Value Judgment: End the Curse of Carville

Value Judgment is a daily weblog written by two independent voters on the eastern seaboard of the United States. VJ will focus on the 2004 U.S. Presidential campaigns, including strategy, tactics, and substance. The authors supported Howard Dean in the Democratic primary. Accordingly, his activities will be a prominent topic on this site.

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December 1, 2004

End the Curse of Carville

This thread over at dKos reprints a letter that came from the DNC recently under James Carville's name. I share the frustration of those in the thread who wonder when the DNC will realize there's more that people can do than just write checks. And after the egg stunt, I lost any residual respect I had for Carville. (Not that there was much left after he and his buddy Begala ganged up on Dean during the primary, and certainly not after both continued to be on the same show with Bob Novak..). But, anyway, I thought this proposed replacement letter was amusing:

Dear Democrats,

For the past 12 years you've witnessed blowhard insiders such as myself coast on our success in 1992. Sure, any political analyst worth his or her salt would have to credit Clinton's natural talents, the end of the Cold War, and "the economy, stupid!" far more than my "war room" for that win, but that hasn't stopped me from trading on my fading glory for over a decade.

But many in the party have become disenchanted with our failures - repeated, crushing, demoralizing, embarassing failures - since then.

And that's why I'm emailing you today and asking you to step forward and exercise the power of your pocketbook. You can end the "Curse of Carville".

For $20, I will quit "Crossfire" and stop validating a destructive national "discourse" that benefits the GOP and allows the Right to point to me and my buddy Begala as examples of liberal bias on the "Clinton News Network."

For $50, I will divorce my wife. Yes, I will finally pull my head out of my ass and realize that I am not just married to a Republican. I am married to a Republican that works directly for the architect of the greatest foreign policy disaster in U.S. history. And said architect is also a serial liar and is likely implicated in the Plame-treason scandal.

For $100, I will stop giving God-awful advice to any Democrat running for any elective office.

For $500, I will finally be able to afford a toupee, so nobody will every have to witness me on Meet The Press looking like a stand-in for the alien in Alien. And, yes, I know that smashing eggs on my face doesn't help.

James Carville

Posted by J at December 1, 2004 01:44 PM

Comments

I agree with you on Carville. Although I gave up on him way before the egg stunt.

I got an email from the DNC today asking me for money to help Gregoire in Washington with the Gubernatiorial recount. I ignored it.

Why the hell didn't they ask us to give to the Washington Democratic Party? They're the ones needing the money and funding the recount.

Argh.

Posted by: carla at December 1, 2004 10:35 PM

The egg stunt was embarrassing, no doubt, and I'm sure you'll chalk up my feelings about this as a conflict of interest. Still, Carville may not be the solution, but he's definitely not the problem either.

News flash: Carville has less than nothing to do with all those DNC mailings. They ask to use his name, he says yes.

Here's another news flash: Nobody watches Crossfire but the political-minded. It's basically PTI or the George Michael Sports Machine for political junkies. I like that Jon Stewart has made it a mission of his to excoriate the press -- in fact, I applauded him when he went on Crossfire and did as much. But, frankly, Crossfire is easy pickings, and is somewhat removed from the laziness and flawed sense of objectivity among news organizations that helped Bush win. It's barely a news show -- the only story Crossfire broke this year was Jon Stewart's appearance.

To my mind, Howard Dean made a much more effective censure of CNN's coverage when he chastised Wolf Blitzer's uncritical repetition of GOP spin on his Sunday program.

And, I'm sorry, but remember Gennifer Flowers? Carville & Begala had a lot more to do with righting the Clinton ship than this rinky-dink dKos poster would suggest.

It also seems ludicrous to attack Carville for his role in cheapening political discourse when two of Space's main points here are that (a) Carville is bald and (b) his wife is a bitch. Sound political criticism, that.

But, if that's the way we're playing the game, this guy Space seems to me like an utter tool.

Posted by: Kevin at December 6, 2004 02:02 PM