CARVILLE: I think the Democrats are going to have a good year. The question is by how much. [Conservative columnist] George Will said, “If the Democrats can’t win in this environment, they’ll have to find a new line of work.” I don’t disagree with that.
Because the Democrats have a predictable litany: “I believe in a woman’s right to choose. I believe a good school system is essential to what we are. I stand for the minimum wage.” Blah blah blah. It’s like when I was an altar boy: “I believe in the virgin birth, I believe in this and that.” The [real] narrative [of the Christian litany] is, “We were a bunch of sinners and Jesus came and died and bled and saved us all.” Now that’s compelling. As John Kerry was going through this predictable litany during the [2004 presidential] campaign, Bush was out there saying, “I was drunk and I was saved by the power of Jesus Christ and I was saved by 9/11, and I will protect you from the terrorists in Tehran and the homos in Hollywood.” It’s a narrative voters can relate to. The Democrats’ first inclination is to expand the litany, rather than developing a focused narrative. Most elements of the litany I’m fine with. But we’re not going to win by reciting it.
There are a number of people in the Republican base who are really upset by this, who think that homosexuality is truly evil behavior. When the Republicans lose, their talking points will not be “Our policies were bad” or “We did a bad job,” but “It’s because of Foley.” Foley becomes a very convenient scapegoat. You just watch.
I think it’s going to be remarkably easy. People don’t really want to fight with us. If the next president just shows up and waves and says “we can’t always agree but we don’t have to be disagreeable,” I think the world would say, “Oh, thank God.” I think the world is tired of fighting with us, and Americans are tired of fighting with the world. I think people around the world like Americans. They just don’t like Bush. The outpouring around the world for Bill Clinton today proves that. It says, “We’re not anti-American. We’re anti-Bush.”
This is the first time since 1952 that we haven’t had either an incumbent president or vice president running. And in ‘52, it was a fait accompli –as the French would say–with Gen. Dwight Eisenhower. So this is an unbelievably rare occurrence. This is also the first time since 1940 that we don’t know who the Republican nominee is going to be. So there has never been suspense in the Republican nominating process to the extent that you have this time. On the Democrat side, of course, you have Hillary Clinton. But there will be seven major Democrats running for president. Al Gore’s going to run.
Of course he’s going to run. Of course he is.
I like Hillary a lot. I really do. I think in the end, she’ll work harder and smarter than anyone else. But it’s going to be difficult. I don’t think she is a prohibitive front runner. You’ll have larger-than-life figures running in ‘08. I think it will be a very unpredictable and remarkable election.
Because it is about silent inaction. We always say there is a consequence to our actions. We tell our children, “If you do that, there’s going to be a consequence.” We seldom tell people that there’s a consequence to our silence. Look at the Foley scandal. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert and his fellow congressional Republicans are being criticized for exactly that: silent inaction on Foley’s behavior. It is also about testing the limits of power. Think of the huge debate that we are having in the United States about expansion of presidential powers. That’s a parallel to Willie Stark.
