There's a lot of monday morning quarterbacking going on and much of it may be right, but I still feel our biggest problem was too low of a turnout. Too many people stayed home (for whatever reason).
Too many people stayed home for many of the reasons he outlined here. The GOP leadership sucked for the past two sessions and anyone but a Kool Aid drinker could see it.
cause and effect - you just (correctly) identified (part of) the effect. The cause is as described above + an inability or unwillingness to defend + promote things effectively. I'm still amazed that a situation now exists where people truly believe there were no (ie NONE, ZERO) WMD in Iraq, Saddam was one year away from a nuke. Every challenger should have been challenged to explain what they'd have done about Salman Pak. But they ran, ran so far away (Flock of Seagulls)
I thought the turnout on both sides was hugh for a mid-term.
Well, yes. When you badly lose an election it is generally the result of poor turnout among your voters. The question is, why didn't more Republicans turn out? Hugh Hewitt hits on some very interesting answers here.
They stayed home because the stench of corruption, moral turpitude and drunken sailor spending was all over the Republican Party.
The article provides some good reasons why people may have stayed home.
The White House and NRC didn't give them a reason to come vote for a Republican as opposed to "conservative" Democrat, i.e. they didn't explain that the vote for a "Blue Dog" Democrat is a vote for Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid. They took them for granted and spent the bulk of time and money playing prevent-defense trying to save vulnerable liberal NorthEast Republicans. That completely failed while Rahm's and Chuck's strategy to get "conservative" Democrats in Midwest and West wildly succeeded. That's the price for not explaining election politics and consequences to policies and judiciary to people you expect to vote for you - that effects the turnout. GOP should have "nationalized" the election, but on their terms - "A vote for Blue Dog here is a vote for Yellow Dog from San Francisco", it worked great in 2004 - unfortunately Bush has never been a vigorous campaigner.
Dem's strategy explained very well here (from UK, no less):
Meet the Blue Dogs: pro-gun, anti-abortion - and Democrat
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1735274/posts
McCain never helped with his "maverick" antics, yet media is portraying and pushing him as the "leader" of GOP and a "conservative". He sabotaged conservatives time and time again, yet there was noone to put a cork in it. Hugh is very good here unmasking and laying part the blame on McPain.
Are the actual numbers supporting that statement available yet?