It’s the Winning, Stupid

James Carville: “The party is desperately praying for a candidate to pull it out of the woods, and bring the rest of the country along with us. We are going to need everyone. Politics is about power, and winning elections is simple addition. To win this election we need to bring along as many supporters as possible from all corners — suburban women, those who voted for Barack Obama or Mr Trump, people of colour, you name it.”

“We win all these voters by being relevant; we win by running on real issues we know we can deliver on. We win by contrasting ourselves with the highly unpopular policies of the Trump administration. That’s how we cleaned up in 2018. We don’t win running on mile-high fantasies that are likely to lose swing states and unlikely ever to pass through Congress. And if we lose those swing states, we also don’t win back the Senate, condemning us to four more years of majority leader Mitch McConnell. Do you know what the US Supreme Court will look like in 2024 if we have that?”

“So we’ve got a choice to make. Do we want to be an ideological cult that alienates large swaths of America? Or does the Democratic party seek majoritarian dominance?”