In 2008 Barack Obama won the presidency in large part due to energetic turnout among young people. After eight long years of the Bush Administration, young Americans were starved for hope in their future and looking for a way to move their issues forward. These votes turned out heavily, and broke decisively for the president.
Over and over again at NN11, speakers and bloggers are taking for granted that the president has a problem with his voters. Addressing the problems the president and the Democratic Party have with their base has been built into most panels and most speakers remarks. To a person all the speakers have alluded or directly addressed the electoral problem Democrats, especially the president, are facing for the 2012 cycle: a lack of enthusiasm and voter apathy as a result of no fundamental change from conditions during the darkest days of the Bush administration.
This afternoon’s youth voter turnout panel with Debbie Hines, Rep. Donna Edwards, Jeneba Ghatt, Kristal High, Judy Lubin and Scott Roberts is not an exception to this rule.
Sometimes I wonder what planet these people are living on. For instance, Kristal High of politic365, and African American politics website, just repeats the general administration line – that we have to “educate people about accomplishments” and be “guarding against voter apathy” and “remind people of what is at

Netroots Nation Recap: Saving the Middle Class

by emptywheel
Marcy Wheeler, Dahlia Lithwick, and Barry Eisler in main hall for Van Jones speech - NN11 6/18/2011 (photo: bmaz)
Sorry to be AWOL for most of Netroots Nation. Bmaz says I’ve been offline for the last few days because we’ve been drunk and busy, but it seems to me I’ve just been incredibly busy for five days straight. There were a lot of conversations, but the overall theme seemed like a desperate conversation on saving the middle class.
Early in the week, I had some extended conversations with labor folks, including some interesting discussions about the UAW’s plans to organize transplants–I hope to do an extensive follow-up on that.
On Thursday, I had the honor to be on a podium between Howard Dean and Russ Feingold, two of my political