Take it from a man who knows a thing or two about political messaging: the Republicans are running rings around Democrats when it comes to communicating a coherent vision to voters.
Veteran Democrat strategist James Carville is largely credited with putting Bill Clinton into the White House, with his bumper sticker slogan of “It’s the economy, stupid” being one of the most successful messages in the history of American politics, and he thinks that his party’s messaging stinks.
While the “Ragin’ Cajun” is predicting big Democrat wins in November’s midterm elections, he said that it isn’t because the party has inspired voters and suggested that it had better find a compelling message and someone competent at delivering it before voters go to the polls in 2028.
On the latest edition of the “Politics War Room podcast,” the crotchety Carville opined that Republicans are “painting themselves” in a negative light, reacting to a question from a listener about why the GOP excels at portraying Dems as “boogeymen.”
(Source: YouTube/Politicon)
“What’s happened now is they’re painting themselves that way,” he told co-host Al Hunt of the GOP. “They’re going down not because of Democratic messaging, not because of a relentless offense by the Democrats that points out their faults; they’re going down because the public sees it and they don’t need a Democratic intervention right now, it’s not called for.”
The longtime strategist added that he hopes Democrats find the right candidate to be their messenger in 2028, but he believes Republicans are better on messaging fronts; that’s just a “fact” of American politics.
“For whatever the reason’s been, I think it’s because we’re more of a coalition; not only do we not have a consistent negative story to tell about the other party, we don’t have a consistent positive story to tell about ourselves. I hope and pray that in 2028 we have a really skilled candidate who is able to do that,” Carville said.
The current crop of 2028 hopefuls is headed up by snake oil salesman Gavin Newsom, human punchline Kamala Harris, and AOC, a cartoon character, so if they want to win, Democrats would be wise to find a better messenger or any midterm successes could be fleeting.
The longtime strategist also bemoaned the Dems’ messaging last month, complaining to MS NOW’s Ari Melber that the party is “not meeting the moment.”
“We’re having a race in Michigan and we’re talking about Palestinian self-determination. We’re having a race in Wisconsin, we’re talking about whether we should tax Harley-Davidson 17 percent,” he said. “We’re not meeting the moment.”
“My hope and my prayers, any Democrat out there thinking run for president, you have something to offer? For God’s sake, run, run for office because we’re not getting … we got nothing but problems,” he added.
Carville struck gold with “It’s the economy, stupid,” so much so that he has parlayed the one slogan into more than three decades of work, and at the age of 81 years old is still doling out his salty nuggets of wisdom to Democrats who revere him as a Yoda-like figure.
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