Um, this has more to do with 20+ years of Third Way Dems appeasing real crazies,

[joshcryer]

128. That's due in part to Measure 74.

Which got the activists to actually get out the vote and fight.

Jerry Brown, likewise, was highly desired by liberal activists, to there's a place they had something to fight for.

But in states where it was more about keeping an incumbent Democrat more than anything else, imo, the activists stayed home. Feingold's state, in particular, had no ballot measures and the teabaggers had completely infiltrated the state at that point with the rise of Walker and his ilk. It's actually a scenario where the right wing base was more fired up.

Google "2010 enthusiasm gap." The articles are numerous. It is not a fabrication, it is not intended to lash out at "First-Wayers." It's simply to acknowledge that democralizing the base is going to have this effect. And I think there was considerable "ratfucking" (political dirty tricks) to demoralize the Democratic base. There was a poster here named Better Believe It who was always talking shit about Obama and Democrats, acting like they were doing stuff that they weren't actually doing (yes, putting stuff on the table is not the same as accepting offers that were never accepted). That poster got banned, not because they were a big troll always starting divisive threads, but because they had to increasingly resort to right wing sources to keep peddling the narrative that the Democrats were trying to fuck Americans over.

Let me be clear here. The sources were left wing but as the elections approached the left shut the fuck up and unified behind their leader (even though they dislike a lot of the policies) and the only sources then remaining were right wing sources. That proves that during that time and even the time leading up to 2012, the right wing was pushing their narrative into the left field of view. This is why generally if there's a negative thing out there against Democrats I look to see where it's coming from and who it benefits if it's true, and whether or not the Democrats are consistent on a given position.

For instance, when Obama said in his nomination speech he wanted to cut the deficit, and I voted for him even after he said that, I'm not going to throw him under the bus for doing what he said he was going to do. All I can do is call my representatives and say that a given proposal is bad, not that Obama is wrong for doing something he said he was going to do!