NO KUMBAYAH CRAP!

On Thursday, James Carville spoke at Northwestern University.

(To my knowledge, he was not pelted with any pies as he addressed the audience.)

From the Daily Northwestern, Elizabeth Gibson writes:

The problem with Democrat campaign speeches is “litany,” and they need more narrative like Winnie the Pooh stories, political consultant and pundit James Carville said.



Yes, address the Dem base as if they had the mental capacity of kindergarteners.

"Oh, bother!"

"I love honey."

"I have a rumbly in my tumbly. It's time for something sweet."

At a speech sponsored by the Northwestern College Democrats Thursday evening, Carville told the audience that Democratic candidates can’t succeed by shouting out to every group in a crowd. Instead candidates should tell stories with the three elements of any good story — setup, conflict and resolution.

“No Kumbayah crap,” Carville said.

That is classic. I love it!



Imagine Carville at the Cindy Sheehan, anti-Iraq war, pro-Palestinian terrorism rally in DC a few weekends ago. Think of him pushing Joan Baez aside and shouting, "No Kumbayah crap."

...At NU Carville focused on what Democrats need to do to reclaim the presidency. The vocal impressions of President George W. Bush and former presidential candidate John Kerry and Carville’s bouts of shouting in his southern accent had the audience alternatively giggling and freezing in silence.

The audience froze in silence?

That sounds creepy. Were they shocked by what Carville said? Were they afraid?

I could understand the audience being so attentive to a speaker that there would be silence in the hall. Maybe it's the word "freezing" that gives the scene an air of fright.

Whatever, it creeps me out.

In addition to breaking away from a laundry list of special interests, Carville said, Democrats need to learn that a candidate who can’t campaign can’t succeed.

“If you’re not competent in campaigns, you don’t have a chance to be competent in government,” he said.

Using Al Gore as an example, Carville said being a smart candidate is not enough.

“It’s actually possible to be wise, right and strong,” he said.

There's no question that Gore was a terrible campaigner, but I don't think that's why half of the country's voters in the 2000 election rejected him.

I think it had more to do with other concerns, such as the previous eight years of disastrous foreign policy, weakening the military, and failure to address the dismal record of the public school system.

Gore's wishy-washiness, his personality makeovers during the three televised debates, and his earth tone wardrobe must be factored into Gore's defeat, too.

Personally, I made up my mind to NEVER cast a vote for Gore when I saw his performance and heard his statement at the Rose Garden pep rally following Clinton's impeachment, December 17, 1998.

The moment Gore called Clinton "one of our greatest presidents," that sealed the deal for me. I would vote ABG--anybody but Gore.



But Carville added that no one in Washington likes anyone who is right too often. Howard Dean’s accurate assessment about the failure of the war in Iraq helped kick him out of the running for president despite his passion, Carville said.

That's ridiculous.

It's not a matter of being right. It's a matter of expressing one's rightness in a wise fashion. One can be right, and right often, without being arrogant.

Howard Dean was kicked out of the running because he was clearly an unstable, abrasive, radical Left nutjob. It had absolutely nothing to do with him supposedly being right about anything.



In the same way that intelligence and accuracy can’t stand alone, strength without accuracy is a catastrophe, he said. His example: the Republican administration.

“If we just had mediocracy I’d be the happiest person in the world,” Carville said. “You put political hacks in an important position and there are consequences.”

Carville is wrong about the Republican administration being strong but inaccurate, if he's referring to the intelligence that led to the Iraq war.

His boy Clinton and the Dems were all insisting that Saddam Hussein was a serious threat to our security, that he possessed weapons of mass destruction, and that he would use them.

Carville is right about the consequences of putting political hacks in important positions. We saw what eight years of Clinton cronyism and all the Clintonian sycophants did to the country.

Under Clinton's watch, the terror threat was not adequately addressed, nor was North Korea's nuclear proliferation.

Weinberg freshman Amy Weiss said the College Democrats achieved their goal of exciting students with Carville’s speech.

“I’ve been a big James Carville fan for several years,” she said. “And I’ve been at school, so I feel so out of touch with current events. I feel I’d be interested in anything he’d talk about.”

Really? Wow.

Remember, she's just a freshman. She has a lot of growing up to do.

But it’s not all about party spirit, Carville said.

Democrats need to bring their causes together and work for them actively, he said. For example, the political consultant suggested taking the specific issue of racial affirmative action and helping those of all races with income-based affirmative action.

If Democrats try to single out every issue, they’re back to litany, Carville said. He also said Democrats just can’t say “no” to causes from gay rights to abortion to the poor.

“Sometimes the problem with being a Democrat is being a Democrat,” he said.

And sometimes the Ragin' Cajun makes sense.

I know it's rare, kind of like the appearance of Haley's Comet. That's why I feel it's worth noting this once, maybe twice, in a lifetime occurrence.

Carville is bright enough to realize that there is a fundamental problem with being a Democrat.

Being a Dem demands that one kow-tows to special interests and radical extremists. It's a difficult position to be in if one hopes to appeal to Red State America and win a national election.

Carville is correct.

Democrats need to change if they hope to regain power.

At present, the Dems are tangled in a web of "Kumbayah crap" that's stickier than the Oval Office back when Clinton was president.