= new reply since forum marked as read
As Charlie Cook of the Cook Report pointed out, noted the other night by Lawrence O'Donnell ("things that I did not know"
, much of the left's vote is "wasted." That's because a very large portion of the left is concentrated in cities, where they take their districts by huge margins, while the right is more dispersed and typically takes their districts by narrower margins. As Cook said, every vote over the one needed to win is wasted. No chicanery involved, and no incompetence. Geography.
Cook estimates that because of a combination of the above and because of extensive Republican gerrymandering, Democrats have to get 6.8% MORE votes than the GOP just to win 51% of the House.
(Some chicanery and incompetence, of course, were involved in the 2010 TP sweep, but above all the GOP redistricting disaster resulted from the cosmic confluence of 2 big, beyond-control factors, the 2010 census with a temporary upsurge in offices held by the hard right.)
And, of course, it just happens that a majority of big seats in play happen to be in red states.
Another big demographic factor: In midterm elections, Cook reported, the category of over-45 voters goes UP 8-10% as part of the overall vote. In the 1950s and 60s this benefited the left as most older people, who'd lived through the Great Depression, the great wars, the New Deal, voted Democrat. These days, that group more likely to long for the lost great days of Ronald Reagan (the last days of New Deal prosperity, but they don't know that).
Then there's personality -- a giant one! As we know, in midterm elections 2-3% more Republicans vote than Democrats. The blame for this one's squarely on OUR shoulders, not the right and not Obama or the media, because it's rooted in our very psyche. We aren't driven to the polls in higher numbers by unrealistic anxiety and insecurity, strongly distorted perspectives on the world and its problems, a dark view of human nature, unjustified anger, and severe intolerance -- All characteristic of strong conservatives. And, we are also often unrealistically complaisant, less personally organized, and less disciplined (it's not only the inadequacies of conservative voters that brought them these wins, after all).
If WE were all that our country needs its left to be in these troubled times of great change, the almost $4 billion spent by both sides to reach voters would have brought the left out to vote in incredibly high numbers. Really, the very scary and offensive right-wing messages should have been enough all by themselves. The DCCC could have just sat back and watched. If.
Or as Charlie Cook put it, "it's a map that's stacked against Democrats, a political environment that's lousy, and turnout dynamics..." "It's not a matter of whether Democrats win or lose, it's going to be is it bad, real bad, really really bad, or extra crispy."
the "plus" side, we have no shortage of grave, neglected problems that will only get more desperate as that neglect continues. 
FWIW, another plus that occurs is that the solutions to desperate economic problems that "the greatest generation" implemented (and ours trashed) were overall a great success. They are long proven, not experimental. The good old days.
