Pundit and former Bill Clinton campaign strategist James Carville was on The View Tuesday morning to promote his new book, It’s The Middle Class, Stupid. And, like every guest tangentially connected to the election, he was asked to handicap the race. He neatly sidestepped making any explicit predictions, emphasizing instead that both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney need to focus on issues concerning the middle class in their campaigns. He said the American middle class is akin to “somebody that had pneumonia that got hit by a truck,” and although he made several smart points all I could think of for most of the segment was how unbelievably perfect Bill Hader’s Carville impression is.
One person who seemed a bit dissatisfied by Carville’s advice was Barbara Walters, who interrupted his suggestion for a congressional commission on the middle class with an incredulous “Another commission?,” pressing for more specificity in Carville’s characterization of the middle class. The audience seemed on board, however, applauding vigorously when Carville called for solutions to make health care and education more affordable, and to shore up America’s manufacturing industry to return to “a nation that makes things as opposed to a nation that buys things.”
“It’s the economy, stupid.” Remind me why should we care about this book? Remember the last one?
40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation by James Carville May 5, 2009
Then came the midterm election of 2010.
Possibly the worst political prognosticator ever.
Mitt Romney and Barack Obama as well as all of their Republican and Democrat allies exist to destroy the middle class. It is the destruction of the middle class that will give the elites the most power.
“We need solutions to health care and education costs!!!” APPLAUSE, APPLAUSE, APPLAUSE . . . .
Should’ve just said, “Puppies are cute, and I think that Hilter had bad judgment!!!” APPLAUSE, APPLAUSE, APPLAUSE.
Thanks for the substance, Jimmy.
Because until the Obama team came on the scene, James Carville ran the most impressive presidential campaign in modern American history. He’s a brilliant strategist.
That said…it’s adorable how you think one mid-term election negates a claim about the next 40 years. Especially given the fact that the 2010 mid-terms will prove to be the death blow of the Republican party. The…most…important…thing…the 2010 elections have done is they’ve resulted in Republicans showing their *ss. It’s exposed their complete inability to govern. And entire year of campaigning on and promising “Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!” And what are Republicans working on right now? ANOTHER abortion bill. And ANOTHER completely useless and symbolic vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Looking forward to “possibly the worst political prognosticator ever” running another winning Clinton campaign in 2016.
The “truck” that hit the middle class was NAFTA.
Dozens of plants were closed in America during this great recession but not one closed in Mexico.
Republicans, big corporations, and “not so bright” Clinton gave us NAFTA.
Dozens of plants were closed in America during this great recession but not one closed in Mexico.
Republicans, big corporations, and “not so bright” Clinton gave us NAFTA.
Walmartization of America is another “truck”. Walmart pushed their vendors to cut their price every year and specifically suggest to use China mfg to get the price down – like a flushing toilet spiraling downward.
Bush incredulously promoted out-sourcing. (True story) While in India (some nuclear treaty) in Feb, 2006 Bush said clearly to an Indian audience “out-sourcing is perfectly OK” WOW?! My own president said that?! WOW?! The Indian audience was at first stunned then cheered wildly. Bush literally forgot where he was.
Obama is actually trying to promote jobs for the middle class but the tea-party Repubs are repeatedly blocking that. But that job stimulus bill was a stinker – mostly about more tax cuts for the rich and unemployment extensions and only $100 billion for actual jobs.
Obama was driving!!!
The…most…important…thing…the 2008 election has done is show America how Democrats can implement Socialism in this country when given majorities.
You must be so bitter. If it hadn’t been for the liberal media refusing to cover the John Edwards affair, you could have had your dream candidate (Hillary Clinton) in 2008.
Note: 30 June 2012, Stephen Moore, Senior Economics Writer with the Wall Street Journal: 75% OF OBAMACARE COSTS WILL FALL ON BACKS OF THOSE MAKING LESS THAN $120K A YEAR – “It’s a big punch in the stomach to middle class families. In 2016, an estimated 4 MILLION Americans will have to pay the mandate OBOZOTAX.” Moore’s analysis has been confirmed by the Congressional Budget Office.
Derp-derp-derp SOCIALISM derp-derp-derp LIBRUL MEDIA Derp
Income inequality not seen since just before the CRASH of 1929 and you’re stupid enough to use the word socialism.
