OOPS! Dems create a distraction

Inside baseball. Plus, Kamala makes more distraction.

My horoscope says that Mars is going to be grumbling around in my life (and others’) for the next few weeks. So — grumble, grumble. Let’s get this over with.

The Leaked Document

In response to CNN’s release of a partial version of the DNC’s draft autopsy of the 2024 election, DNC Chair Ken Martin was forced to fast-track the full release. Finally, we have the long-awaited analysis of how Democrats managed to let Donald J. Trump be elected … again.

Paul Rivera’s Masterpiece of Incompetence

To call the draft “autopsy” a mess is an understatement. This is Paul Rivera’s mess. I can’t even imagine the laundry list of excuses he cooked up to explain why it took 18 agonizing months to produce something that barely qualifies as a rough draft. His incompetence didn’t just delay the report: it handed the party a massive, entirely avoidable media crisis.

The fix is simple. Martin needs to fire Rivera. Yesterday.

The Sore Losers

Predictably, a few of of Martin’s rivals — sore losers still bitter over losing the Chairmanship — are using this distraction to call for his resignation. Don’t buy into it. Martin inherited a broken party drowning in debt, and step by step, he’s actually rebuilding it. He’s adding infrastructure, funding state parties, cleaning up the press operation, and moving the needle forward. That’s real work, and he shouldn’t step down because of someone else’s botched paperwork.

A Pesky Fact: Follow the Money

The DNC is starved for money, and it’s entirely political. A specific faction of big-money donors is deliberately withholding contributions because their preferred candidate (from Wisconsin) lost the chair race. This is no year for spoil-sport whining. Chuck Schumer led that faction, and its well past time for him to knock a few heads together and unlock those withheld funds for the DNC.

The Fatal Flaws of the Report

Rivera’s analysis completely blew off the obvious.

discouraged farmer looking at a field — AI generated

First, it glossed over the exact constituencies the Harris campaign alienated: working-class folks who used to be the backbone of the party, farmers, small-town residents, and the factory towns of rural America. We can't just "pledge to never do that again"—we have to understand why we left them behind.

Second, the report completely protects Kamala from her own unforced errors. My personal “favorite” was when she was asked what would she have done differently from Joe Biden, and she couldn’t name a single thing.

Imagine if she had said,

“Inside Washington, we all know Biden pushed through a historic infrastructure bill. But out in the real world? Hardly anyone knows it exists. What he should have done — what I will do — is put up giant billboards across the country showing exactly how the people’s money is being invested into their home towns.”

Instead, she drew a blank.

The Issues That Blew Up the Campaign

• Immigration. Biden assigned Harris to lead on the issue, and she ghosted. Her inaction left the door wide open for Trump to seize the narrative, ride it to victory, and start making his own mess of it.

• The Middle East: Biden and Harris played it far too close to the Israeli government. The Hamas attack was an undeniable tragedy, but American weapons have since devastated Palestinian lands and impacted millions who had absolutely nothing to do with Hamas. Kamala had a chance to stand up for the innocent children on both sides of this tragedy. She chose silence.

If the Democratic Party wants a future, it needs to learn how to listen, to talk local, to appreciate its working class candidates, and to stop treating the Midwest like “fly-over” country.

Now that we’ve done the real post-mortem, let’s toss Rivera’s crappy report in the trash where it belongs.

It is once again, time for Democrats and for all of us to move forward.

What do you want the DNC to focus on as it rebuilds?