New Republic: The Obsolete Politics of James Carville

[DanTex]

Good article discussing Carville's attacks on Bernie Sanders and where that view comes from.

...

To news junkies of that era, there was James Carville: omnipresent and unquestionably brilliant, with a quiverful of colorful Cajun quips. Disregarding the fact that the 1994 Gingrich-led “Republican Revolution” represented a sharp setback for Democrats, Carville was nevertheless among the unlikely personalities to ride Bill Clinton’s 1992 election to notoriety, credited as the architect of Clinton’s rise from no-name governor to president. Never mind that on Election Day the incumbent, George H.W. Bush, had an approval rating of 30 percent or that Ross Perot siphoned off 18 percent of the popular vote with a populist anti-deficit message. Carville and his “It’s the economy, stupid” tagline were treated with something approaching awe by CNN and the Sunday panel shows.

Times change, however. At present, Carville represents much that’s wrong with the Democratic Party—its refusal to learn from its mistakes; its obsession with appealing to wealthy suburbanites while telling its traditional base of the working class and people of color to suck it up because the Republicans are worse; its preference for the performative over the substantive (Pelosi ripped the speech!); and, above all else, the belief that “operatives” and “consultants” know the pulse of the nation and can soothsay the will of the common man.

Last Tuesday, in the wake of the Iowa caucus on February 3, Carville emerged from MSNBC’s cryochamber to deliver a “fiery rant” against Bernie Sanders, to which the most common reaction among people who do not obsessively watch cable news was, “James Carville is still alive?” In a lengthy follow-up interview with Vox’s Sean Illing, who asked challenging and direct questions throughout rather than the fawning softballs to which Carville has grown accustomed, the Ragin’ Cajun trotted out all the greatest hits of people whose political worldview has not been updated since 1994 and for whom the takeaway from 2016 is that Hillary Clinton lost because of Jill Stein and Russian hackers.

Carville is the most skilled practitioner of a hobby common to his social and political stratum: ascribing to “the working class”—or simply “voters”—a resistance to any kind of change that inconveniences people like James Carville. Simply put, his performances seek to demonstrate the remarkable coincidence that “voters,” particularly of the central casting Average Joe variety, dislike all of the same things he dislikes.

...

https://newrepublic.com/article/156523/obsolete-politics-james-carville

[Fiendish Thingy]

1. "Emerged from his cryochamber" LOL!

The fact that Carville came out of hiding to rant against Bernie show just how scared the Third Way neoliberals are...

[lagomorph777]

5. Yep. They'd just ignore him if he was no big deal.

Bernie threatens the upper class hierarchy.

[evertonfc]

2. YAWN

The New Republic is entitled to thier opinion. Obviously it slants pretty far left and has a obscenely low circulation and readership. That said, James makes valid points ( not shared in above piece) about the problems electorally with Sanders. I too, and I'm 47 and active in party structure, hear this daily. There is a very large segment of us that simply think a self described Democratic socialist can't win the EC and think we will lose dozens of House seats in the process. I may be wrong but talk to party operatives weekly that are full time party strategists that think this is an disaster if Sanders is nominee. Just my two cents. James's opinion is pretty damn common.

[Fragment]

3. I liked Carville back in th nineties

But he appears to be turning into Gollum.

[democrattotheend]

4. I'll never forgive him for sabotaging Kerry in 2004

In the middle of the night, he tipped off his Republican wife about the fact that Kerry was considering contesting Ohio.

FWIW, I think Kerry did the right thing conceding the next day and not calling for a recount. He was down by 100,000 votes, and it would have been bad for the party and the country if Democrats contested 2 elections in a row. But there was no reason for Carville to leak that he was considering it to his Republican wife, and I am pretty cynical regarding why I think he did it.

[tirebiter]

6. Carville makes the point that s lot of us won't vote for a communist

and we've been there and back about what communists call themselves. Socialist is at the top. Protecters of the Working Class s another Most of the candidates have had issues that go back 30 years that they've had to apologize for. Liberals not wanting to got be seen as going into Joe McCarthy mode have held back on Bernie leaving Bernie to not have to explain his communist roots in his politics.
It would be good for America to have a learning moment if Sanders would just get around to showing some introspection on how he's changed if he has. He's been dishonest in his silence.

My youth in West Germany and my time in the Czech Republic does not decrease my liberal perspective but my experience leaves me solidly anticommunist. Trump the conservative is getting played by a (former)member of the KGB. Trump, v Sanders would be a win win for Putin.