Tuesday, September 21, 2010

The Rally To Restore Democratic Spinal Columns

Dave Weigel notes the near panic by Democrats that the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert rallies on October 30 in DC will destroy the elections for the Dems or something because people at the rally aren't knocking on doors for the last 72 hours (and presumably will have voted for the Dems anyway).

Democrats don't think this is helpful, and a few of them poured their hearts out to Politico's Ben Smith. "To the extent that some people who will attend his rally would otherwise be involved in GOTV efforts," wrote party strategist Steve Rosenthal, "this is not helpful."

Tea Partiers are on the same page. They appreciate the distraction from the labor movement's One Nation rally on Oct. 2, which has only started to get attention since … well, since it started being analyzed as a victim of Restoring Sanity. They also appreciate liberal activists taking themselves out of the GOTV game for a day.

"I'd much rather see liberals coming to D.C. that weekend than staying in their districts and GOTV-ing," says Brendan Steinhauser, director of state campaigns for FreedomWorks and a key organizer of the group's two 9/12 rallies. "Our guys are going to be in Ohio and Pennsylvania knocking on doors."
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Needless to say, this is idiotic on its face.  If anything, this is going to be lots and lots of free publicity for the Democrats (despite Jon Stewart's careful moves towards making sure he lampoons crazies on the left at this thing as well.)

Secondly, the largest problem right now with the Dems is the enthusiasm gap.  Some excitement about the Democrats cannot hurt, especially if it reminds people that the GOP is completely ass-backwards crazy on things and want to roll back the last 80 years of classic liberal social and civil advancement.

Finally, Stewart and Colbert aren't Democratic Party officials.  It's good to hear something out of the media that's not automatically "Well Bob, is Obama a Muslim threat?"

If the Dems are that worried about the final GOTV weekend, then they'd better get moving and quit blaming Stewart and Colbert.

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