After giving some consideration to why Democrats may have done so badly in last November's elections, there are several faulty Democratic assumptions that have come to mind. Some of these were covered in a previous diary by me (here's the link for anyone who might be interested: http://www.dailykos.com/...).
Those faulty assumptions included things like the assumption that it's okay for Democrats to lose in 2014 because they are virtually guaranteed to win in 2016. Another assumption is that the favorable demographic trends for Democrats will guarantee that they will become a majority party and all we have to do is wait for that to occur. Another is the entire categorization system used by political pundits to label districts “lean Democratic” based only on the results of a few cherry-picked recent presidential elections.
Two more faulty assumptions have occurred to me since posting that diary. One has to do with the entire premise of so-called “base elections” and whether there even is such a thing. The other has to do with how Democrats approached trying to turn out their base, with phone calls and canvassing.
Let me address these two matters, one at a time, below: