough that they can use peeling off 1 or 2 Republicans as the excuse to pass and implement the policies of Republicans circa the early to mid 90's.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

6. I vehemently disagree. The House under Nancy Pelosi passed many liberal

pieces of legislation that stalled in the Senate.

The difference between the Congresses that both FDR and LBJ had and what Obama confronts now is that there was a overwhelming number of progressive Democrats, and even liberal Republicans in those congresses.

If you want a more progressive Congress, you have to work for it.

If you're unwilling to work for it because you're mad, well, then we get the results that we deserve.

[vi5]

8. We all have stuff we believe....

You believe that the Democratic party by and large really wants to have genuinely liberal legislation pass both the House and the Senate and that the President wants to sign that legislation, and that they are really, really angry and upset that they don't have a supermajority in the senate to be able to do that.

I believe they are getting the exact results they want using a very effective good cop/bad cop routine.

It seriously pains me to come to that conclusion, after 30 years of being a loyal, steadfast Democrat, spending thousands of hours of my life defending the Democratic party and their ever creeping slow and steady centrist approach, and thousands of my own dollars and countless hours of legwork getting democrats elected. But it's where I'm at.

Congrats to you on keeping your optimism.

And for the record I'll still work for it, I just have discarded any notions that it will actually do anything other than prevent a worse, more extreme option.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

9. Well, at any rate, I'm happy that you'll continue to work.

A short story:

In my congressional district, there was this blue dog named Al Wynn who no matter how hard we worked, election after election, he destroyed the liberal, yellow dog Democrat. It didn't matter if he was as corrupt as Tom DeLay, or that he received one of the highest ratings from the American Conservative Union. He would continue to win elections. We just about gave up!

Finally, after many years, we got a young, brilliant and very liberal candidate named Donna Edwards. Now, the first time Donna ran against Al Wynn, she got trounced. We were devastated. And again in 2004, she was defeated, this time by the smallest of margin. The third time around in 2006 when the Democrats took over the House, we knew that she had a better chance. We worked harder than ever on her campaign and not only did she win, she MURDERED Al Wynn. After many years in the Congress, we finally defeated him. In 2008 and in 2010, Donna Edwards defeated her challengers by very wide margins, and she continued to rank as one of the most liberal members of the House.

So, you see, I don't think it's impossible at all. We just have to keep working at this. In 2010, many of the Blue Dogs were defeated by Republicans. But these Republicans were extreme Teabaggers. The public seems to be turning on the Teabaggers, which will open the door to better candidates.

I feel your pain. But I've seen many success stories where the monied Blue Dog Democrat was defeated because the Yellow Dog progressive had the ground game and went door to door. I guess that I'm just not ready to give up, especially since public opinion is moving more in progressives' favor on a number of salient issues.

[vi5]

13. The more frustrating part...

Is not fighting for a progressive to defeat a Republican and losing that gets me. I've taken plenty of those hits over the years and keep on getting back up. It's fighting for a progressive to defeat a blue dog or conserva-dem and having the party itself seem to be fighting against me/them. Because it feels like the party itself and the powers that be want only the incumbent protection racket. If I didn't feel like they were working against the progressives then I'd have much less frustration and roll with the punches as I have over the years. But the past 5-10 years have just found me being more angry at my own party establishment's insistence on running to the centery and protecting those than want to run not just to the center but overshoot it and run even further right than that.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

15. You are so right and it's very frustrating. The Democratic Party has this inferiority

complex that I'm not sure I understand why. As a party they seem to believe that they can only win with Blue Dogs. And, in a sense, they have a point that since you win district by district, oftentimes, the only choice available is a blue dog given the makeup of the district. The Republicanas have it that much harder through redistricting schemes.

I do think you have a great point. The party somehow must find a way to overcome this inferiority complex. I'm not sure how that happens.

[woo me with science]

14. Well said. I just wrote something very similar:

here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=284987

in response to a great post by Bonobo above mine about "good cop/bad cop" tactics we are seeing.

We are not going to be able to solve the problem of the corporate purchase of both parties until we are honest about identifying it.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

16. Nothing will change until we get money out of politics. That's been a major problem.

The Blue Dogs typically have the money except for in a very few cases. (Alan Grayson was one such case.) Progressive Democrats tend not to have the big monied interests backing them. The central issue, therefore, is neither the Blue or Yellow Dog. The central issue is money. We have to get the money out of politics.

[woo me with science]

17. [phone] Thank you.

I agree with you so much that I just changed the last paragraph of that other post to avoid diluting the message. You are absolutely right that the money is the key.

This is why it is so critical to be supporting Occupy and pushing for a national discussion about this purchase of our government. Change is not going to come from within this purchased system.

[K Gardner]

11. K&R

[Irishonly]

12. K&R

I hope the trend continues until Republicans have no excitment left and stay home on election day.

[Tarheel_Dem]

18. This may not go over well here. Afterall, DU is the proverbial weathervane of the left.

NOT! That being said, this is encouraging news.