2014 Post-Mortem: How did the Democrats screw this up so badly?

[bedstuy]

We didn't give people anything to vote for.  What was our real pitch to the voters?  We couldn't realistically promise anything because we all knew that Congress was inevitably going to be an impediment.  It's not Democrats' fault necessarily, but obstructionism worked. 

Since the two years just promised to be trench warfare, Democratic voters felt like they had nothing to gain by voting and not much to lose by staying home.  The resulting of losing of this election seemed fairly hypothetical and parliamentary, even to people who were political junkies.  Who even has any idea what will go on in this next Congress?  Remember 2006 and 2008 when we won?  There was no doubt about the day one agenda in those two wins and I don't think it's a total coincidence. 

Republican voters, on the other hand, just show up consistently and they had the built in motivation of opposing Obama.  That was the fundamental reason we lost, it's game theory.  We're in political trench warfare so all we could say is don't vote for the other guy.  That's always a position of weakness in politics, clarifying and distinguishing versus arguing and attacking. 

What's the lesson going forward?  Democrats need to set the agenda and stand up for something.  Hillary Clinton needs to run on a populist John Edwards 2008 type message.  Republicans succeed by making the government into a farce, so they'll never successfully govern, but they'll always mess things up.