Yes, I wish the campaign had been more ideological, but we can’t discount one huge factor: the country has turned center-left, and the c-left people are quite immune to logical arguments. You could argue until you’re blue in the face about liberalism and leftism and the whole rotten socialist world. These people can’t be persuaded, because they don’t respond to facts, logic, and reason. We’ve passed the tipping point. Time to think about a permanent split.
We may have missed the tipping point, but there is no basis for you to say we can “argue til we’re blue in the face” until we run a candidate who argues til he, or she, is blue in the face - and loses.
Every time we argue til we’re blue in the face - we actually turn the nation red.