The Big Question: Is Obama convincing liberals to ‘buck up’?

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), said:

“Well, I think it’s gonna work better if they especially don’t talk to young people like they’re their parents. I have college age kids and I know if I talk to them like I’m trying to make them feel guilty that it never works. So I think we’ve got to focus on what they accomplished and how inspiring they have been to us and that them taking such concern and care about their country is incredibly meaningful. That if they want America to look like the America they want to live in they’ve got to help us. And I think we need to respectively and differentially ask them for their help and try not to lecture.”

Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa), said:
“I think there’s a lot more energy. And I think part of the energy is driven by these Republican primaries. They’ve helped energize a lot of Democrats in a way, maybe, we weren’t expecting. But in addition to that we got to keep making the cases to what’s at stake if they don’t vote.”

Adam Bonin, Chairman of Netroots Nation, said:
The people who are actively complaining are going to vote. I don’t think there’s been any question about that. But all this hectoring is not going to make progressives enthusiastic about volunteering for and providing financial support to candidates who might help form a majority but not lead it in a more progressive direction. It’s no longer about supporting “more Democrats,” but only “better Democrats” from the Netroots perspective. If the administration wants more support from progressives, it could start by doing more progressive things in the areas it’s not constrained by the Senate.

Danny Hayes, Fellow at the Center for Congressional and
Presidential Studies at American University, said:

Liberals aren’t the White House’s problem. Most will “come home” on
election day. And while turnout among traditional Democratic voters
might be down this fall — and we can’t possibly know yet whether the
White House’s or anyone else’s mobilization efforts are working —
that’s not the chief reason the party is likely to suffer big losses.
Instead, as the economy goes, so goes the incumbent party. And with
independent and weakly partisan voters holding the Democrats accountable
for the tough times, the party’s odds of keeping the House and
maintaining a large majority in the Senate seem longer and longer as the
fall campaign gets shorter and shorter.

John Feehery, The Hill Pundits Blog contributor, said:
I am no liberal, but I imagine that liberals need something more convincing than a battle cry of buck up. The biggest problem for liberals is that their policies don’t work. Obama’s implementation of those policies has proved that point in convincing fashion.

Frank Askin, professor of law at Rutgers University, said:
I really don’t know if it’s working, but, like chicken soup, it can’t do any harm.

Peter Navarro, professor of economics and public policy at U.C. Irvine, said:
There aren’t enough liberals in this new world to stop the tide about to wash over the Dems.

Justin Raimondo, editorial director of Antiwar.com, said:
Absolutely not — and a major reason is the foreign policy of the United States, which is even more unreasonably aggressive under President Obama. Yes, I know we are “withdrawing” from Iraq — but, hey, combat continues, our troops are still there, and we’re still paying the bills for that conflict. We are ramping up the Afghan war — yes, I know Woodward says Obama’s heart isn’t in it, and that the Pentagon made him do it, but, really, who’s the President here, Obama or Petraeus? We’re invading Pakistan in a big way — another campaign “promise” from Obama fulfilled!

And to top it all off, we’re bankrupt — a bankrupt empire going into
rapid decline. Liberals vote? What for? Who for?