turnout wins elections = the base wins elections

"The Base"--that is, hardcore ideological supporters--are insufficient in the United States to win national elections or swing districts. Candidates and incumbents need to woo the oft-cited "swing voters," moderate/centrists and/or indifferent voters who are as likely to stay home and watch the newest Grey's Anatomy as they are to go and cast a vote. However, winning a majority of swing voters does very little good if your base stays at home. In fact, pissing off your base will lose you an election, since the base is much more valuable than just the sure-thing votes they represent. They represent volunteers for get-out-the-vote and voter registration efforts, they represent your most likely donors, and they represent the people who are trying to convince their social networks that going out and voting for you is actually more important than catching up on TV dramas.

President Obama should be worried about his base, because they are shifting from excited optimism to depressed cynicism, and cynicism does not a volunteer/donor make.

DaveJ at OpenLeft makes some suggestions on ways that the President and Administration could signal that they actually do care about their base:

I want to see some Democratic Senators publicly held accountable for going against Obama's agenda.

I want to see the government very publicly slap down a large company for illegally firing union organizers, polluting,

I want to see the government publicly prosecute a few companies for discriminating against (firing, pay differentials, etc.) people over 50 or because they are women or minorities. I'd like to see very public sting operations that catch these companies doing what we all know they are doing.

I'd like to see some Bush cronies held accountable for the corruption and lawbreaking that occurred. (And how about doing something for Gov. Siegelman and apologizing to him on behalf of the government?)

Actually I just want to see some damn laws enforced. A signal that we are returning to rule of law would tell the public that government is back on the side of the people. How many Bushies have been prosecuted for corruption? How many cronies have been asked to give the money back?

A robust Jobs Bill and climate change legislation would help, too. So would immigration reform. But one way or another, President Obama needs to do something. As Mike Lux notes, "the last 4 presidents who didn't have a good relationship with their base were George HW Bush, Jimmy Carter, Jerry Ford, and LBJ. What those four very different presidents had in common was that they didn't get re-elected."