We need to shore up our base and not take reliable voters for granted. Vote must be earned and trying to fear of loss the base does not bring them to the polls. We need to have a message that will resonate broadly, not just to a small segment of voters. People are worried about money and their future, and are much less concerned with non essential issues if you can't pay you're phone bill while working two jobs, you have no need to worry about the nsa or weed. You have no money.

Weed? Maybe ... self-medication is big in impoverished communities.

But you're correct ... Worrying about the NSA is listening in on your telephone calls, or that the TPP is being negotiated in secret runs a distant 10th to concerns of whether you can maintain a roof over your family's head and food in their belly. The causes of utmost importance to DUers are luxuries of thought that the vast majority of working class folks are most unconcerned with.

I think ignoring peoples interests will make them ignore you. Maybe weed, but you forget that unlike me, many did not spend any time in a middle to upper middle class neighborhood, i think kore do than don't but the people most affected are the poor. I have gotten pulled over, no license, weed in my bra, and the cop just threw it on the ground and made me park my car. That was in the middle if the hood and they were not interested in me after they spoke to me. I picked it back up after he left. One smoked with me, black and Mexican partners. That was fun. But i have the privilege most don't in those neighborhoods. I sound innocent. I speak overly proper english with a non regional dialect and do not 'sound' black. Like president Obama. Many just get convicted on looks alone. They are looking for a reason to arrest them, and the drug war gives them plenty of 'probable cause' that they don't use on the majority nearly as much. What are we going to do?

Terry McAuliffe ran on supporting Obamacare . this helped to actually get the people to go out and vote for him.

for most minority voters it's pretty much things like jobs and health care that matter the most.

We want jobs, healthcare, and education.

TPP or XL?

Actually, I think none of that ranks among top concerns among most working class people. It's about meeting survival needs, then comfort needs, then the ideological stuff.

Money can't buy you love, and love can't buy you a vote.

But then, I plan to vote to put people in Congress that will help advance President Obama's agenda ... And, I believe that Democrats and liberals would do themselves a favor by focusing their campaigns on what the Democratic Party's most reliable cohort says is of concern.

.....how many could be benefiting if the GOPope-istas hadn't refused it. How they will work to get to done.

you don't even need to convince them to vote for your candidate because as long as they do get out there they will vote for that person. often it's just things like reminding them to get out there, making sure they have someone to take them there etc.

the thing is that most people don't pay attention that closely to politics and this includes those who DO vote . and this is even more true during non Presidential elections.

I sure as heck will be voting! I'm from Massachusetts, blue state. Yet we can't let our guard down either. The last time that happened we got Scott Brown and worse Mitt Romney.

Thanks, 1SBM.

land. As an old Democrat I have long wished that we could do that with all Democrat races. And THEN after we win I wish that we would carry through with our promises to the minorities that help us win.

One question: Will this make a difference in gerrymandered districts?

Even the most gerrymandered district, voter participation of eligible voters was below 50%.

The big issues that Black folks are concerned with, e.g., jobs, healthcare, the maintenance of the social safety net, cut across all working class demographics. Campaigning positively (i.e., what Democrats want to do) and negatively (i.e., what Republicans have done) on these issues will draw out working class people, Black and white.

On the other hand, campaigning on the evils of the NSA, TPP, XL, and the jailing the bankers, and most of the other issues of great importance on DU, as well as the consistent refrain that Democrats equal republicans and President Obama and Eric Holder are ineffective/ineffectual, will have Black folks, particularly, and working class folks, in general, staying home.

the people I know. TPP and XL are secondary.

I lived in Nebraska for a while and worked on several Native American reservations so I understand the XL and I have watched the trade agreements steal our jobs.

But to be honest I once read a book (I think the name was "When the Jobs Disappear&quot that showed how the jobs used to be in the inner cities and then moved to the subs leaving the people in the inner cities jobless. From there the jobs moved south where there were few unions and that was all before the trade agreements.

The trade agreements merely continued the trend and hit a lot of jobs held by people of all colors. We need to reverse this trend and reinvigorated our own jobs economy by moving back into the cities in the USA. Most of the people in this country live in cities.

I doubt the trend will stop anytime in the near future.

Since corporations have no national identity/loyalty, they will seek out low labor cost/low regulatory nation-states to park their production, low tax nation-states to park their cash, and high security/high lifestyle nation-states to park their executives.

IMO, the solution is not a nationalistic "bring 'our' jobs home" effort; but rather, we should be fighting for trade agreements that equalize worker/workplace and (environmental) regulatory protections, globally. If global wages and regulatory schemes were equalized, there will be no benefit to corporations in shuffling labor and production; rather they will make production decisions based on other matrices, such as where the resources and/or end-users are. For example, China will no longer be incentivized to cut and ship lumber in the Pacific Northwest of the US, only to ship it back to China, where processing wages and environmental regulations are all but non-existent. Rather, it would be cheaper and more efficient (i.e., more profitable) to build processing plants where the lumber is cut, or where the lumber will be used. Likewise, Walmart and Apple will no longer be able to use foreign sweat shops to produce their goods and Help-desks servicing US markets will be located in the US.

While the elements of TPP is largely secret, I read (about a year ago) that one of the sticking points in the negotiations is the US insistence on the strengthening of workplace/environmental protections. I wish I could find the link to the article; but since TPP is/was not in my top 10 areas of concern, I read the article and kept it moving.

is that it allows parties to fill the void with dis/mis-information.

I understand why such negotiations must be in secret, as no one wants to appear to betray their "interests", especially where those "interests" are widely misunderstood.