Tipsheet

James Carville Crashes the Kamala Harris Coronation Celebration

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  July 27, 2024 6:30 AM

Vice President Kamala Harris has solved the fundraising issues for Democrats, raking in over $250 million within days. There’s new energy among voter groups where Joe Biden was dangerously underwater. The president was heading for a drumming in November, which is why he decided to drop out on July 21. Biden’s disastrous June 27 debate with Donald Trump, where he got boat raced, was determined to be an election-killing event.

Yet, Despite the open secret that not many Democrats like her, they’re rushing to unite behind her. The Obamas were reticent in handing out their endorsement until the New York Post had a damning piece about Barack Obama having the same reservations about Biden and Harris: he thinks they can’t win. Obama wasn’t going to sit out this election, but with this development, the short time frame to get things going, and heading off a potential GOP attack at the pass, Obama relented and endorsed the California leftist. There needs to be unity after a brutal behind-the-scenes effort to push Joe out. 

Yet, CNN’s Harry Enten noted that while Harris does poll better with younger voters, blacks and Hispanics, she’s not doing all that much better against Trump which is a primary argument for pro-Biden supporters regarding this switcheroo. 

Democratic strategist James Carville, a supporter of dumping Biden, also threw cold water on the Harris candidacy, adding that the “giddy elation” needs to stop. The Republicans will quickly retool as the Democrats cobble together a whole new campaign. He issued this dire warning to MSNBC’s Ari Melber (via RealClearPolitics):

 Well, I hate to do this, but I got to be the curmudgeon. I have to be the skunk at the garden party. This is too triumphalist, OK? This is everybody's giddy. I look at the coverage, and it's great. If I had to write a play about what I think it's going to be like, it would be entitled, "The Icepick Cometh." OK?

 Get ready. They're coming. All right? And it's good. Everybody should feel good and liberated and everything else. But if we don't win the election, we haven't done anything. We haven't changed the temperature in America. We haven't changed anything. 

And I think the vice president, I hope that her campaign is getting ready. I hope they listen to my friend and fellow New Orleanian, Donna Brazile, who actually, I think, has the same kind of view of politics that I do. And they're coming at us. And they're going to keep coming. And this kind of giddy elation is not going to be very helpful much longer, because that's not what we're going to be faced with. And I think the vice president, put it in athletic terms, needs a really good cutman in a corner, because she's getting ready to get cut. 

That's the bite...

It's still the same country, right? It might be a different mood. And all I'm saying is, you know, good to, you know, bang your helmets against the locker. That's fine. But you still, when you go out there, you're facing Alabama. And just get ready, because these Republicans – you're right. They got caught off guard. But they're going to get their sea legs. And we're having to get a campaign – a whole campaign started and stuff. 

And all I'm doing is saying, watch out, people. Don't get too far out there. If we don't win this, all this good feeling is going to evaporate and be all for naught. And that's just kind of what I think my role is right now. 

Carville has been talking sense about the state of the party and how it’s become too snobby, condescending, and preachy. This is also why Democrats ignore him—he says things that make them uncomfortable.

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Last Note: Also, this whole 'she's a black woman and that means the community will fall in line' narrative could get Democrats in trouble, too: