What Carville Gets Wrong (and Right)

James Carville may be a homer for the Democrats, but give the devil his due: he's willing to admit when he gets it wrong.

James Carville will never be a favorite of mine.  His willingness to go on television and slander women who told true things about Bill Clinton had that ship sail along time ago.  But in the category of giving the devil his due, Carville is not one of these pundits who must always appear omniscient.  If he predicts something and it fails to come to pass he owns up to it.  He does so in amusing fashion here.

Carville (I think even his wife hesitates before calling him “James”) is a homer.  Like Phil Rizzuto announcing a Yankees game, his pre-election chatter will always be about the likely victory and how it will occur rather than a dispassionate analysis of the relative merits of the two contending forces.

I remember Carville placing the garbage pail over his head on election night 2002.  He does the analysis but has an eye on news stories that will say “even Democratic stalwart James Carville predicts Democratic doom…”  Which is fine.  James Carville isn’t a newsman.  And he doesn’t pretend to be a great neutral presence in the punditry firmament.  He doesn’t purport to be a pollster.

Next election day, however, James Carville will, I predict, present a rosier view of the outcome for the Democrats than most other analysts, pray for a narrow Republican win in the Senate (while predicting the Democrats hold it) and hope Obama wins a nail biter (after predicting a landslide).

I hope he writes something amusing afterwards.

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