Can Democrats Rally the Base by Warning of Disaster?

Ask a Democrat to predict the future these days, and there's a good chance they'll offer what they see as a dire warning: The Republicans Are Coming.

Last week, someone leaked to the Huffington Post's Sam Stein a Democratic memo showing that outside groups were planning to spend $200 million on the midterm elections. Stein's story included hand-wringing from unnamed Democrats complaining of being massively outspent and calling the memo a "wake-up call to the left" that necessitates liberals putting "their money on the table."

On Sunday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said there's "no doubt" the Democrats could lose the House in November. Democrats (including Nancy Pelosi) were angry about the comments, fearing they would help the GOP raise money. But Gibbs implied in a press briefing that he had made the claim in order to fire up the Democratic base. (Asked if the comments were part of a strategy, Gibbs responded: "I hesitate to lift the curtain quite that much.")

Now William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former adviser to President Clinton, has penned a piece arguing that the Senate is also in play. (The headline begins "Attention, Democrats!")

In an interview, Galston told Hotsheet that the possibility of a GOP Senate takeover is "nowhere near 50/50, but in my judgment it's significant enough and greater than zero, so that it's worth pointing it out."

Galston is not in the Obama White House, and he made clear that he is "not privy to any of the White House strategic or tactical conversations" about how to fire up the base (or anything else). But it's not hard to imagine the administation and Democrats using his piece further the narrative that Democrats are in trouble unless the base gets active and the dollars start rolling in.

It's true that stressing the risk of losses goes somewhat against the Washington conventional wisdom, which is that it's important to always generate a sunny facade in order to convince donors that victory is coming and their money thus won't be wasted.

But Democrats, concerned about the relative unpopularity of their president and legislative efforts, appear to be increasingly invested in rallying a seemingly-demoralized base by warning Americans that things would be much worse if the GOP was in power again. Stressing the possibility of losing Congress in the midterms plays directly into those fears.

At a fundraiser last month, for example, President Obama said that Republicans "drove the car into the ditch" and now "want the keys back."

"No. You can't drive," the president said, speaking to Republicans. "We don't want to have to go back into the ditch. We just got the car out."

Galston, for one, doesn't give the White House a lot of credit for a coherent plan: "What worries me," he said, "is that the Democrats are feuding among themselves, rather than trying to come together around a strategy."

But his warning today appears to go right at the emerging Democratic argument: You may not be crazy about us, but at least we're a heck of a lot better than the other guys.

That may not be the most stirring call to arms, but, in the current environment, it might be the best they've got.