James Carville at the 27th SCAD Savannah Film Festival in Savannah, Georgia, October 31, 2024. (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for SCAD)
James Carville has spent more than four decades at the center of American politics. Best known for helping engineer Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential victory, the Louisiana-raised political strategist has become one of the Democratic Party’s most recognizable and outspoken figures.
But Carville’s path to political prominence was anything but conventional. Before his string of improbable electoral victories, he struggled professionally, lost campaigns, and found himself in his forties without much money or a clear direction.
Now, as he approaches his 82nd birthday, Carville remains as passionate about politics as ever. In a conversation with The Pathway Review, he reflected on the experiences that shaped his career, the power of political storytelling, his mistaken prediction in 2024, and why he believes the upcoming midterm elections could be unlike anything Americans have experienced before.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
On Getting Started
BW: Let’s go back to the beginning. How did you first get interested in politics, and what made you think you could build a career in it?
JC: I was probably about 15 years old. There was a guy running for the state legislature near where I grew up, and my job was to tear the other guy’s signs off telephone poles. Telephone pole signs were big in Louisiana in the late ‘50s.
Then I had a summer job at a bank in Baton Rouge, and I’d go over to the state Capitol and watch the legislature. I thought it was the coolest thing. The smell of ink, the bills being printed, the voting board lighting up. I just thought it was such an exciting business.
Politicians back then were larger-than-life people. They tended to have a belly. They wore too much cologne. They were outgoing.
To this day, my favorite group of people to hang out with is politicians. I find them more engaging, and kind of funnier. Not all of them, but as a class of people, they’re a pretty fun group. And they risk a lot, because they do something everybody else is scared to do: They dare to fail publicly.
On the Long Way Up
BW: What was it that kept you in politics after that?
JC: I went to undergraduate school and flunked out. I went into the Marine Corps, came back to school, and went to law school. I wasn’t much of a student. I wasn’t the worst, but I was a long way from the best.
I kept volunteering on campaigns, a DA’s race, that kind of thing. I was not an enthusiastic or very good lawyer. I didn’t like it.
Then I worked for a guy running for mayor of Baton Rouge. We won, and I took the only government job I ever had. And I literally thought to myself: Three things are going to happen to me. I’m going to jail, I’m going crazy, or I’m getting out of here. And I said, you know, the third is about the best option I’ve got.
I called a friend of mine in Washington who was very influential, and he said, “I think you’ve kind of got a knack for this.” He got me a job running a Senate campaign in Virginia, which we lost.
Then I was kind of out of work, and I got a job running a Senate campaign in Texas in 1984. Now, we weren’t going to win a Senate campaign in Texas in 1984, were we? No, we were not. And we didn’t.
I was in my 40s, and I was the personification of a ne’er-do-well.
Then I get a call. A guy’s running for governor of Pennsylvania, Bob Casey, and he’s run three times before and lost every time. The guy calls me and says, “Can you come up for an interview?” I said, “Well, you’ve got to send me the ticket.” He said, “Why don’t you buy a ticket, and we’ll reimburse you?” And I said, “You don’t fucking understand, man. I ain’t got the money to buy the ticket.”
Winning that was great. Then I get a call about a wealthy guy running for governor of Kentucky, Wallace Wilkinson. I ran his campaign, and it was one of the most remarkable things that ever happened. We didn’t just win. We won in a landslide.
In ‘88, I ran a campaign for a guy named Frank Lautenberg in New Jersey. He was supposed to lose, and we won big. In ‘90, I worked for Zell Miller in Georgia. Then in 1991, there was a guy named Harris Wofford running for the Senate in Pennsylvania after John Heinz was killed in a plane crash. Wofford was a patrician. He’d been the president of Bryn Mawr, okay? You understand what I’m saying? And lo and behold, we won that in a fucking landslide.
So then I became kind of the hot guy. And then came Bill Clinton in ‘92.
A friend of mine told me something that’s very true. He said, “James, you’ve got to understand. When you become a famous person in the United States, all you can do is be famous.”
I was 48. I didn’t want to go into the government, and I didn’t have any money. Now, there’s a great racket called speaking for money. It’s a great racket. But I just wanted to do politics, so I started doing foreign campaigns. I think I’ve worked in something like 22 different countries. I’d go all over the fucking world. All I wanted to do was politics. At one time or another, sometimes not directly, I’ve worked for 14 different heads of state.
Then I did the things famous people do. I wrote books and went on TV. I started teaching: three years at Northern Virginia Community College, nine years at Tulane, four years at LSU. So I taught at a junior college, a private school, and a public school. I liked it, but I just got too old.
I’ve had a pretty remarkable run. I’m going to be 82 in less than three weeks, and I still love politics. To this day, I miss the scent of a campaign headquarters. The phone banks, the direct voter contact. Now you’ve got website designers and influencers.
