Democrat Political operative James Carville has been a character since he arrived on the national scene in 1992 as the architect of Bill Clinton’s win over President George H.W. Bush. The “Ragin’ Cajun,” as he was deemed at the time, is a guy who colors outside the box — sometimes, way outside the box. This article is about what I believe is one of those times.
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Like many Democrats, Carville is in a veritable tizzy over the Democrat Party’s “Biden Problem.”
In a Monday New York Times essay, James laid out his idea of a plan that would fix the whole mess.
Mark my words: Joe Biden is going to be out of the 2024 presidential race. Whether he is ready to admit it or not. His pleas on Monday to congressional Democrats for support will not unite the party behind him.
Mr. Biden says he’s staying in the race, but it’s only a matter of time before Democratic pressure and public and private polling lead him to exit the race. The jig is up, and the sooner Mr. Biden and Democratic leaders accept this, the better. We need to move forward.
But it can’t be by anointing Vice President Kamala Harris or anyone else as the presumptive Democratic nominee. We’ve got to do it out in the open — the exact opposite of what Donald Trump wants us to do.
Carville’s conclusion comes as Biden told congressional Democrats he won’t step aside and that “it’s time for it to end” regarding efforts by some in the party to push him out.
Nonsense, believes Carville:
We’re going to nominate a new ticket in a highly democratic and novel way, not in the backrooms of Washington, D.C., or Chicago.
I want to see the Democratic Party hold four historic town halls between now and the Democratic National Convention in August — one each in the South, the Northeast, the Midwest and the West.
We can recruit the two most obvious and qualified people in the world to facilitate substantive discussions: Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
They may not represent every faction under our party’s big tent. But they care as much about our democracy as our nation’s first president, they understand what it takes to be president, and they know how to win.
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This gets nuttier, so hang on to your seat.
By the way, the 79-year-old might be nuts— or he might be crazy like a fox. The point is the Ragin’ Cajun has stuck a fork in Biden and he hopes the rest of the party does, too. Still, I don’t see the following plan coming anywhere near reality. Here’s James again:
Town halls — high-stakes job interviews for the toughest job in the world — would surely attract television and cable partners and generate record numbers of viewers.
Think the Super Bowl with Taylor Swift in the stands. The young, the old and everyone in between will tune in to see history being made in real time.
How will potential nominees be chosen to participate in the town halls? There is no answer here that will satisfy everyone, but hard choices must be made, given the tight timetable, and I think leaning on the input of former presidents makes good sense.
So I would advise Presidents 42 and 44 to select eight leading contenders out of the pool of those who choose to run, with Ms. Harris most definitely getting a well-earned invite.
So, stop the tape.
Carville wants Bill Clinton and Barack Obama to choose eight “leading contenders,” from which the Democrat Party’s 2024 presidential nominee would be chosen after four town halls, in which they would presumably be interviewed by Democrat hosts. Does that strike you as antithetical to anything we’ve ever seen in this country with respect to choosing candidates for any office, much less the presidency of the United States?
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Of Harris, Carville said:
I believe the vice president would be a formidable opponent for Mr. Trump. She has spent the past four years crisscrossing the country and the globe, serving the American people. She has a hell of a story — one that more people should know.
She stood up for ordinary Americans against big banks. She locked up sexual predators. You want the prosecutor, or you want the criminal? Not the worst question to put to the American public this November.
Let me re-word that for you, James.
“You want the man responsible for Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett on the U.S. Supreme Court, or do you want a word-salad queen who has accomplished zero as vice president and shakes with excitement when talking about “yellow school buses” and Venn diagrams?” I could continue.
Crazed Carville Wants White House to Compel Media to Help Defeat Trump
Carville being Carville, he was customarily venomous, though humorous, about “Mr. Trump.”
Americans will be fired up by this open process, and many are already fired up to beat Mr. Trump.
[O]ur opponent. The one born with a platinum spoon but no moral compass? The pathological liar? The felon? The predator found liable for sexual abuse? The wannabe dictator? The Putin lickspittle?
I’m not worried about him.
Oh, I think you’re very much worried about “him,” James —if you weren’t, you wouldn’t be so fixated on crazy schemes and compelling the media to help defeat “him.”
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Seems like a good time to point out once again that Stage 4 Trump Derangement Syndrome is a terrible, mind-bending disease to behold. From Joe Biden to Nancy Pelosi to Adam Schiff to Maxine Waters, to God knows how many other stricken Democrats, bless their poor pathetic hearts.