Democratic officials reach out to anxious liberals with tough election season ahead

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Democrats wary of motivation problem with liberals

LAS VEGAS — The Democratic Party has a motivation problem.

Party officials acknowledged low morale within their left wing and urged liberal bloggers and activists Friday to keep faith with President Barack Obama in an election year as Democrats brace for losses in Congress.

“We need to find a way to get our voters really engaged in this election,” Democratic National Committee executive director Jennifer O’Malley Dillon said at the annual Netroots Nation convention. “It’s more important, every single day, to know what’s at stake.”

Jon Vogel, executive director of the Democratic House campaign organization, predicted Democratic voters would get energized when they focus on what Republican gains would mean for the Democratic agenda.

“You start to educate folks as to differences in candidates, the enthusiasm gap certainly will close,” Vogel said.

Liberals who helped put Obama in the White House in 2008 are disillusioned over the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, slow movement on gay rights and the failure to create a government-run insurance option in the health care overhaul.

The racially tinged furor surrounding the ouster of Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod, who was forced to resign but later received a personal apology and job offer from Obama, left many feeling the White House was manipulated by the conservative media.

“People are in a down mood,” said Michael Lux, who heads Progressive Strategies, a Washington-based consulting firm.

Carol Olszewski, 65, of Schenectady, N.Y., said she traveled as far away as North Carolina and Ohio to campaign for Obama. But she believes the party has been too accommodating to Republicans who “want to destroy him.” She puzzles why the party backed former Republican Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania’s Senate race rather than Democrat Joe Sestak, a two-term congressman who won the nomination.

“I am discouraged. I’m fighting against my inclination to say, ‘The hell with it all,’ ” said Olszewski, an administrative judge for New York state.

Democrats are trying to hold on to control of Congress in a year when polls show the president’s popularity is slipping, particularly among independents. Meanwhile, the Republican Party has seen the rise of tea party activism, which is shaking up races across the nation.

J.B. Poersch, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, acknowledged there is frustration that that the Democrat-led White House and Congress haven’t achieved the party’s full agenda but quickly added, “We’re not done yet.”

Earlier in the day, former White House environmental adviser Van Jones urged activists and bloggers to have patience with the president. Jones resigned last year after he was linked to efforts suggesting a government role in the 2001 terror attacks and to derogatory comments about Republicans.

“Change is still possible,” he said, echoing the president’s 2008 campaign slogan.