Low Democratic turnout finally gets noticed

Vox blames it on Bernie Sanders.

It was bad news for Bernie Sanders that he lost in Nevada Saturday. But there may be a bigger crisis embedded in the loss: It suggested he isn't delivering on a key ingredient needed for his "political revolution." 

On Saturday, about 80,000 voters participated in Nevada's caucus — roughly two-thirds of the total that came out in 2008. 

Sanders's reason for running, as he describes it, is to upend how money and special interests shape American politics by empowering voters. This means bringing out an unprecedented number of people on Election Day. 

So as bad as it was to lose Nevada on Saturday night, the tepid voter turnout in itself is almost a more significant problem for him.

Yeah, not going to be Bernie's problem much longer.  He's leaving that soon to Hillary.  nailbender at Daily Kos faults the chair of the DNC.

The bad news (and yes, it is bad) following the first three Dem presidential primaries of this cycle, is that Dem turnout is lower than it was in the wave election year of ‘08, and (this is the really bad part) that the GOP turnout is commensurately higher. This, indeed, does not bode well. 

But to attribute the problem (and yes, it is a problem) totally to the incompetence of the two remaining Dem candidates’ campaigns is an extremely blinkered notion, especially since this very outcome was predicted months ago, based on the strategic idiocy of the Debbie Wasserman Schultz-led DNC.

He (or she) goes on a quite a rant directed at Wasserman Schultz there, so I'll leave it for you to finish.  It may or may not be DWS's fault, but Hillary Clinton is the one -- the only one -- who's going to have to answer for it.

She's as big a part of the problem as Bernie or Debbie, after all.  "Those mean Sanders people do it too!" is the wrong and juvenile response.  Again, why Clintonistas would still be throwing the kitchen sink full of lies at her almost-vanquished opponent remains a mystery to me.  It's almost as if the model for success they are employing is Ted Cruz's.

This bodes poorly for Democrats in November.

Update: This is essentially the reductio ad absurdum that the Democratic primary has come to.  Two links: The Hill, with Hillary asking herself a question -- and not answering it directly -- about trust...

“I understand that voters have questions,” Clinton said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I’m going to do my very best to answer those questions."

"I think there’s an underlying question that is really in the back of people’s minds, and that is, you know, ‘Is she in it for us or is she in it for herself?’” she added.

“I think that’s, you know, a question that people are trying to sort through."

... and Ron Fournier at The Atlantic, clarifying it.

Voters learned not to trust Bill Clinton to tell the truth about his private life. But they believed him when he said he got up every morning determined to work for them. “Is he in it for us or is he in it for himself?” Even when Bill Clinton disgraced himself and faced impeachment for lying about sex with an intern, most voters believed he was still in it for them. 

Most voters don’t feel that way about Hillary Clinton, and it’s a dangerous matter of trust. She can’t convince voters that she’s always been honest—not in an era that equips people to be their own electronic fact-checkers. She can’t give today’s voters the authenticity they crave. 

Her challenge is to convince them that even if she’s mendacious, she’s their liar—she’s on their side—and the other side lies almost as much. 

Hillary and her people need to be certain that the definition of 'the other side' they're using is the Republicans ... and not Bernie Sanders.