Obama and DLC "strategists," and I use that term loosely, have made the mistake of arguing, "Hey, we're both colas! We both want to quench your thirst, but we taste better."
Problem is, even if one soft drink does taste better, the one whose marketing, advertising and sales promotion budget is ten times bigger will win more market share. So what's the solution?
The solution is to realize it isn't enough to be Coke vs Pepsi. Democrats have to be Champagne compared to piss. There isn't a marketing budget in the world that will make people prefer piss to Champagne.
And no amount of Koch money can make the voters prefer Republican policies that impoverish all but the wealthy and destroy the planet to a 21st century equivalent of the New Deal and the Great Society.
Of course, if you are pro-Pentagon, pro-Wall Street, pro-drilling, pro-fracking, pro-KXL, pro-surveillance and only think people who reveal U.S. involvement in torture should be prosecuted, not people who tortured other people to death, it's tough to actually BE Champagne to the Republicans' piss. You'd need a Koch-funded marketing budget to convince people you're better than the Republicans' piss.
And Democrats don't have that kind of money. Never have, never will.