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In an interview to be published Friday in Rolling Stone magazine, President Obama says it would be “inexcusable” for Democrat voters suffering from a lack of enthusiasm for his Administration and the Pelosi Congress to sit out the midterm elections. 

Vice President Joe Biden had a similar message for his party’s base voters.  At a fundraiser in New Hampshire, Biden urged Democrats to “stop whining” and said President Obama has done “an incredible job” and “kept his promises.” 

Democrats like Obama and Biden have good reason to bemoan the enthusiasm gap.  The latest Gallup poll shows that Republican voters are far more motivated to head to the polls than are Democrats, with 48% of Republicans saying they are “very” enthusiastic  to vote, opposed to just 28% of Democrats.    The same Gallup survey shows that Congressional job approval is now at 18%, the lowest rating measured by Gallup before any midterm election since 1974. 

What President Obama and Vice President Biden failed to note in their motivational messages is that there is good reason for this enthusiasm gap.  The closing weeks of the 2008 election were dominated by the economic downturn.  The chief issue during the first two years of the Obama Administration, and the last two years of the Pelosi Congress, has been job creation and economic growth.  Yet on these issues, the Democrat majority in Washington has clearly failed the American people. 

President Obama’s pleas for voters to feel enthusiastic about stagnant unemployment are falling on deaf ears.  Joe Biden’s calls to “stop whining” about Democrat policies that have created more than $13 trillion in national debt don’t pass the smell test. 

The enthusiasm gap between the two parties’ voters is real, just as is the reality gap between the words coming from the Obama Administration and the Pelosi Congress and the reality on Main Streets all across America.  In his Rolling Stone interview, President Obama says “People need to shake off this lethargy.  People need to buck up.”

That’s not what the people need.  They need a Congress and a White House that is more interested in creating jobs for the American people than they are about saving their own elected positions.