James Carville essentially destroyed his reputation as a solid Democratic strategist by insisting throughout the campaign that Kamala Harris was going to win the election when it should have been obvious to someone with his knowledge and experience that she was doomed.
"America, it will all be OK. Ms. Harris will be elected the next president of the United States. Of this, I am certain," he predicted in a New York Times op-ed back in October.
But on Thursday, he finally admitted that he was wrong.
“I thought Kamala Harris would win,” he lamented in a brand new op-ed for the New York Times. “I was wrong. While I’m sure we Democrats can argue that the loss wasn’t a landslide or take a little solace in our House performance, the most important thing for us now is to face that we were wrong and take action on the prevailing ‘why.’”
Carville even had an epiphany as to why Kamala lost.
I’ve been going over this in my head for the past two months, all the variables, all the what-ifs, all the questions about Joe Biden’s re-election decisions and what kind of Democrat or message might have worked against Donald Trump. I keep coming back to the same thing. We lost for one very simple reason: It was, it is and it always will be the economy, stupid. We have to begin 2025 with that truth as our political north star and not get distracted by anything else.
While it’s refreshing to see Carville own up to his mistakes, his hindsight wisdom does little to erase the glaring miscalculations that brought his party to this point. Carville, like many others on the left, fell into the trap of telling his side what it wanted to hear instead of the truth. Carville may not have been the only one guilty of this, but he, above them all, should have known better because he is the one who coined the phrase “it’s the economy, stupid” and should have known that despite the White House talking points about how great the economy was, the American people didn’t see it that way.
Recommended: All Is Not Well in the Biden White House
For what it’s worth, Carville didn’t exactly admit the Biden economy was garbage — just the public’s perception of it.
“Although the U.S. economy remains the strongest in the world, with G.D.P. soaring and inflation subsiding, the American people did not settle for us being better than the rest or take that as good enough,” he said. Instead, Carville concluded that “Democrats have flat-out lost the economic narrative,” and the only way Democrats can win again is to “take it back.”
The only thing more annoying than Democrats claiming the economy is strong is claiming they have a messaging problem. When the mainstream media is on your side and constantly pushing your narrative, messaging isn’t the problem. Remember, Joe Biden tried to sell the public on “Bidenomics” and that failed miserably. The public doesn’t like being told that everything is wonderful when they’re paying historically high prices for gas, groceries, and utilities.
Carville abandoned the mantra that made his reputation to tell Democrat voters what they wanted to hear. In fact, in his October op-ed predicting that Harris would win the election, he didn’t mention the economy once. Why not? Was he unaware of polls showing Americans felt we were on the wrong track and that they trusted Trump way more than Harris on the economy?
When you watch pundits and experts, it's easy to figure out who is legit and which ones are just shameless cheerleaders. Carville used to be one of the smart ones, but now he's just a pathetic Democrat cheerleader who can't be taken seriously anymore.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member