WHEN KEN MARTIN TOOK OVER as chair of the Democratic National Committee in February, he promised to move in uncomfortable directions if they were merited. The committee, as he saw it, had been too conciliatory in the past, too reluctant to offend its powerbrokers.
Specifically, Martin stressed that he was not coming to Washington to placate the political consultant class. His allies said that underneath his Minnesota nice exterior, he could be cutthroat. They promised he would be. And that the getting down to brass tacks would start with a rigorous analysis of where the party went wrong in the 2024 election, written up in a report that Martin committed to release publicly.
“Of course it will be released,” Martin said after winning the chairmanship. “There has to be some lessons that we glean.”
Ten months later, Martin has backtracked completely, announcing last week that he would not release the report after all. “Here’s our North Star: does this help us win? If the answer is no, it’s a distraction from the core mission,” he said in a statement, suggesting that he did not think the intraparty debates that would result from releasing the report were worth the lessons that could be gleaned.
