Put it all together, and what the rally lacked most was life. That became painfully clear during Sharpton's remarks, when he tried to illustrate the Democratic coalition's current plight by telling a Bible story.

"They say we're apathetic," Sharpton told the crowd. "They say we're not energized. Well you know, I'm a preacher. There's a story in the Bible about a man named Ezekiel. Ezekiel saw a valley full of dry bones. Somebody said, 'Can these bones live?' And the way he made them live was he started connecting them together."

Sharpton suggested that the different parts of the Democratic coalition -- black, white, Latino, Asian, straight, gay, immigrant, natural-born -- are like those dry bones. "If we can connect these bones," he said, "we can make America breathe and America live as one nation under God."

Put aside a few details -- in the Bible, it was God who brought the bones to life as Ezekiel watched -- and you're left with Sharpton's striking image of the Democratic Party as a bunch of old, dry bones. Could anything be more disheartening? In the Ezekiel story, it took a miracle to make the bones come to life. But there were no miracles to be found Saturday at the Lincoln Memorial.