If you can't win in Congress, you can at least make sure your people know you're fighting the good fight. Because if you don't, this is what happens, per PPP pollster Tom Jensen for Daily Kos:
Robin Carnahan is winning 78% of Barack Obama’s voters and Roy Blunt is winning 76% of John McCain’s voters so if the electorate this year was the same as in 2008 when Missouri was basically a tie, this race would be tied as well. But we find a likely electorate this fall that voted for John McCain by 7 points. This dropoff in Democratic interest is pretty reflective of what we’ve seen across the country so far this election cycle.
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Democrats are not doing badly this year because people who voted for Obama in 2008 are switching over to the Republicans. There’s actually little of that happening in any race across the country. Almost the entire problem for the party is their voters being disengaged.
This is what happens when the leader of your party spends a year and a half playing the inside game, and never rallying his supporters to join him in the fight - especially the fight for their own jobs and a better economy. Maybe Presidential use of the bully pulpit won't change a single sitting Senator's vote, but its underuse may mean that Roy Blunt, rather than Robin Carnahan, will be in the U.S. Senate next year. And similar stories are playing out around the country.
