Last night I got a call from a hard-working Democratic volunteer. When I told her that I planned to vote for Democrats, and that I definitely was voting, the relief I heard in her voice was both touching and maddening. From my phone banking experience, I suspect the reason she was relieved is that she’d encountered some of the usual and customary apathy of Democrats who can’t be bothered to vote in off-year elections.

We like to bitch and complain about the uselessness of elected Democrats, but I’ll be god-damned if I’m going to complain about those we elect without mentioning that there are a hell of a lot of Democrats who would vote if the voting fairy thrust a ballot into their hands, yet who can’t manage to get their asses off the couch and head to a polling station. And spare me the lecture about how some of their delicate sensibilities were offended by Obama’s inability to deliver a pony with the right color ribbon pleated into its mane. This phenomenon has been around since the first time I picked up a rotary dial phone and called a voter over 30 years ago.

The sad fact is that if we do lose the Senate and/or House next week, and usher in two years of stasis, subpoenas and division, it will be because a few thousand registered Democrats just couldn’t be bothered to take a couple minutes out of their day to put a little mark on a piece of paper.