It seems like your take on the Harris campaign, boiled down, is basically that they tried to optimize for center too hard? And should have gone farther left? I hope I'm not putting words in your mouth, that's how it reads to me.

I agree. Like you said it's impossible to know how that would've turned out, but after seeing this last election, hard not to conclude that Dems need to start spitting some fire and getting spicy. This milquetoast party of reasonable takes really isn't getting anything done.

Sure they'd lose some (many) moderates, and I bet they've polled and "determined" that they'd lose more votes than they'd gain, but polls can't capture the momentum generated by a movement for change, the potential support is de facto unobservable under current conditions.

Regardless, even when Dems "win", it seems little changes. Really wish they'd start swinging for the fences and see what sticks.

Edit to add - I agree with your post as well, don't want to (yet again) hyper focus on Dems-the-party