I always made my way on my own. And believe it or not, like anything else, the longer you do it, the better you get at it. What you understand after everything is that it’s a pretty simple deal. It’s really conceptual.
I have pretty significant and well-diagnosed attention issues. And if you think about it, politics is designed for people who can’t pay attention, because it rewards you for being able to say a lot in the smallest number of words.
I was just at Harvard, and somebody said, “You came up with the slogan ‘It’s the economy, stupid.’” I said, “First of all, that was not the slogan. It was ‘The economy, stupid.’ Because a word is a terrible thing to waste. Why say four words when you can say three?”
Now, I’m not going to take issue. The thing’s been quoted 14,000 times. I’m not going to call somebody and say, “Well, you didn’t get it exactly right.”
So I think my handicap, disability, challenge, whatever the fuck you call them these days, has actually worked in my favor.
After I got married, my wife said, “You just can’t sit still. I love you to death, but maybe there’s something we can do.” So she made an appointment with a real psychiatrist. Mahogany-paneled office, green library lamps, that kind of thing.
He said, “I’m going to give you a questionnaire. Fill it out, hand it to the receptionist, and come back and see me next week.” So the next week, my wife and I go back, and he says, “Look, there are five markers we look for to determine if someone has real concentration issues.” And remarkably, I had all five. He said there were some therapeutic interventions we could try, and some pharmacological ones.
And I’ll never forget sitting there and saying, “You know, I’m just kind of happy with who I am. I don’t really want that.” My wife was very supportive, and he said, “Okay, I understand that. There’s no reason you can’t have a full and happy life.”
I think that was a pretty important decision, sitting in that psychiatrist’s office. I didn’t want to be any different than I was.
I can’t take tests. There are a lot of things I can’t do. But that’s one of the trade-offs in life. I went to law school at LSU, and I was not a very good student, but I got through. The only reason I got through is that I had friends who tutored me. If it weren’t for the study group, I couldn’t have done it.
I’ve been around since ‘92. That’s a pretty long time to stay in the public eye.
On the Power of a Story
BW: I want to go back to 1986 and Bob Casey, your first big statewide win. What did you believe about voters in your thirties that you had to unlearn before you started winning?
JC: Honestly, when I lost in ‘84, I got the living shit beat out of me. And I learned more in that defeat than I’ve learned from ‘84 to today. I learned the power of a narrative, of a story.
We were running against Phil Gramm, who was an odious enough character, in my view. But he’d say, “There’s a little man in Mexia, Texas, by the name of Dicky Flatt. You’ll see him at the First Baptist Church, at the Boy Scouts. He never quite gets the ink out from under his fingernails, because he works so hard. And every time there’s some liberal Walter Mondale giveaway program, I’ve got to ask myself: Is that worth taking money out of Dicky Flatt’s pocket? I put the Dicky Flatt test to it.”
That story impressed me, because he was able to build a narrative around a sympathetic guy and deliver a gut punch without looking like he was being negative at all.
So when I go to Pennsylvania, we’re running against Bill Scranton. The city of Scranton is named after his family. His daddy was governor of Pennsylvania and challenged Goldwater in 1964. They were moderate Republican royalty. And he was young and educated, and his whole thesis was that Pennsylvania is like a butterfly, emerging from its industrial past and forging a new way, and it needs new, visionary leadership.
And Bob Casey had lost three times before. He was the personification of the old Irish Democratic political machine.
So Scranton goes after him for that in a debate, and Casey says, “You know, you’re right. I’ve been knocked down three times. And you know what? This is something you’ll never know: The view from the canvas is very educational. There are people in Pennsylvania who get knocked down every day. They lose their job. They have a sick child. They don’t have anything to rely on, but they’ve got to get out of bed, put their pants on, and put on one shoe at a time. And until you’ve been knocked down, you can’t understand that.”
That was the end of Bill Scranton. The power of narrative is everything.
On Being Wrong
BW: You learned the most from losing, so I want to bring that lesson into the present. In October 2024, you wrote that you were certain Kamala Harris would win. Afterward, you said plainly that you were wrong. Now you’re again confident that Democrats are headed for a major victory this November. What did 2024 teach you about the limits of your own political instincts?
JC: State of mind is a big thing. Remember, I was the most persistent, well-known person saying Biden couldn’t run for reelection. I love the guy. He’s great. But it was a terrible idea.
Then he had that debate performance in late June, and it was like, “Oh, God.” It was inevitable. And when he got out in July, I didn’t feel good about it. At that point, you’d think I’d feel kind of triumphant. “Hey, you were the first guy.” I didn’t care.
Then Harris gets it. And the polls, frankly, were tied, even at the time I wrote that, which was pretty close to Election Day. But I’d heard stories. In Bucks County, Pennsylvania, there were a hundred Harris volunteers knocking on doors for every one Trump volunteer. And I said, “That shit’s got to count for something.”
