Tuesday, May 26th, 2009...8:58 am
40 More Years
I finished James Carville’s book, 40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation, last week. Much has been made in the media about Carville’s criticism of Hillary Clinton’s campaign in the book. People that buy the book hoping to find any inside dirt about that campaign will be sorely disapointed. The entirety of Carville’s post mortem of the campaign is contained in a single five-page chapter of the book. The analysis of Clinton’s campaign is one that outside observers (given the lack of any formal role in the campaign, Carville fits into this category) have already made into conventional wisdom: poor financial decisions, the lack of a plan after Iowa and New Hampshire, hostile relations with the press, “inevitablity” and lack of a clear chain of command. Since he wasn’t “in the room” to know how these decisions were made, his view on these matters is as “insider” as his sidebar on the decision by John McCain to pick Sarah Palin. The only surprise is that this is coming from someone that is close to the Clintons.
On one more campaign related note, early in the book he repeats his trope that Howard Dean was “Rumsfeldian in his incompetence.” He says this without any back up, either anecdotal or statistical. Given the rah rah tone of that particular chapter, it sticks out and comes off as an overly personal axe that Carville feels he has to grind.
People that read Carville’s 1996 book, We’re Right, They’re Wrong: A Handbook for Spirited Progressives, will find much of this book familiar. Like We’re Right, They’re Wrong, Carville’s aim is to present evidence of the failure of Republican policies and the success of Democratic ones. The 1996 book was more explicitly a way to arm left leaning activists with facts and statistics, but this one fulls much the same function. There is also a healthy dose of demographic data to support Carville’s thesis of a 40-year Democratic Party era.
The most interesting part for me were the final two chapters. As a native of Louisiana, Carville was viscerally offended by the federal response to Katrina. In a short epilogue, he talks about why he thought it was important to move back to Louisiana after years of living away. The final chapter is a first hand account from a Katrina survivor that is quite moving. It made the pages of eye-glazing charts and statistics worth slogging through.
6 Comments
May 26th, 2009 at 10:42 am
40 years? You’ll be lucky to get 40 weeks!
I have never liked Carville. He gets all yappy like a chewawa, never saying anything of substance or contributing to the National Discussion. Given the intellectual firepower of articulate conservatives like Limbaugh and Palin, I would really be embarassed by him if I were a Democrat.
Didn’t Carville see the tremendous expression of grassroots outrage at the teabag parties all over the nation? Freedom is on the march. He should get with the program or shut up. We don’t need to hear from his kind any longer.
May 26th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Odd, a few thousand people show up at some events like the Teaparties pushed by a major network and it is considered a massive movement.
A few hundred thousand people show up at a war protest with a coherent message and no major network trumpeting it and it is considered ho hum.
Some photos…
Fascinating.
May 26th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Is Repulitard writing in a tongue-in-cheek type manner or is he just drinking the koolaid. To call Sarah Palin articulate is…screwy. If Republicans wish to remain a viable party they need to be more like Kemp (even Reagan) and less like Rush.
And the Tea Parties, what the hell did those even mean? I’m still trying to figure that one out.
Walk the plank, and take your Teabaggery with ya!
R!
May 26th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
What’s wrong with Rush?
May 26th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
So where are the ‘teabaggers’ now?
Some “movement,” they have their big day on FOX News and then, nada.
May 27th, 2009 at 11:43 am
Carville is, honestly, a buffoon. Like Rush, he is an entertainer. I attended a conference at which he and Matalin were the lunch-time speakers. One step above (or maybe below) a Laurel and Hardy routine. His version of political analysis is superficial and horse-race bloviating at its worst. Not that I feel at all strongly. We D’s have plenty of articulate, intelligent, thoughtful pundits–the only reason that Carville is put forth on CNN and elsewhere is that he loves to be outrageous.