Since 1980, the Democrats have not won without Bill Clinton or Barack Obama heading the ticket
The lone exception was 2006, but that was after the twin disasters of Iraq and Katrina.
The Dems need an extremely charismatic leader out in front in order to get the electorate excited enough to vote. Additionally, the Democratic party leadership and political consultants always advise candidates to run away from Clinton (in '94, '98, '00) and away from Obama (in '10 and '14) always get their asses handed to them by the Republicans.
In the end, the Dems need to stand united as one party behind their leadership in order to win. You cannot run away from the leader of the party and expect to win because your opponent is going to hang your leader around your neck whether you like it or not. It was folly for Gore to do it in 2000 and folly for the Dems in '10 and '14.
The party leadership is using a strategy from a bygone era. All elections are now national. You cannot run against your leader and your opponent at the same time. Grimes should have invited Obama to KY. Run with him. Talk up the ACA. Talk about moving KY's economy away from dependency on coal and onto a new future. Face it, the folks who cling to the coal industry are already lost to Republicans. The votes for the Dems in KY lie with those young voters who want a different future for themselves and their families.
Would she have won with that strategy? Probably not, but she would have laid the ground work for future wins by the Dems in that state which is far more important.
My advice to the party: build a strong message that's different from the Republicans, get behind the leadership, run hard in all 50 states, and stop this nonsense of having conservative/moderate Dems trying to appeal to a voter bloc that won't ever vote for them no matter how much they compromise.
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against Udall here in Colorado was obscene, and it was outside money. Until that issue is addressed nothing will change, and the Democrats have no interest in doing anything ab out it.
Gardner was on TV constantly "sounding" like a Democrat 
Udall was on the defense , the ads against him were constant. I don't blame him for distancing himself from Obama, I thought it would help him also.
When Michelle was here campaigning at a rally for Udall she had seeming confused Udall and Gardner, which I think on the campaign trail would be easy to do. It's a mess but you are right the Dems need a strong message and we need to give the young voters a reason to vote. They are struggling on so many fronts and they see no help on the horizon.
...money from outside Colorado, i.e. Tom Steyer, etc.? (I haven't researched how many millions both sides spent but I assume it was comparable.)
Udall ran a bad campaign, laughable even. Once Gardner entered the race, Udall wasn't lithe enough to re-tool, trying to paint Gardner as an extremist.
Here's a suggestion: Maybe the DNC needs to find some new blood instead of running all these dynastic re-treads. And maybe, just maybe they need to address issues voters actually care about instead of creating fantasy narratives just to get elected. Both parties do it but Democrats don't need to do it.
