These days the chattering classes often converse about how the Democrats can get their base charged up and working for the fall elections. For example, Greg Sargent at the Plum Line blog says:

”As you know, over the weekend Robert Gibbs dropped a political bomb, saying that Republicans just may take back the House. His comments are being widely interpreted as an urgent warning designed to get rank and file Dems to grasp the stakes of the midterms once and for all.

”But here’s the question: Will rank and file Democrats care? The thinking among Dem strategists appears to be that once Dems realize the midterms are a “choice” election, rather than merely a referendum on Dems, they’ll go out and vote. But what if Dems do see this as a referendum on their party’s rule, and base their enthusiasm solely on whether they are energized by the Dem performance?”

In a heartfelt piece lamenting the jobs crisis and Washington’s Hooverite response to it, Bob Herbert of the New York Times said:

There is no plan that I can see to get us out of this fix. Drastic cuts in government spending would only compound the crisis. State and local governments, for example, are shedding workers as we speak.