Where do things stand in the race now that the matchup is set?
According to veteran Democratic strategist James Carville, the replacement of Joe Biden by Kamala Harris has improved prospects for the Democrats—though “not as much as some people think.” As he puts it: “It’s like I tell people, if you have an infected wisdom tooth and you go to the dentist and they pull it out, you feel on top of the world—[but] God, you really don’t feel any better than you would if you never had the infected wisdom tooth.”
In a race that may be won at the margins, as in 2016 and 2020, Carville explains that Harris must define herself and her candidacy successfully where she still isn’t well known. According to Carville, she has the opportunity to brand Trump as “past, yesterday, and stale”—but the Harris-Walz campaign must have a forward-looking message and run on concrete policy proposals. Carville also discusses the selection of Walz, the mood at Mar-a-Lago since Biden’s withdrawal from the race, how the Trump strategy against Harris might develop, and offers advice about whether to have and how to handle a Harris-Trump debate.
CARVILLE: Not as much as some people think. It’s like I tell people, if you have an infected wisdom tooth and you go to the dentist, and they pull it out, you feel on top of the world. God, you really don’t feel any better than you would if you never had the infected wisdom tooth, but you do feel better now it’s gone, just as an example. But I think that people wanted to like [Kamala Harris]. They were so glad to have a relief and they came in with that disposition. To her credit, so far, she has done nothing to dampen people’s enthusiasm. She hasn’t done anything remotely dumb. So I have reason to actually be encouraged. She looks like she’s really grown, and people would tell me that. That’s one thing I will say, people internally would say, “James, she’s different. She’s more confident,” and not just White House staff people, people that would go in there, economists, historians–the same people go in and out of the White House; it doesn’t matter who’s in there–to a person, they would all say she’s very confident, asks very good questions and seems to be well-briefed. I’m happy that she’s like this. I’m not totally surprised.
CARVILLE: Harris went more with the Obama model than the Clinton model. We [the Clinton campaign] kind of went generational. She sort of went steady governance. But I tell you, from the people that I know in Minnesota that know him, apparently, from the Democratic point of view, he’s been very effective and is kind of what you see. I personally liked Shapiro a lot, would call him a friend of mine, but it would’ve been a San Francisco-Philadelphia ticket. That always kind of bothered me, that we [the Democrats] are a little too coastal. And it’s fresh water. They decided on fresh water and not salt water. It’s basically that simple, I think. My number one pick would’ve been Beshear, but so be it.
CARVILLE: In politics, to be so trite, every journey begins with a step. We all know that. People really don’t know who she is. We think we know her, but we really don’t. There’s a Fox caricature of who she is. We know she’s a California liberal. We know she’s multiethnic or biracial–I hate talking about that shit anyway, but we know all of that. What she has a chance to do, and she’s got it pretty much front and center between now and the Thursday night at the convention: tell us more about you. Make us like you. We’re open to it. We’re on a date here, and we like you going into it, so try not to pick your nose. What I’m saying is: she needs more definition because people really do not know her, and I think she has a chance to do that. I also think she should come out with some policy prescriptions. If it’s just, do you want Biden or do you want Trump? that’s not going to inspire people. Anything that she can do with cost of living, affordability, that’s all gold. Mine that gold. Just a couple of more things, they don’t have to be radical or anything like that. They can be common sense, mainstream left-of-center ideas. People like that.
CARVILLE: Parts of the Democratic Party—not Joe Biden, not Democratic primary voters, decidedly not—lost their minds. And everybody thought this was the wave of the future, that identity politics would be essential to any discussion of politics and, of course, it was a giant mistake. She bought into that, as did other people. Whoever advised her in 2019, I hope to throw them all out in the Pacific Ocean. And to a guy like me, you could see this coming. So I went backed and looked and, on April 27th, 2021, I did an interview on Fox, and I said, “This stuff is killing us. This is the dumbest thing that you can imagine.” And I’ll give myself credit: I was right. I called “defund the police” the three stupidest words in the history of the English language and, of course, no one’s talking about it now. It’s just everything that they touch turns to garbage, and I think people have caught onto them. And people say, “James, you say some controversial stuff.” I say, “It’s not controversial if 90% of the people agree with you. It’s controversial when 51% agree with you.”
CARVILLE: I would have three attacks. You ready? Drum roll, please. One, past. Two, yesterday. Three, stale. Okay? The political science department at UMass, Amherst is actually pretty good. And they do a very good poll. They release it over the week. The reasons to vote for Harris: Protect Social Security, Medicare, 32; Will fight for reproductive rights, 32; Represents the future, 66. So just take the obvious, which is, he is yesterday, he wants to go back. I want to push forward. Don’t get distracted from what the public really thinks about this.
CARVILLE: Something is going on at Mar-a-Lago. I’m not sure what it is. That black journalist thing? Some people actually think that was planned, but this guy, LaCivita, Susie Wiles, they’re not stupid. I mean, they’ve won elections before. And what’s coming out of there, they don’t know where to go. They let it get away from them. They didn’t see this coming? I mean, if you and I were running that campaign, I’d say, “Bill, three things can happen: Biden drops out, it’s Harris; Biden drops out, it’s an open thing; or something.” But you would have a plan that you would pull off the shelf. You would be ready for that. You would anticipate it. From what little bit I can read, they were just standing there feeling good about themselves, and then they got hit in the mouth, and there was no concerted organized thought-out reaction, which is pretty amazing. It really is…. Trump is like a guy with an act that worked brilliantly, and then, all of a sudden, it didn’t work as well. And you keep trying harder. You tell the same jokes, and you tell them a little bit louder, with a little more emphasis, but they don’t have the same punch. That rally in Georgia, I think, is significant because he didn’t fill it up, and he blamed Georgia State, a well-known liberal, coastal, elite institution. But the people were walking out, and his reaction is, “I got to keep them. I’ll just get crazier.” And so he attacks Brian Kemp. Brian Kemp is Karl Rove’s wet dream of what a modern Republican should be. And he’s just savaging the guy. You could see he’s trying to do anything he can to keep the crowd and keep them on their feet and keep them motivated. And like I say, he’s an old comedian whose punchlines just don’t work like they used to and he’s just struggling.
