Getting Out The Vote By Any Means Necessary

Tomasky ponders the Republicans’ midterm advantage:

The turnout problem, I suspect, runs deeper than the message of the moment. Republican voters, being older and somewhat wealthier and more likely to own property, are more apt to see politics as a continuing conflict of interests that roll over from one election to the next—they can always be convinced that some undeserving person is coming to take away what they’ve earned. Voters who are overall younger and have fewer assets are less likely to view politics in such stark terms. The thundering high and crashing low of these voters’ experience with Obama—“I had such hope in him, I thought he could really change things”—reflect this.

Ambinder wonders if Dems will come “to view the Republicans like the Republicans view the Democrats: as an enemy”:

For good-government, consensus, let’s-get-along, politics-can-be-pure types, this is a horrible message. Can it be true that the only way for Democrats to vote their true strength is to treat the opposing party just as poorly as the opposing party treats the Democrats? Can it be true that the only way to break the logjam is to embrace a politics that is even more loathsome, more unctuous and more uncivil than it is today?nMaybe, yes.