Carville praises Kerry on Meet The Press 12/21/03

[zulchzulu]

Carville:
"I think Governor Dean sort of lashed out at Clinton, and I think his remarks about the capture of Saddam Hussein were probably not the most politically astute I've ever heard. But, you know, he's not the only candidate. Look, Senator Kerry, in a David Yepsen piece in The Des Moines Register, is coming on like gangbusters in Iowa."

Transcript:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3685396/

Yepsen article:
http://desmoinesregister.com/opinion/stories/c5917686/23039872.html

[cindyw]

1. kick

I saw this.

Conspiracy theory here. Which side is Carville on of the party splits Clinton/Gore? I think Dean may have ticked him off with his Clinton comment. maybe this is why he mentioned Kerry rather than Clark. I had assumed that the Clinton people tended to Clark. Who knows. It's all inside ball anyway.

[TeacherCreature]

11. carville is on the Clinton side

He is also a centrist who will sell his services to republicans if they pay the price. He has run several republican campaigns in the past. He now performs as the "democratic" side of the performing seal act they like to call "Crossfire".

[Devil Dog Dem]

14. Please list these supposed "several republican campaigns" Carville ran

Or is that just talk?

[IndianaGreen]

2. The problem with Clark is that he is no one's puppet

so no matter how much the Clintons scheme to control the Democratic Party, mainly in order to get Hillary elected, they will never be able to control someone like Clark.

Clark's entire military record is one that shows that he is no lightweight that can be manipulated or pushed around.

[LandOLincoln]

3. Amen to that!

Some of us Clarkie--erm, Clark supporters--are managing to have a reasonable, even fond, to & fro with a Bushman on the Slate caucus site.

He's offered some interesting, even insightful, posts about the whole Clark/Clinton/Clinton thingy, but persists in characterizing Wes as a Clinton "sock puppet." Bwhahahahahahahaahh!!!

Kinda think he knows better, and is just baiting us. In any case, I daresay the Clintons know they've got a tiger by the tail. Anyone who's spent any time reading up on the Kosovo thing knows that Wes' gratitude for Clinton's making him SACEUR in no way stopped him from being a major pain in the rear when he thought the Clinton/Cohen/Shelton axis was full of shite --which seems to have been the case more often than not.

And now? A cynic would say they've made peace purely for political gain. Me? I like to think The Big Dog and The General are each super Alphas who can't abide yes persons, nor anyone who doesn't have the huevos to stand up to them.

A far cry from weak petty tyrants (naming no names, y'unnerstan') who live their lives in a protective bubble because they're too gutless to face any opposition.

Naming no names, y'unnerstan'...
***

It's late. I'm kinda drunk. Tawk amongst yourselves.

[Meshuga]

6. Actually, Doesn't Clark Have A Rep For Sucking Up To Superiors?

I'm not saying that he is a Clinton puppet, or place-keeper, but I seem to distinctly recall many articles describing Clark's reputation for looking up the ladder and rarely down. If I'm wrong, I apologize, but that seems fair to say.

[Donna Zen]

8. Clark and the spin

One can't have it both ways. If Clark was a suck up, why did his superiors get so pissed off with him? Clark rose the ladder because of two things: 1) merit and 2) they needed his smarts to make themselves look good.

For the most part, the brass like "yes" men and "good ol' boys; Clark was/is neither. What he offered was someone who was committed to doing the right thing-"when you can do good, you should-and a person who could think outside of the box. Most of these folks move into the private sector early where they can realize more freedom of thought, and more money. The brass needed Clark, but unless they recognized quality, as in the case of Shali whose son now works for Clark, they were apt to welcome his help grudgingly.

[TeacherCreature]

12. not actually true

you can be both a suck up and piss off you superiors. Didn't you ever know someone who sucked up to you just to manipulate you? didn't you then get disgusted and cut them off?
Clark sucks up to whoever is going to help him get where he wants to go. Last year the BFEE was just wonderful, doing a great job. Now because he wants to be president he is sucking up to democrats and saying what they want to hear. God only knows what kind of policies he would favor, despite what he says this month.

[He loved Big Brother]

19. No one's puppet

Except for the DLC.

[maddezmom]

4. looks like the race it getting tighter and tighter

it'll be interesting to see the final numbers.

