Republicans do it by throwing chunks of meat (mostly consisting of rights over women's bodies) to their fundie base and by sending out frightening leaflets about how the Democrats want to ban their Bibles and force them to marry a turtle and so on.
Democrats have invented a brand new way of caring for the base: Acting like a Drill Sergeant.Here's the president himself:
And here's the Vice-President:
Admonishing his own party, President Barack Obama says it would be "inexcusable" and "irresponsible" for unenthusiastic Democratic voters to sit out the midterm elections, warning that the consequences could be a squandered agenda for years.
"People need to shake off this lethargy. People need to buck up," Mr. Obama told Rolling Stone in an interview to be published Friday. The president told Democrats that making change happen is hard and "if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren't serious in the first place."
Now gimme twenty pushups! Go!
At a fundraiser in Manchester, NH, today, Vice President Biden urged Democrats to "remind our base constituency to stop whining and get out there and look at the alternatives. This President has done an incredible job. He's kept his promises."
The remarks, made to roughly 200 top Democratic activists and donors, recall comments President Obama made last week to "griping and groaning Democrats…Folks: wake up. This is not some academic exercise. As Joe Biden put it, Don't compare us to the Almighty, compare us to the alternative."
Sigh. Of course it's crucial for all Democrats and progressives and so on to go and vote, of course! The alternative is, after all, worse. A lot worse for women.
But I can't help noticing that the Republicans court their base (even as they laugh at them, too), whereas the Democrats tell their base to shape up. The base is told that they are the problem, not the administration. That's not the greatest of PR moves.