Record corporate profits and you’re stupid enough to use the word socialism.
I do feel for you, though. That Right Wing Media mind control is powerful stuff, indeed.
Agreed. On all points.
Hey. Any idea where Obama parks his Time Machine?
No, actually. It hasn’t been confirmed by the Congressional Budget Office.
First…it’s 73%. Second…it’s 73% of the PEOPLE effected by the individual mandate penalty (tax…whatever) will be in the “middle class”. BUT…the actual FORTY-SIX percent of the tax dollars collected will come from the “middle class.”
AND…that’s just the individual mandate penalty. That doesn’t take into consideration the .9% tax on those making over $200,000 per year.
Dude. Grab a clue. They’re free.
After the show went to break, Carvell screamed “My precious!!!” and scampered off the stage.
That truck that devestated the middle class was driven by the GOP and right wingers.
I am still waiting for the Socialism to kick in.
Unless you are talking about the whole Social Media thing….is that what conservatives think socialism is?
No doubt BaBa is disturbed because she thinks Barry Kardashian has done such a great job.
Well, but what do you expect businesses that are the most heavily taxed in the world to do? Their bottom line is profit, not charity. Businesses don’t employ people out of good will. I like unions but some are out of control and have priced their workers out of the market. Eliminating corporate political donations would help although lobbies would figure out some way to continue what amounts to institutionalized and legal corruption. I wonder how many people world wide American businesses employ and what the percentage was 30 years ago and before? How has that impacted the U.S. economy. Hell, we might have 6 GDP if all those jobs were here.
What percentage of GM does the gov’t own? 25%? They just opened a plant in Uzbekistan – 6000 workers. Why aren’t we shipping those cars out? Afghanistan. So our gov’t used their pull within an American company to bribe a country so we could send transports into Afghanistan because of problems with Pakistan.
“Their bottom line is profit, not charity. Businesses don’t employ people out of good will.” is the reason against having tax cuts for the rich “job creators” – they are rich for a reason and being a nice guy sure ain’t one of them. No matter how many tax cuts you give the rich (in the face of a full-fledged financial crisis) they will offshore in second to save money.
Whether America is the “most heavily taxed in the world” is a debatable but highly complex discussion involving all the deductions, tax breaks, and parking the profit until some Republican president comes along and lets them repatriate it for almost free (Dubya let corporations do that at 5% tax (“most heavily taxed”- right) with the promise of more jobs – result was billons repatriated with wave of layoffs right afterward). Not worth getting into especially when the counter-argument are simply sound-bites from Rush or foxnews.
Henry Ford had a novel idea that misses most rich CEOs. Ford paid his employees a good wage so that they could “afford” to buy his cars. You don’t have to be a brain surgeon to understand this concept.
NAFTA, Walmart, etc. are using the “reverse blueprint” for the middle class. I’m sure alot of CEOs really believe they will sneak the mfg offshore and let someone else worry about the middle class affording them. We are all part of the problem – not “it’s all the Democrats fault! or it’s all the Republicans fault!”. Ethics is not taught in MBA programs.
NAFTA, Walmart, etc. are using the “reverse blueprint” for the middle class. I’m sure alot of CEOs really believe they will sneak the mfg offshore and let someone else worry about the middle class affording them. We are all part of the problem – not “it’s all the Democrats fault! or it’s all the Republicans fault!”. Ethics is not taught in MBA programs.
So Obama is trying to in-source jobs to America and all the tea-party does is whine that he is a marxist, communist, socialist, blah, blah, blah. In-sourcing – now there was a concept that was totally foreign to Dubya
See my answer above.
Hey sommerday. If it’s so easy, go start a business, then you can hire anyone you want and pay them anything you want. 3.5 years under this administration, the first 2 with complete control of Congress and things are terrible. At what point in time does the President admit and you accept the facst that his policies are hurting this country.
Not Socialism? What other president enacted Czars?
Barry was the wheel-man in that crime. When did he become part of the GOP
The habit of using “czar” to refer to an administration official dates back at least to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, but the real heyday of the czar came during President George W. Bush’s administration.
Source Article from http://www.mediaite.com/tv/james-carville-book-the-view/