I wanted to be a good soldier, and I genuinely thought she could win. It was tied, so I called Ben Wikler, who was then the chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, and I said, “Ben, how much good can this do?” He said it could probably get a point, a point and a half. So I did some rough math and decided she was going to win.
And I was wrong.
But I’ll tell you something people need to understand. People will forgive you for being wrong. They almost like you better for it. But they’ll never forgive you for being boring.
There are so many people I run across who are afraid to make a mistake. If you want to be right about something, you’ve got to take the risk of being wrong. You have to commit yourself to an idea, to a belief, to a position.
Most people make maybe ten big decisions. Five are probably good, five probably not so good. If you’re lucky enough that the five good ones are the ones that count, you’ve got a big advantage.
On November
BW: You’ve suggested that a big Democratic victory this November could amount to a national rejection of Trumpism, and that everything would change afterward. But Republicans lost the House in 2018. Trump lost the presidency in 2020. Republicans badly underperformed expectations in 2022. And he came back and won in 2024. Why would a rejection in 2026 be more durable than the previous three?
JC: Okay, let’s go back. We lost because Harris had nothing to fucking say. There was that moment on The View when she was asked what she’d do differently from Biden, and she couldn’t think of anything. Voters didn’t want to vote for Trump. They wanted something different, and we resolutely refused to give it to them.
Now think of where we are today. Then think of where we’re going to be the day after the election. I got hit by this in ‘94. People have no idea what it’s going to feel like. It’s going to change worldviews.
They said about Mike Tyson one time that he hits you so hard, it changes the way you taste. If this thing goes like it looks like it’s going, American politics is going to taste different, and people are not ready for it. It’s one thing to imagine what it would be like to get hit in the mouth by Mike Tyson. It’s quite another thing to actually get hit in the mouth by him. And I think they’re going to get hit in the mouth.
American politics is not going to be the same. In most elections, that doesn’t happen. It’s always, “This is the biggest election of our lives.” “If not us, who? If not now, when?” “We stand on the precipice. The choice is prosperity or the abyss. What do you choose?” And then somebody wins, somebody loses, and life goes on.
This is going to be different. This could be a different experience for people.
On Getting Noticed
BW: I want to close by turning back to students. Say there’s a young person who’s fascinated by political consulting, but looks at today’s political landscape and isn’t sure there’s a future for them in it. What would you tell them about where to start?
JC: Say you’re 22 years old. You want to work in politics. You like it, you think it’s exciting, you think it’s relevant. You’re free, you’re loose, you don’t have baggage, you don’t have children. But how do you get noticed?
So you went to Tulane. Great. Thousands of people went to good schools. Maybe you had a 3.92 GPA. None of that means a fuck in campaigns. What you’re saying is, “I just need a chance.”
So here’s what I tell people. Find a campaign. Say, “I’m interested in this race. I want to work for this person.” I don’t care which one. Doesn’t matter. Look up who the campaign manager is. And just show up.
You say, “I want to see the campaign manager,” and they’re going to say, “Well, she’s busy. If you make an appointment, maybe somebody can see you after the election.” And you say, “I’ll wait right here.” And you sit right there for four hours.
Inevitably, somebody comes out and says, “Okay, she’ll see you for five minutes.” Now, she’s got applications. You want to be deputy communications director? There’s only 300 other people who want that job.
So you walk in, and you say, “Here’s my proposal. For two months, without pay, I’ll do anything you want. I’ll go get your laundry. I’ll pick your kids up from daycare. I’ll go to the drugstore. I’ll drive you to the airport. The only thing I ask is that over those two months, you give me one or two significant things to do. Let me advance an event. Let me write some talking points. And after two months, you can tell me I’m not cut out for this, and I’ll appreciate the chance. Or you can give me a paying job.”
That’s the whole proposal. Because other than that, you’re not going to break through.
Like I said, you go to a good school, you have good grades, you’re well kept, your fingernails are clean, your teeth are white, you’re not unattractive. None of it means a fuck unless you get noticed. It’s the old thing I tell people: If a husband walks into the forest and says something, and there’s no one there to hear him, is he still wrong?
You’ve got to do something that makes you different from everybody else.
About James Carville
James Carville is a Democratic political strategist best known as chief strategist of Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign. Before that, he ran a string of upset wins: Bob Casey’s 1986 race for governor of Pennsylvania, Wallace Wilkinson’s 1987 race for governor of Kentucky, Frank Lautenberg’s 1988 Senate reelection in New Jersey, Zell Miller’s 1990 race for governor of Georgia, and Harris Wofford’s 1991 Senate special election in Pennsylvania. He has since advised campaigns in more than 20 countries, co-founded the polling organization Democracy Corps with Stanley Greenberg, written several bestselling books, and taught at Tulane University and Louisiana State University. Raised in Carville, Louisiana, he lives in New Orleans.
About The Pathway Review: The Pathway Review publishes long-form interviews with people in politics, policy, journalism, law, diplomacy, markets, history, and public service about the work they do and the path that brought them there.
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