Carville Might Be Morose, However, Republicans Better Get Their Act Together Before November Or The Dems Will Make A Remarkable Recovery.

James Carville’s Pep Talk For Mid-Term Democrats Sounds A Lot Like A Eulogy

March 19, 2014 by Ben Bullard 

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Former Clinton strategist and Democratic pundit James Carville wrote a strange, self-deceiving piece of empty optimism for The Hill this week, calling on Democrats to look on the bright side of their political plight as the 2014 midterm elections approach.

The piece is, evidently, part of an ongoing relationship between Carville and the Washington, D.C. media outfit. And if the column is any indication of what he’ll bring to the table for the rest of the year, all we can say is…more, please.

Normally an incomparable firebrand, Carville defied his own nature by cherishing every sorry nugget of hypothetical political advantage he could dig up to explain why Democrats should be happy about their chances at the polls this year. Stepping far outside his character as an aggressive, no-apologies liberal who dismisses the opposition by relegating the other guys’ talking points to archaic irrelevancy, Carville found some pauper’s measure of rainy-day cheer in the blind faith that somehow, between now and November, voters’ attitude toward incumbent Democrats might just change for no reason.

The fundamental consideration is this: if the election were held in the current climate, it wouldn’t be hard to argue that the Democrats might have a bad, perhaps even awful, election ahead of them. However, the one thing we know is that it is not going to be held now — it is going to be held in November. This is a case where we don’t know if there is going to be a political climate change or not. Suffice to say, I am pulling for some political climate change.

This is like telling a cop who pulled you over for speeding that everyone else is speeding too. All it does is demonstrate just how busted you really are, while setting the cop up for the classic retort: “But you’re the one I pulled over.” Carville offers no substantive recommendation on how the Democrats can turn things around; he’s simply wishing in the wind. The Democrats are caught in a maelstrom of their own making, and their brightest point of optimism is that they have no idea which way the capricious winds will blow them next.

That’s not optimism; that’s a foxhole prayer to the God you thought you didn’t believe in.

Carville says something similar about the public’s negative reception of Obamacare before helpfully concluding that, by November, “[i]f we continue on this trajectory the climate might be more favorable.”

That level of strategizing is what guides people flying kites. It’s not what guides a superfunded political party planning to win a multi-tiered National election.

Summing up with a timely basketball analogy, Carville sends ‘em out with a bang:

“My advice is to assume improved conditions and to throw the lead pass.”

Yeah, Democrats – go ahead and take that advice.