One of the most enduring songs from the 1957 Broadway musical, "The Music Man" is named "Trouble"
Trouble, oh we got trouble,
Right here in River City!
With a capital "T"
That rhymes with "P"
And that stands for Pool
Yesterday the Democrats had trouble with a capital "T" that rhymes with "C" and that stands for Carville.
As in James. As in my former back-door neighbor. As in husband to Mullfave Mary Matalin.
The James wrote an essay for CNN in which he stated it was time for President Obama to panic. I am not paraphrasing. He wrote that after thinking about the drubbing Obama and his fellow Democrats got in two special Congressional elections - one in Nevada and one in New York City, he wrote:
"What should the White House do now? One word came to mind: Panic."
The election win in Nevada would not normally have raised any eyebrows because it was in a Republican district. But the winner, former State Sen. Mark Amode1 won by a much larger margin than Sen. John McCain won that district in the Presidential election of 2008.
This is called "over performing."
That wasn't the big news. The big news was not just that the Congressional seat formerly held by Anthony "Not Sure If That's a Photo of my Tighty-Whiteys or Not" Weiner was won by a Republican for the first time in 90 years; it was that the Republican won easily and that the heavily orthodox Jewish voters in the district went for the Republican.
As Larry Sabato, University of Virginia professor of political science, correctly Tweeted after the results of the NY-9 special became obvious, it is dangerous to use special elections or polls as predictors of future events.
I replied, via Twitter, "Yes, but in both specials and polls it's better to come in first than to come in last."
In a segment on John King's CNN show last night, Carville and Democratic pollster Cornell Belcher got into it when Belcher pointed out that as bad as President Obama's poll numbers are, the Congress' numbers are worse.
James retorted, "But they keep electing Republicans!
James suggested the President fire people who aren't doing the