Clarence Page

It seemed to take forever, but the Democratic National Committee recently released their autopsy of their ill-fated 2024 presidential campaign.

It’s bitter medicine, my Dem friends, but, as Momma used to say, take a spoonful, it’ll do you good.

As midterm elections loom, and as the party girds its loins for what will be a millennial battle to retake the White House, Democrats would do well to recall the great humorist Will Rogers’ assessment of their 1924 convention, which is widely remembered as the longest and “wildest” in the nation’s history.

Although the Democrats that year initially saw opportunity in the division and corruption plaguing incumbent President Calvin Coolidge’s Republican Party, they soon realized that their own coalition was even more divided.

After 16 days and 103 ballots for the presidential nomination, the delegates in New York City’s Madison Square Garden settled on John W. Davis, a conservative lawyer and congressman from West Virginia – a supposed “compromise candidate,” although he reportedly satisfied almost no one.

After the chaotic convention, the Democrats lost badly to Coolidge in the 1924 presidential election under the Republicans’ slogan “Coolidge or chaos.”

“Democrats never agree on anything, that’s why they’re Democrats,” Rogers observed. “If they agreed with each other, they’d be Republicans.”

After months of hand wringing, Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin released the document, bizarrely in an incomplete draft form, marked up with comments in red type such as “Claim contradicts public reporting” and “No sourcing provided.”

The mark-up comments read less like editorial interventions and more like dismissals of a hostile brief. Martin said the report had been withheld because it was shoddily done. Having read an earlier version, I agree up to a point, although many of the cited problems appear painfully obvious.

Among them, party leaders underestimated the perils of President Joe Biden’s decision to run for a second term at age 81, despite widespread concerns about his frailty.

His sudden departure after a faltering debate performance led to his quick replacement by Vice President Kamala Harris, whom the Biden White House did not “position or prepare” in a way that would enable her to lead a winning campaign, according to the report.

Among other problems, her campaign, according to the autopsy, did not foresee or prepare for such dirty pool as the attacks that came against her previous support for taxpayer-funded gender-affirming surgeries for prison inmates.

Yes, as an old Chicago motto goes, “Politics ain’t beanbag.”

Rather than delve into the autopsy’s controversy, I’ll simply relate a few salient quotations:

“Going negative works (especially if voters know you).”

“The male voter problem was solvable.” Male voters – especially those of color – respond to direct engagement, and that wasn’t achieved in 2024.

“Harris wrote off rural America, assuming urban/suburban margins would compensate.” They didn’t.

“Harris struggled with definition beyond ‘not Trump.’ ”

“Irregular voters weren’t feeling it.” These are swing voters, and in too many states they went for Trump.

“The enthusiasm gap was predictable.”

“Demographics aren’t destiny. Latino voters shifted Republican nationally but Democratic in (North Carolina) with the right candidate. Context and execution matter.”

Voters need to see the party’s vision, and recognize it as a direction they wish to go. Democrats have formulated such a vision before and sold it, even spectacularly, to the electorate. Now, with everything on the line, they have to get real, get unified and get to work.