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Could there be a better metaphor for the plight of the out-of-power Democratic Party than the fact that it’s now a week into debating how the party screwed up an “autopsy” about how the party screwed up the 2024 presidential election?

Or that the Democratic National Committee’s forced release of that 2024 autopsy last Thursday, after its leak to CNN, produced headlines that all but overshadowed news of the much more consequential malpractice on the Republican side — including President Trump’s continued humiliation in his war against Iran and congressional Republicans’ mutiny over his billion-dollar ballroom, his $1.8 billion slush fund to reward Jan. 6 insurrectionists and other allies, and his retribution against fellow elected Republicans?

First, to dispense with the autopsy: As former Obama strategist and podcaster Dan Pfeiffer titled his recent newsletter, “Ken Martin has to go.”

Martin, the DNC chair, is by all accounts a good guy. He’s right to promote a 50-state strategy that funds party organizations in red states as well as blue ones; he wisely refuses to lead a political party that forfeits half the nation. Yes, that financing is a burden when donors aren’t ponying up amid the months-long controversy over the draft autopsy that Martin bottled up. But no party easily raises money when it doesn’t hold the White House or Congress.

Still, Martin alone bears responsibility for the huge embarrassment of the so-called after-action report. He promised immediately after his selection as chair 16 months ago to produce and publicize it. He chose a crony to produce it, then failed to monitor the effort to realize how woefully the draft was falling short: In 192 pages it lacked a conclusion and didn’t mention Joe Biden’s age and evident feebleness, the divisive issues of Israel and Gaza, or why 11th-hour nominee Vice President Kamala Harris lost the votes of so many Black and Latino men — all topics that ought to have been central to the report.

Once he realized the draft was a disaster, late last year, Martin declined to take remedial action or start over. Rather than fess up, he remained silent about the draft’s many shortcomings and simply reneged on his promise to release a report, claiming it was time to focus on the 2026 and 2028 elections.

So now the hapless Democrats are months closer to the midterm elections and they’re obsessing and spitting furious over an autopsy that would shame a small-town coroner’s office.

“If you can’t do the small things, you can’t do the big things,” Pfeiffer concluded of Martin’s stewardship.

And the DNC has to do big things, including deciding on the calendar, procedures and debates for the 2028 presidential primaries that will produce the party’s pick for its post-Trump future. It hosts the nominating convention, but generally its job of supporting the political apparati to win elections is one that’s in the background. For the national committee........

© Los Angeles Times