This is an area where the Dems have yet to counter. The Tea Party movement has bubbled up from neighborhoods and small towns. Those folks are running for all kinds of local offices - from school board, to city council to mayor. The cream of the crop will rise and run for statewide office and from there, federal.
I don’t see similar interest by the moveon.org or dailykos folks. They just stand on the sidelines and throw stones. The pink shirts show up and act stupid from time to time, but they don’t seem to want to take on civic responsibility. They’re just media hogs.
The best Dems have are the SEIU purple shirts but they just come out when given free stuff and they’re not running for anything. They’re just rabble rousing.
A major factor in the Tea Party movement is the near 2 to 1 advantage conservatives enjoy in their use of social networking. I see that growing by leaps and bounds.
Obama built up this massive email contact list, but there’s no evidence many of those people are networking among themselves. They’re just taking directives from on high. That’s not a movement, it’s a dictatorship.
The first Democrat loss after Obama was the crippling blow to ACORN. Then the Tea parties rose up and became the legal conservative counter to ACORN. Conservatives went into the election with a ground game, and Democrats had none.