than to move further towards the people ahead of you that you alienate by staying stagnant.
"we might lose voters then" doesn't track when we keep hearing about party line votes.
but "the other side is trying to take away our barebones solution no one likes but is better than nothing, our stance is to restore us to that" will never win more people than you already had, no matter how good your rhetoric is.
the Democrats in the US especially exemplify this and I used to think it was donors or what politicians were comfortable with, but I think it's much more that they're cargo culting Obama's win but not understanding what actually got people to care, and how they've now lost enough trust that even if they nailed the moment, they'd never be able to get it back.
there's so much talk of canvassing but it's not 2008 anymore, and even then it didn't scale well because volunteers have high turnover too, and you need a lot, and they need experience. it's so often a waste of labor and funds when you don't actually have stuff you brag about, that's real, and that's not just returning us to 2012. if it scaled better you might be able to lean on it alone, but alas.
I think a lot of people, myself included, have misunderstood how this machine works, and while donors and politician whims are part of it, most of it is the rank and file dems believed the propaganda about how what we had is the best we can get and we should fight to bring it back.
but running on compromises you made in the past with the fascist wing is a losing move without a huge propaganda effort, because, well, you're not even pushing your values, and they'll inevitably force a compromise again.
instead you have to push the envelope, make them focus more energy on counternarrative, and think about compromises and loopholes they can use in case you are successful.
doubly so because, well, it also forces media coverage and more people who were disillusioned to believe in you. the people who matter of the centrists won't defect because they either don't keep up with the news, or they don't care enough to move. it's the way to actually win instead of having every election be a knife fight that burns out every volunteer on your side, let alone the more progressive and left groups who keep having to pick up the slack.
it's politically embarrassing to hold the status quo as your political position, and the informed voters seem to know that more and more. It's funny that the parties don't. it's funny that even left orgs fall into this trap.
you must stress the enemy and force them to think on their feet.
Otherwise the think tanks rule the land, and they've got two decades of prewritten legislation and statements to go with it and low quality citations.