Have the unemployed become invisible?

Catherine Rampell has an interesting piece at the New York Times (see here) in which she asserts that in some ways (and unlike similar times in the past), the unemployed have become almost invisible.  She says:

In some ways, this boils down to math, both economic and political. Yes, 9.2 percent of the American work force is unemployed — but 90.8 percent of it is working. To elected officials, the unemployed are a relatively small constituency. And with apologies to Karl Marx, the workers of the world, particularly the unemployed, are also no longer uniting. 

Nor are they voting — or at least not as much as people with jobs. In 2010, some 46 percent of working Americans who were eligible to vote did so, compared with 35 percent of the unemployed, according to Michael McDonald, a political scientist at George Mason University. There was a similar turnout gap in the 2008 election. 

No wonder policy makers don’t fear unemployed Americans. The jobless are, politically speaking, more or less invisible.

I have been wondering about this for months now.  That is, where are the influential voices that speak for the unemployed?  Mainly, I have found them among a select group of economists who continue to write about this on their blogs.  The jobs report this week estimated the unemployed to number over 14 million!  That number, of course, doesn't include the large number that have simply given up searching for a job.  But, again, why hasn't this become a main staple of our national conversation?  The people of this country seem more interested in a trial in Florida than the plight of millions of their fellow Americans.  I don't get it.