Are the Dems and Dem leaders on tilt?

As I wrote my last post, little did I know that once again Mr. Silver over at 538 has been echoing my sentiments, and putting things quite cleverly. I wandered over to his article after posting my own, and thought it was so relevant to what I had been saying that I needed to recommend it to you here, if you have some extra time. If if you don't have time, the gist is that Nate argues Democrats will run a serious risk if they let health care be watered down to nothing: "The risk is that, when we get to November, the base looks at the fact that significant progress has not been made on any of those core, defining issues, that the political and procedural hurdles are immense, that Democratic majorities will (at best) shrink, and that the party leadership seems nonchalant in good times and panicky in bad ones. And they'll conclude that the progressive party is incapable of making progress." And then they'll just give up.

Emphasis mine. This is also my fear, the main fear that drove the publishing of my last post. Democratic leadership and regular old congresspeople, if the base loses hope and gives up, it won't matter how many independents want to join your cause, you've lost the very force that defined you in the first place. Or, as I would argue, the very people who elected you, Mr. President, need this. They haven't had anything to be excited about in 8 long years of Bush, arguably longer, if they aren't shown something, anything, you really might lose them. Not all of them have as much patience as I have shown. And even now I'm really beginning to lose mine.