Liberal Charles Blow admitting in print most of the Democratic base are ignorant dolts:
..... The unpleasant fact that these liberals rarely mention, and may not know, is that large swaths of the Democratic base, groups they need to vote in droves next month — blacks, Hispanics and young people — are far less civically literate than their conservative counterparts.
Therein lies the hurdle for the Democrats: How can they excite this part of the base that is not engaged and knowledgeable in an off-year election? How can they motivate these voters to help Democrats maintain their Congressional majorities when, according to a poll released this week by the Pew Research Center, 42 percent of blacks, 42 percent of Hispanics and 35 percent of voters ages 18 to 29 years old don’t even know that Democrats have a majority in the House? It’s sad. Pathetic, really. But it’s a political reality. (Only 71 percent of Democrats overall knew that Democrats had a majority in the House. By comparison, 82 percent of Republicans knew it.)
Instead of focusing like a laser on this problem, part of the White House’s new strategy appears to be to pick a fight with the left’s ivory tower intelligentsia.
Vice President Joe Biden said at a fund-raiser on Monday that the Democratic base should “stop whining.” The “professional left” may be whining, but underengaged Democrats are simply wandering. And, by the way, many Democrats don’t even know who the vice president is. In the Pew poll, 64 percent of Hispanics, 51 percent of young adults and 45 percent of blacks could not name Biden as the vice president. (Only 35 percent of Republicans got it wrong.)
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nytimes.com |