Only 22% of Democrats show interest in 2014 voting. Maybe "purists" need to be heard.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

180. Then let the Dems campaign on doing things for those who are hurting economically

and telling the corporations that it's a new day.

Campaign on getting rid of things that piss people off: NSA surveillance, the security theater at the TSA, treating marijuana as if it's as deadly as plutonium. (This will appeal to both the left and the libertarians.)

Campaign on raising the minimum wage, lowering the age of eligibility for Medicare (the insurance companies don't really want anyone over 50 anyway, and adding younger, healthier people to the mix will help stabilize the system's finances), giving preference in government procurement to companies that have the largest percentage of their workforce in the U.S. (and that doesn't mean Chinese slave laborers in the Mariana Islands), and stopping the wars that are killing and maiming so many working-class and poor young people.

Remember: if you can get VOTES by doing what people need, you don't need the corporate cash. It's a golden ball and chain. It's all bright and shiny and attractive, but it ties you down nevertheless.

Democratic candidates need to go to poor and working class neighborhoods and LISTEN to the people who are hurting. Hold $5 coffee and cookie fundraisers, because someone who contributes ANYTHING is more likely to vote for you than someone who is asked to vote simply because you're not a Republican.

If the Dems keep on doing what they're doing (which is the corporations' bidding), if they continue talking a good game and then caving at the last minute, can you blame the rank-and-file voter for staying home? For believing "they're all the same"?

If you're not getting any loving, maybe it's not that all the potential mates out there are stupid assholes. Maybe it's you that needs some improvement. If have a mate, and that mate keeps promising to give up his/her bad habits and then goes right back to cheating on you, is that you're a "purist" or that your mate isn't trustworthy?

The same is true of political parties. It's not that the voters who stay at home are stupid. It's that 30 years of Democratic caving in to the Republicans and coddling the corporations has made them terminally cynical about both parties.