James Carville is 81 years old, and he’s on television again telling the Democratic Party that its messaging is “not meeting the moment.” I have a question for the manager of whatever green room keeps booking this man: which moment, exactly? Because the last time James Carville managed a winning presidential campaign, Johnny Carson was still hosting The Tonight Show. That’s not my line. That’s what regular people are saying in the comment sections, and they’re right.
Carville’s big idea, the one that made him famous, was telling Bill Clinton in 1991 to talk about the economy and then carve up the welfare state. That was the play. Win over a few wishy-washy Republicans by making life harder for the poorest people in the country. Clinton had the charisma of a neutron bomb and was running against an incumbent presiding over a recession. The strategy worked once, with that guy, in that year. And Carville has been dining out on it for 34 years like a man who hit a home run in a T-ball game and won’t stop talking about it at the bar.
Since then? John Kerry blew a winnable election against a president with a 40% approval rating. Hillary Clinton lost to a game show host. Kamala Harris went out and campaigned with Liz Cheney and bragged about her Glock, and she lost too. The Third Way playbook has been run back over and over, and the scoreboard doesn’t lie. You can see it with your own eyes.
Now Carville wants a “schism.” His word. He said it out loud on camera: “I actually do think it’s time for Democrats to talk the ‘s’ word: schism.” He wants to kick the progressive wing out of the tent because, in his words, “there’s just some s**t I can’t be in the same tent with.” This from a man who defended a Maine Senate candidate who ended his campaign over sexual misconduct allegations, seemingly just because Elizabeth Warren was on the other side of the issue. Warren, for her part, told TMZ she pays attention to “almost one out of ten” of Carville’s opinions. That sounds about right.
Here’s what Carville won’t tell you, because it would cost him his cable news retainer: the energy in the Democratic Party is not coming from the consultant class. Abdul El-Sayed just won Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary. Zohran Mamdani is the mayor of New York City. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been proving since 2018 that voters want someone who’ll actually fight for them instead of triangulating toward Republican talking points on transgender rights and police reform. These candidates are winning by talking about real things that affect real people: housing, wages, healthcare. Not by chasing some mythical moderate Republican who hasn’t existed since the Bush administration.
Bob McNeely, The White House[1] (Public domain) via Wikimedia CommonsCarville even admitted he’d back El-Sayed, but only because the Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, is a “clown.” Not because El-Sayed ran a great campaign on actual substance. Because the other guy is worse. That’s the whole Carville philosophy in one sentence: hold your nose, please nobody, and hope the other side self-destructs. How’s that working out?
The man called Hasan Piker a “craving antisemite” for opposing U.S. support of Israel. He punches left every chance he gets. He told activists to pipe down. He told the party to split apart. And through all of it, he’s never once looked in the mirror and asked whether maybe, just maybe, the problem isn’t the messaging. Maybe the problem is the message. Maybe running as Diet Republican while the other side runs as full-strength populist isn’t a strategy. It’s a surrender with better lighting.
Chuck Schumer’s approval ratings are in the basement. The centrist wing is out of gas. The future of the party is being built by people who weren’t even born when Carville hung that “It’s the economy, stupid” sign in Little Rock. They don’t need his permission, and they certainly don’t need his lecture.
James Carville had his moment. It was 1992. It’s time for the Ragin’ Cajun to rage somewhere else.