You heard it mentioned in the press a thousand times or more. The reason that Democrats didn't appear on election day? The "enthusiasm gap."
Republicans were riled up, raring to tear into Obama and Pelosi lovin' representatives. They were shouting, sign-waving, rompin' stompin' growlin' snarlin... well, let's just say they were "fired up and ready to go."
Democrats were either depressed or indifferent. Uninvolved and uninterested, ready to see what was playing on channel 4.
If you looked at the numbers following this week's election, it would seem that this viewpoint bore out. The voters who turned up to pull a lever or mark a page were older, whiter, and far more conservative than the ones who appeared in 2008 (or 2006). It wasn't that America took a lurch to the right. It was that the right at least took the time to lurch and the left never left the couch.
But it wasn't because there was an enthusiasm gap. Calling it an enthusiasm gap causes several major misconceptions. First off, it shifts the blame to the voter. Sure, in some magical land where everyone pays attention to politics 24/7 and civic duty is right below breathing on the To Do list, voters may be responsible for getting themselves to the polls. We don't live there. This is a country were people run for office, where politicians get out there and campaign like there's no tomorrow, where they all but drag each and every voter into the booth with instructions ringing in their ear. Republicans did that job better.
That's not an enthusiasm gap. That's a work gap.
Calling it an enthusiasm gap makes it sound as if what we needed were more pep rallies. If we'd just spent more time shaking our pom-poms and shouting "go team!" that would have turned the tide. But it's not pop songs or platitudes we were missing. Republicans didn't win because the people who turned up smacked the buttons with extra oomph, they won because they turned up in greater numbers. And they didn't turn up in greater numbers because of Uncle Sam costumes or Tea Party dancin' tunes. They showed up because they had a reason to show up. They had an offer on the table. There was something they wanted, and the people running for office promised to do it.
That's not an enthusiam gap. That's an incentive gap.
Calling it an enthusiasm gap makes it sound like it might have been flipped over with the right commercial, or turned by a nice parry-riposte in debate. But that's not what was going on. Take a second to look at this line from A Man for All Seasons
There are those like Norfolk who follow me because I wear the crown; and those like Master Cromwell who follow me because they are jackals with sharp teeth and I'm their tiger; there's a mass that follows me because it follows anything that moves. -- Henry VIII
You think 2008 was the first time when people wanted change? They always want change, especially when times are tough. The Republicans were happy to have the Tea Party movement, even if it lost them some winnable seats, because a movement moves, and because as they moved they carried a mass with them. Those seats lost because they were loaded with a candidate who was just too crazy, were more than offset by those they gained.
That's not an enthusiasm gap. That's just momentum.
You've probably heard a thousand times that politicians should run on their record. Next time, listen to who is saying it. It's either that politician's opponent, or it's a politician about to be shown the exit. You don't run on your record. You lose on your record. You run on what you're going to do tomorrow (and don't even mention what comes after that). It doesn't matter if you spent the last week curing cancer and turning water into Chateau Mouton-Rothschild. That was last week. Of course, your opponent's promise for next week may be to put that cancer right back. Defending your actions sure looks to be in order, but you know the best form of defense? It's not playing any friggin' defense at all.
Over and over again we've said that the Republicans had no plan, if you were looking for details of the way they were going to address issues that concern you, democratic voter, you're right. They didn't have that plan. Because they spent their time developing just the plan they needed to appeal to Republican voters. It wasn't that stack of position papers they cobbled together in the last weeks. What they offered was just one word; a word that should be familiar. Their plan was change. They don't need to answer your questions to satisfy their voters.
That's not an enthusiasm gap. That's just the way it is.
A cynic (or a realist) might point out that, thanks to recent court decisions, Republicans were able to outspend Democrats by a huge margin. Though the news is often quick to bundle "unions and corporations" together when discussing the results of Citizens United, unions were outspent 4:1 by conservative organizations before you add in the massive expenditures of all those shadowy new groups. When you have millions extra to spend on television ads, radio ads, web sites, mailers, phone calls, and volunteers who are anything but -- that makes for a hell of a substitute for work.
And of course Republicans had not just the full time service of Fox News in delivering (and defining) their message, but a dominant position on other networks, a near monopoly on radio, and at least equality in newspapers and magazines. Until this cycle, Democrats had a significant edge in online organizing, but application of enough funds went a long way into erasing that last advantage. When you have that many voices doing the demonizing of your opponent, that many words to convince your voters of what they want, all that ink and all those pixels to assure them that you're the person who will deliver on their dreams -- that makes it a whole lot easier to give voters an incentive.
Put those things together, and what you have is a problem.
Even if we pass the DISCLOSE Act, that funding gap won't go away. Republicans won't get worse at using their media advantage. They won't stop pushing their movement harder and harder to the right.
Democrats have no substitutes. We'll need to do real work, starting today, to get our voters to the polls in 2012. We'll need to provide real incentives, genuine things that we're going to do, that will lift voters off their oh-so-comfy couches and send them running to the polls. We'll need to remember that the Democratic Party might be an institution, but the progressive movement is just that -- a movement. We can't just point in a direction we want to go, we have to start running despite the risks. We have to move.