Tag Archives: James Carville

“There’s only one moral imperative … and that is to beat Donald Trump” — James Carville

There is only one moral imperative in this country right now and that is to beat Donald Trump. That’s the only moral imperative. It’s the only thing I wanna hear.” — James Carville, insisting that Democrats need to stop talking about “stuff that is not relevant,” … “goofy stuff,” … “exotic positions,” and address the pragmatic concerns of American voters, reflecting “the struggles that people go through…”

Then Claire McCaskill prompted these observations:

“We gotta decide what we wanna be. Do we want to be an ideological cult? Or do we want to have a majoritarian instinct to be a majority party?

I know where you stand, Senator, since you had to run in a Red State.”

“Right,” replies McCaskill.

So, again, you and I know that 18% of the country elects 52 Senators. And the urban core is not gonna get it done.

What we need is power. You understand, that’s what this is about. Without power you have nothing. You just have talking points.”

Carville (convinced that a Bernie Sanders’ nomination, even if he won the White House, would likely result in Mitch McConnell keeping his majority in the Senate, in which case a Democratic president could get nothing done) believes that a candidate with appeal outside the urban areas (where most Democrats, especially those on the left side of the party, are clustered) would be more likely to lead to a big victory — including taking back the Senate. Note, in contrast to many ‘centrist’ critics of Sanders, Carville (a self-described liberal) is a fan of Elizabeth Warren and was rooting for her to get her campaign back on track.