Obama's team have done it twice now. They built on what they saw after the Kerry campaign where polarised opinions on the war boosted turnout. I've not said the Democrats will keep doing this after Obama leaves office or that they won't fall into the laziness trap again but the facts are there. The have made a concerted effort to get their supporters who don't usually vote to go out and vote and it's worked.

I've not said that is the basis for the Republicans being finished (I don't think they are and I said as much up front), I just said as much as the Democrats screw up, as long as they don't fall into the trap of thinking their voters will turn up without a concerted effort to get them there it will take the Republicans proactively changing to get back into office.

Tom said as much in his thread above mine and nobody here knows as much about Republican party workings as him. Simply remaining static and waiting for the inevitable slip-up by the Democrats is a crap strategy because if you don't put yourself in a position to exploit it then it's meaningless anyway.

If the Republicans move away from the 'tea party' aspect and the Democrats don't improve the economy much then they have a very real chance of winning the next election handily, however they'll need to rely on more than their base to do that and continuing to alienate virtually every minority group in the country isn't going to allow them to do that.