When people say the parties are the same...

This is what they mean. From The Nation:

"When out-of-state anti-union parties obliterate the autonomy of a state—strange, considering conservatives believe so deeply in those states’ rights—and the Democratic Party remains largely complicit in the gutting of public sector unions, where are pro-union protesters to go?
Their choices in the election booth are bleak.
Walker’s challenger, Tom Barrett (D), surrendered the narrative early on to Walker when he stated he was not labor’s candidate. Ditto on austerity. Even though Wisconsin’s corporations are taxed at a rate below the national average, Barrett never challenged Walker’s rationale that the state is “out of money.”
As a result, Democratic voters were experiencing some serious ennui about their candidate. 47 percent of Barrett’s backers said their vote was more against Walker than it was for Barrett.
As for voters, the hostility toward unions (52 percent of voters polled said they supported the changes to the collective bargaining law), can easily be explained by the facts that fewer people than ever belong to unions, and Democrats have joined in on the union-bashing, oftentimes embracing the same “special interests” narrative first shaped by the right.
Alienation from the traditional leftist institutions was the cause of the original occupation of Wisconsin’s state capitol, followed by a slew of occupations all across the country and the world. Burnt by the Republicans and abandoned by the Democrats, protesters turned to nontraditional forms of protest, including camping in public spaces and refusing to leave.
Tuesday’s loss is unquestioningly demoralizing, but it is unsurprising. Pro-union supporters were outspent $30 million to $3 million. Wisconsin is under siege by anti-worker forces."

It is not that we are not all abundantly aware that the gop is openly fascist, it is that we have been abandoned by corporate Democrats as well. No one speaks for workers. That is why people become frustrated with both. No matter how many of us sign up as volunteers to "pound the pavement" and make calls, etc. the image of the Democratic Party is... I don't know either. No matter how many of us really believe in the old school image of the party as on the side of the working-class and try to bring it back, there are national forces working against us.

"Yeah, okay, President Obama might secure Wisconsin in November, but what will Obama do for unions and their supporters? If the recent union-gutting history of the Democratic Party is a barometer, pro-worker voters are in for a tough decision.
But if pro-worker protesters in Wisconsin, and all across the country, have proven anything, it’s that they often thrive when pushed into the margins of society. It was only after Wisconsin’s dark hours in which Walker all but eliminated collective bargaining rights for public workers than tens of thousands of protesters launched the original Occupy.
The dedication of these pro-worker protesters is unquestionable. However, what is up for debate is the soundness of traditional institutions, such as the Democratic Party and corporate cash-soaked elections, which are simply not worthy of these individuals."
History alert: This is basically how it has always been. America is a business run society. The blip created by the New Deal coalition was an aberration. "We" the workers of America, have basically always been on our own. We have lost much, and that drives a great deal of the anger out there. That is the great irony of contemporary America, business has inflicted this harm and instability on us, disrupting our lives and making everyone fear the future. The fascist gop, the party of business, has given the public all of this trouble aaannndddd a narrative explaining why it is all government/liberals fault. The Democrats give us... nothing at best. They cannot really fight back out of fear of alienating their delusional financial backers. That is why it appears like they are the same, the majority of voters need a narrative not a list of tiny policy tweaks and technocratic explanations. NONE OF THEM GIVE WORKERS A REASON TO TRUST THEM.