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There needs to be an autopsy on the autopsy report. I am 100% serious. Figuring out all the things that went wrong to allow this to happen would solve half of the party's problems. Reinterview witnesses. Reconstruct lines of thought and inquiry. Find the points of failure and conduct root-cause analysis.
The report is poorly written, unprofessional, and incomplete yes, but above all it is vapid. It doesn't even ask the questions that matter. The overwhelming majority of effort is focused on ad targeting and campaign spending.
Okay, what was the mistake then? What should be done differently next time around? Should the Vice President have changed her position or not? In fact, there is almost no discussion of issues in the report at all. A model of why anyone would want to vote for one party or the other is conspicuously absent.
I listened to the Pod Save America episode in which a few Harris campaign staffers were interviewed. They said that they tried to counter that ad, but the counter ads polled poorly with test groups. They were better off with generic ads about the economy.
Supposedly the "she's for they/them, Donald Trump is for you" ad is the mightiest ad in modern history. Around a 2% shift in voter sentiment; arguably election flipping if somehow that was very well targeted to likely voters in swing states.
I think an accurate autopsy would say to not stake out the most extreme and unpopular positions on culture war issues on camera. But they can't plainly state that so we get this report instead.
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Isn’t it just grift? Guy got paid. I also wouldn’t put honest self-reflection on paper. It’s better done behind closed doors.
Ken Martin insisted on Pod Save America that no money was spent on the autopsy. That is the only claim from him that was believable.
It also shouldn't be self-reflection necessarily. They should have brought in NTSB and USCSB alumni to do an deep-dive independent investigation the way you'd analyze a plane crash or plant explosion. Toes will be stepped on. It will be embarrasing. If you really thought that, "Democracy was on the ballot", and then Democracy lost, then none of that stuff matters.
If they really wanted to do an autopsy then they could just interview me. But then when I tell them all their ideas suck it’s not like their going to come out and say yes you are correct we will change.
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The fact that the DNC's attempt at making sense of and learn from their dumpster fire of a failure became a dumpster fire of a failure in itself is just all too fitting. I have to laugh, because otherwise I'd cry. It's just nearly perfect as a costly signal that the party really does believe what it says about blaming everyone else for things going poorly.
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