It sure doesn't seem to me like they're "losing the debate".
Then you haven't been paying attention

Continuing to smile and play nice while you're being attacked is a guaranteed way to lose, as the Dems have proven without a doubt over the last 20 years.
Really? So......then.........I take it you think President Obama is a Republican? Obama received 53 percent of the popular vote to 46 percent for his conservative opponent John McCain, and he carried the electoral vote by an even more substantial 365-to-173 margin.


And the passage of the "Detention Without Trial Act" offsets that nicely.
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/12/defense-bill-passed-so-what-does-it-do-ndaa

(snip)So what exactly does the bill do? It says that the president has to hold a foreign Al Qaeda suspect captured on US soil in military detention—except it leaves enough procedural loopholes that someone like convicted underwear bomber and Nigerian citizen Umar Abdulmutallab could actually go from capture to trial without ever being held by the military. It does not, contrary to what many media outlets have reported, authorize the president to indefinitely detain without trial an American citizen suspected of terrorism who is captured in the US. A last minute compromise amendment adopted in the Senate, whose language was retained in the final bill, leaves it up to the courts to decide if the president has that power, should a future president try to exercise it. But if a future president does try to assert the authority to detain an American citizen without charge or trial, it won't be based on the authority in this bill.

So it's simply not true, as the Guardian wrote yesterday, that the the bill "allows the military to indefinitely detain without trial American terrorism suspects arrested on US soil who could then be shipped to Guantánamo Bay." When the New York Times editorial page writes that the bill would "strip the F.B.I., federal prosecutors and federal courts of all or most of their power to arrest and prosecute terrorists and hand it off to the military," or that the "legislation could also give future presidents the authority to throw American citizens into prison for life without charges or a trial," they're simply wrong.

The language in the bill that relates to the detention authority as far as US citizens and permanent residents are concerned is, "Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States."

You should know what you are talking about before you speak. A quote I've always shared with uninformed people such as yourself sums it up pretty nicely.
"It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than it is to open your mouth and remove all doubt"

If you want to go against the Democratic party this election cycle, be my guest. Just know, you will be on the losing end of the spectrum.