Longtime Democratic strategist James Carville said members of his party “whine too much” as he urged them to “gloat” about their successes leading into the 2022 midterm elections.
“Just quit being a whiny party and get out there and fight and tell people what you did, and tell people the exact truth,” Carville said Sunday on adding that “a lot of the Democratic base has not been told or informed of the things that President Biden and this Congress has accomplished.”
Carville, the lead strategist for former President Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign who coined the motto “It’s the economy, stupid,” advised Democrats to “gloat and you promote” wins like Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure deal, lowering the rates of child poverty, and creating 6.4 million jobs.
“What you do, Chuck, is you run on what you got. You don’t run on what you didn’t get. And the stuff you got is pretty good,” Carville told host Chuck Todd.
Carville, known as the “Ragin’ Cajun,” said the Republican Party has no accomplishments to tout.
“All they’re going to run on is the 2020 election returns, or getting Adam Schiff, or Jamie Raskin back, revenge. So just focus on what you got, what you’ve done, and what you want to do to make people’s lives better. That’s it,” Carville said, referencing two Democratic congressmen on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
“And if inflation is still at 7 percent in November this year, we’ll lose anyway. But a lot of people don’t think that’s going to be the case,” he said.
Todd asked Carville what advice he could give Democrats based on his experience with Cli🥂nton after the 1994 midterm el🏅ections, when Republicans won control of Congress for the first time since 1952.
“Soldier on. You had a bad week, but you had a good year. People, at the end of the day, are going to judge you on your year and not your week. And this is a tough, hard business. And you’ve got ups and downs. You get bruised, you get beat up,” Carville said.
