Where are the grassroots of the Left?

Richard Fernandez notes that grassroots conservatives have mobilized, what with all of the Tea Parties and the surge of political activism. But where are the grassroots leftists, the ones that raised all of that money and that did all of that organization for Barack Obama during his campaign? We learn that those grassroot organizations have been subsumed into the official Democratic party apparatus. They are directed from the top. Whereas the conservative groups are directed from below, to the point of defying the Republican party when necessary.

Similarly, in yesterday’s elections, the young people and minorities who surged to the polling places to elect Barack Obama just didn’t turn out in big numbers. Social conservatives, though, did.