You know who should NEVER work on another Dem campaign?

[Rose Siding]

CARVILLE! Not as an adviser, paid or unpaid. Not even as an occasional consultant! Theories, or even polling provided by his consulting firm should be highly suspect. First, look at his cocky professed certainty:

Twelve days before the election, James Carville stood in a Beverly Hills living room surrounded by two generations of Hollywood stars.....

"If we can't win this damn election," the adviser to the Kerry campaign said, "with a Democratic Party more unified than ever before, with us having raised as much money as the Republicans, with 55% of the country believing we're heading in the wrong direction, with our candidate having won all three debates, and with our side being more passionate about the outcome than theirs — if we can't win this one, then we can't win ! And we need to completely rethink the Democratic Party."
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-huffington11nov11,0,6405677.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
....................

THEN he goes home to a committed Republican, an ex-high level employee of Cheney's VP office, who clearly maintains contact with the upper echelons of the Republican Party. It's ridiculous! Are they androids, that we believe they wouldn't confide in each other? Does anyone really think no information is exchanged that might damage one side or the other? How confident should we be that this would be to our advantage? Well, let's look at our RECORD!

When he went to work for the Venezuelan oil conglomerates, it gave me pause. But we see him on TV and *mostly* (tho not always) he's wearing our team's uniform- I say "our team's uniform" because the TV shows that he's on really reduce everything to a game for entertainment.

Enough from this shill already! He's a vaudevillian with dubious motives and objectives.

[JohnLocke]

1. Give me a fucking break. If Kerry has listened to Carville he would've won

[HFishbine]

2. How so?

What winning advice did Carville give to Kerry that was ignored?

[JohnLocke]

5. Read this

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6421298/site/newsweek/

[Rose Siding]

12. True blue Carville

snip>
Carville threatened to go on "Meet the Press" the next day "and tell the truth about how bad it is" if Cahill didn't give effective control to Lockhart.
..................

What he's advocating for in that piece, valiant hystrionics aside, is for Lockhart. Not so bad in and of itself but that's still a swing away from confronting Bush on his obvious achilles heel; nat'l security. His pathetic performance in the debate on the topic evidenced the shallowness of his ability to maintain the mythical facade that had been concocted for him.

from the article I linked:

In conversations with Kerry insiders over the last nine months, I’ve heard a recurring theme: that it was Shrum and the Clintonistas (including Greenberg, Carville and senior advisor Joe Lockhart) who dominated the campaign in the last two months and who were convinced that this election was going to be won on domestic issues, like jobs and healthcare, and not on national security.

As Tom Vallely, the Vietnam War veteran whom Kerry tapped to lead the response to the Swift boat attacks, told me: “I kept telling Shrum that before you walk through the economy door, you’re going to have to walk through the terrorism/Iraq door. But, unfortunately, the Clinton team, though technically skillful, could not see reality — they could only see their version of reality. And that was always about pivoting to domestic issues. As for Shrum, he would grab on to anyone’s strategy; he had none of his own.”

[missouri dem]

20. Bingo. We got beat by the emotional appeal of the strong leader,.

The Kerry campaign needed to attack w* as a piss poor leader and a miserable failure in protecting the country and putting us in a war that he was incompetent to win.

[HFishbine]

13. Thanks

I actaully just read that in another thread. Worth a read.

[sandnsea]

22. Totally disagree

Kerry should have gone on the attack on Bush's stupid approach to terrorism and Iraq and foreign policy from the gate. He should have stayed on it and pounded on it night and day. His foreign policy experience and record are leaps and bounds beyond anything George Bush has accomplished. And he should have went ahead and fought Vietnam all over again too. Sick to death of stupid people who believe we could have won that war after we killed 3 million people in it. Democrats elected Kerry because of his foreign policy experience, because he could go toe to toe with Bush on it. Why this campaign didn't understand what they won the primaries on is beyond me.