[JI7]

5. go carville

but for those who say carville is not very supportive of dean because of his criticism of clinton, why would he favor kerry over clark who the clintons like ? maybe carville really just likes kerry like i do.

[Jerseycoa]

7. Carville does like Kerry

So do I. But I found it an interesting omission, anyway, and wondered if it was a purposeful one. Idle speculation for me and everybody else, though.

[Donna Zen]

9. What does Carville want?

A winner.

Carville is looking at 2004 pragmatically and as a party faithful. He sees very well how Dean's comments and politics are adding up. While he will support the eventual candidate, he is begging us to use our heads. His pushing Kerry yesterday morning was not a negation of Clark. I'm sure he thinks they are our two strongest possible candidates, because they are.

The discussion on these threads about a possible run of these two, was one of the more informative we have had lately. I would have liked to have had Carville's input because he has been inside of these battles. Nevertheless, I'm sure he would have agreed with much that was said.

I'm sticking by my thoughts, that overall Clark is the stronger of the two, however, I have the feeling that in Carville's case, he is of the opinion that Kerry's long time advocacy of liberal ideals deserves our praise. Carville would also be willing to give the nod to the opinions expressed about Clark's strengths. After all, none of us have the mighty crystal ball, including Carville. But it does not take prognostication to know, without a doubt, that whoever we run needs Foreign Policy gravitas to make a sell to the country.

If we can't take defense issues off the table, we can't move to our strength of domestic issues. I'm sure Carville, who would rather play offense than defense, would be happy with either of these candidates.

[TeacherCreature]

10. I think Carville is a DLC stooge and should shut up

Go away mediawhore.

[Devil Dog Dem]

15. Except Carville isn't DLC, he's from the Democratic wing.

And he's hardly a mediawhore, he is one who attacks Bush, unlike the MWs.

[WiseMen]

16. Carville was a Dean Advisor at one point. What changed?

[Devil Dog Dem]

18. He wasn't an advisor

He and Begala gave him some advice prior to one of the debates -as was seen on K Street- but he wasn't an advisor to the Dean campaign.

He did much of the same for Edwards and others.

[TexasSissy]

13. He also said Gephardt is doing well and is a possibility.

He wasn't "praising," as such, but was merely saying that the race is far from over, and that some of the other candidates are making headway, like Gephardt & Kerry.

I was suprised he left out Clark. But he wasn't speaking in detail about all the candidates. He was just saying that Dean isn't a shoe-in like the media keeps indicating.

[madfloridian]

17. Why would Carville be working against Chavez in Venezuela?

I guess his interests are far greater than we thought. This is an interesting article about our intense involvement in trying to overturn Chavez.
http://baltimorechronicle.com/jun03_carlton.html

SNIP..."Venezuela is heating up again. This summer the oil-rich nation is due to hold a midterm referendum to decide whether President Hugo Chávez Frias should complete his term. While shoestring-budget Venezuelan groups, such as Citizens for the Defense of the Constitution, are forming well-organized get-out-the-vote drives for Chávez, the deeper pockets of government opposition groups have lured James Carville, Bill Clinton’s former campaign manager, to help them craft a strategy to defeat Chávez, who has never lost an election or a referendum...."

SNIP.."Chávez is such a polarizing figure largely because of Venezuela’s intense class struggle, born of its extreme concentration of wealth. 85 percent of the population lives in poverty, while Venezuela’s elite society, according to Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, are “selfish beyond description, given over to the insensate pursuit of money. Life is considered a failure if you don’t have a Miami condo.”

SNIP..."Enter Chávez. Since his election in 1998 he has pushed through a land reform program, microcredit initiatives, a new Constitution that stresses workers’ rights, and a variety of social programs that have endeared him to poor and mestizo Venezuelans who were politically marginalized under previous administrations. However, the (mostly white) upper and middle classes feel that Chávez’s verbal attacks against them and his government policies constitute class warfare and will ultimately “Cubanize” Venezuela if unstopped.

In their obsession with getting rid of Chávez, the opposition has found common cause with government and big business interests in the United States, where Chávez is perceived as an obstacle to the passage of a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), a kind of hemisphere-wide extension of NAFTA.

[Karmadillo]

20. One more reason not to trust centrist Democrats

n/t