WASHINGTON — In Terry McAuliffe’s new memoir, “What a Party: My Life Among Democrats: Presidents, Candidates, Donors, Activists, Alligators and Other Wild Animals,” there’s a thin book inside a fat one crying to get out. Like its title, the reminiscences are overlong and too carefully vetted.

The former Democratic National Committee chairman take off the gloves and wax furious with Senator Kerry for blowing the 2004 campaign.

What ticked off Mr. McAuliffe the most is that Mr. Kerry was hoarding money — $15 million — while Ohio was lost.

He comes close to calling the campaign managers, if not their standard-bearer, liars for not confessing that they had the cash when it could have won some close Senate races if not the presidency. What were they saving it for? It was “gross incompetence,” he wrote.

Equally infuriating was Mr. Kerry’s unwillingness to respond to the relentless sucker punches thrown by the opposition. For a scrapper like Mr. McAuliffe, you return every blow. Mr. McAuliffe pounds Mr. Kerry for dodging the Swift Boat Veterans attacks; Mr. McAuliffe, for his part, punched back every chance he got.

Mr. McAuliffe sums up Mr. Kerry’s decision to back off criticism of Mr. Bush as one of the “biggest acts of political malpractice in the history of American politics.”