[joelogan]

3. he is 100% right

we need to rethink the democratic party. You seem to assume he is wrong. Why?

[Rose Siding]

9. At the point that he made those remarks...

it appears he was convinced that everything was on track. Now of course, it's evident that changes do need to be made.

The article I linked contains some very good points. Rather than respond in a common sense fashion to events as they occured, apparently Carville and a number of other campaign "experts" urged Kerry to stick with the staid, stale 90's themes.

[newyawker99]

14. Hi joelogan!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[janx]

4. He's not the only one.

He's just one of the most obvious. ;-)

[Mike Nelson]

8. JIM & MARY

I don't understand this Jim Carvile & Mary Matlin thing... If they were piano tuners or teachers, I would understand it. They are pols -- one of them is a traitor.

[janx]

11. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

That's about the extent of it.

[American Tragedy]

On the contrary, I think Cahill & Co. ought to be discarded in future

for presidential campaigns, I mean. She's fine for organizing relatively civilized and intellectual competitions in the Northeast, but she doesn't have what it takes for a national campaign. Kerry apparently took her advice against his better judgment to ignore the Swiftboat ads, which was inexcusably naive of her after having witnessed the destruction of Dukakis.

We needed someone intense and ready to fight, someone who had studied Karl Rove and was prepared for every trick - he's very predictable and has established clear patterns in every campaign with which he's involved. Kerry was a fine candidate who was poorly managed in my opinion.

At the very least, Carville makes an effort to keep his candidates focused on what's important, which is something Kerry desperately needed when he was tying himself in knots over irrelevent social issues.

[JohnLocke]

7. EXACTLY!

Right on!

[RB TexLa]

15. I agree too

[Cookie wookie]

6. You bring up some good points.

I don't watch him or any of the talking heads anymore, but now that you bring it up, have any clue what he's talking about with the rethink the Dem Party? Maybe something like take a ride on the lite "right" (as in right wing)?

[Modem Butterfly]

10. Bob fucking Shrum

EOM

[muse]

16. Hopefully we have waved bye-bye to him forever.

[liberalpragmatist]

17. amen

[LittleClarkie]

18. I think Kerry should have gone with his gut more

and not let others talk him into moving to the Economy when talking about Iraq had been so effective.

Otherwise, well, Carville has won elections and the Dukakis team has not. That says it all for me. But still, I hear the Clintonistas were pushing economy issues while others were pushing Iraq issues. Iraq was the way to go, I think.

I think Kerry should have gone with his gut and attacked the Swiftees right away and not let others talk him into waiting for them to go away. If I read one more letter to the editor lauding the Swiftees "gallant" pursuit of the "truth" and their invaluable contribution to Bush's win, my head is going to jetison from my body. It makes me sick every time.

We could do without the Dukakis/Kennedy machines. Fewer advisors, more Kerry being himself if he runs again.

I wonder if they could get the Feingold ad agency to start with. Feingold ran a wonderful campaign here in Wisconsin. Very positive and yet addessed issues of concern.

[Warren DeMontague]

19. I thought for sure you were talking about Shrum.

With a record like that, he should be working the drive-thru window at taco bell.

[missouri dem]

21. We need to purge our leadership of all of the parasites who

win whether we the people do or not. I spent 4 months working every day and volunteering every bit of it. How many of these "leaders" work for nothing ? They are as far from my life as any republican.

[justa]

24. Starting with Terry Mcauliff

[Kazak]

23. Huh? Well, they won this one...

:shrug:

[The Flaming Red Head]

25. Lee Atwater's grand chess game

he apologized before he died. He said they viewed it all as a game and he said that he was wrong for doing that. Death bed confessions are always to be believed.

[Minstrel Boy]

26. You're right.

His sleeping with the enemy should be a serious concern, unless there really is no appreciable difference between the parties at senior levels.

His work for the Venezuelan oligarchs absolutely finished him for me.

Dubious motives indeed.