Winning elections is about succeeding at three things:

1.  Motivating and mobilizing your base.  You don't need to convince these people that you're the better candidate - you just need to get them out to vote.

2.  Avoiding motivating and mobilizing your opponent's base, or even de-motivating them.  If the other guys don't think this election is a matter of life & death, they may not show up.

3.  Convince those who are truly independent or undecided that you're the better option, or at least the lesser of two evils.

Modern elections - and especially off-year elections - are much more about #1 and #2 above than #3.  Dems need to take this to heart going into 2010.  If they react to last night's losses by slowing down initiatives and trying harder to appeal to the mythical center, they play right into the hands of the Repubs.  What Dems need to do is push harder at real reforms - especially of our financial system as Taplin & others have argued - and hope that the economy improves enough by 2010.  We need candidates who will appeal to the coalition that elected Obama, not to independents who might've voted for McCain.