James Carville tells Sean Illing of Vox that there are places in which Democrats just have to get real. Sen. Joe Manchin, for example:
Understand that Joe Manchin is a Roman Catholic Democrat in a state in which not a single county has voted Democrat [for president] since 2008. I repeat: not a single county has voted Democrat since 2008.
Politics is about choices, and he’s up for reelection in 2024. If Manchin runs for reelection, I’ll do everything I can to help him because it’s either going to be Joe Manchin or Marsha Blackburn. It ain’t Joe Manchin or Ed Markey. You got to understand that. It’s really that damn simple.
Kyrsten Sinema, on the other hand, is a cypher who seems to think she’ll be the next John McCain. Carville will help Rep. Ruben Gallego should he primary her.
But Manchin is not the problem, Carville insists. Holding only 50 seats in the Senate is.
“I understand people’s frustration, but for God’s sake, the answer to it is not to get mad at Democrats,” Carville explains. “The answer is to go out and elect more Democrats.”
This is the difference between ideology and logistics. When we count votes in a democracy, we don’t count ideologies. We count heads. Butts in seats, if you’d rather. Politics may be about ideology, but democracy is a numbers game.
“If we want to pass more liberal policies, we need to elect more Democrats,” Carville repeats. “Period. End of story.”
Sean Illing
What makes you think most Democrats don’t understand that?
James Carville
Just look at how Democrats organize and spend money. For Christ’s sake, [South Carolina Democrat] Jaime Harrison raised over $100 million only to lose his Senate race to Lindsey Graham by 10 points. Amy McGrath runs for Senate in Kentucky and raises over $90 million only to get crushed by Mitch McConnell.
They were always going to lose those races, but Democrats keep doing this stupid shit. They’re too damn emotional. Democrats obsess over high-profile races they can’t win because that’s where all the attention is. We’re addicted to hopeless causes.
What about the secretary of state in Wisconsin? Or the attorney general race in Michigan? How much money are Democrats and progressives around the country sending to those candidates? I’m telling you, if Democrats are worried about voting rights and election integrity, then these are the sorts of races they should support and volunteer for, because this is where the action is and this is where things will be decided.
You know who is paying attention to these races? The Republican Party. Last I checked, Republicans raised $33 million for secretary of state races around the country. The Democrats had until recently raised $1 million. I think it’s now up to $4 million. That’s the story, right there. That’s the difference, right there. Bitching about a Democratic senator in West Virginia is missing the damn plot.
(Jaime Harrison, now DNC chair, reminds Carville with a smile that he was “very supportive of all of us ‘hopeless causes’ in ‘20.”)
I live in one of David Pepper’s “Laboratories of Autocracy” in which a GOP-legislative offense wreaks havoc in the capitol while minority Democrats are perpetually on defense. I spent 2016 telling progressives President Hillary can’t solve my legislature problem; President Bernie can’t either. WE have to solve that problem. Here.
See Fight everywhere from December.
MLK is not a celebrated because he died on an ideological hill. He’s celebrated for his legacy of accomplishments. I read somewhere the other day that if you have the chance to accomplish 20-30 percent of your agenda or be a hero to your friends for accepting nothing less than everything you want, take the 20-30 percent.* That’s a legacy. Losing gloriously isn’t.
Carville agrees:
James Carville
I’ll tell you a quick story. Andrew Young and Martin Luther King Jr. were flying back from Oslo just after King had won the Nobel Prize. And King says, “Let’s stop at the White House and see President Johnson.” So of course LBJ keeps them waiting for eight hours or something like that. And finally they come in, tell the president they appreciate his help with civil rights legislation, but they say they also got to have voting rights. LBJ says he’s out of gas and that he just doesn’t have the political power to do it.
So Young and King travel back to Atlanta and King says, “The president needs more power. Let’s go out and get him some.” They started the marches. They started the sit-ins. They started organizing the churches and the unions. They completely understood the need for political power and they fought like hell for it.
Part of Biden’s lack of power is because the Republicans see that the Democrats are whiny. They can feel that weakness in the Democratic coalition. And I’ve been dealing with it since the ’80s. There’s a significant part of the Democratic Party that doesn’t mind losing if it allows them to be pure. We’re obsessed with purity. That has got to stop.
We’ve got to do whatever it takes to get more political power and that means we’ve got to win some elections. Just win some goddamn elections. This is not a time to complain. It’s a time to act. So let’s talk about real things, in real language, to real people. And if we do that, we can still save the country.
* Found it.