Top 55 James Carville Quotes

Words matter. These are the best James Carville Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.

I tell my students that the single most powerful thing

I tell my students that the single most powerful thing that we have in this country – something that literally harbors no dissent and no questioning – is the all-powerful elite narrative.
James Carville
I think Ralph Nader is the biggest liar in American politics when he said it didn’t matter who was president.
James Carville
When one has retired from the ranks of American domestic political consulting, as I have, you are not really allowed to just quit. You become emeritus, of counsel, senior status, and God knows what.
James Carville
Bill Clinton is a person who causes a lot of passion both ways about people, and there’s certainly a lot of turmoil if you look back at the eight years. But there was a lot of good, too.
James Carville
I think that America will not trust a party to defend America that isn’t willing to defend itself.
James Carville
Politics is a rough and tumble business, and yet there seems to be an effort by the commentariat to sanitise American politics to some type of high-level Victorian debating society.
James Carville
I was against gay marriage until I realized I didn’t have to get one.
James Carville
We don’t know each other. Democrats don’t know Republicans, Republicans don’t know Democrats.
James Carville
The case could be made that Rick Perry is the worst debater to ever run for president.
James Carville
I have always respected how Bobby Bowden would go out and challenge any opponent, and he produced some legendary games against the University of Miami and Notre Dame.
James Carville
Ideologies aren’t all that important. What’s important is psychology.
James Carville
The 1980 Republican presidential contest might have been as good a roster of candidates as ever fielded by any party.
James Carville
Punditry is like weather forecasting: the winds can shift without warning. I remember when nobody would bet a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder that Bill Clinton would win the White House.
James Carville
I like being on the side of healthcare consumer.
James Carville
My populism doesn’t extend to my choice of hotels.
James Carville
My mother, Ms. Nippy Carville, was a woman of many talents.
James Carville
Democrats cluster in cities, and Republicans don’t.
James Carville
Right-wingers don’t want public education to succeed.
James Carville
When George W. Bush was president, his daddy was raising money for the Bush library. I thought that was fine. When Bob Dole was Majority Leader, Elizabeth Dole was the president of American Red Cross. I didn’t say anything.
James Carville
I knew that manual labor wasn’t the career for me.
James Carville
As with mosquitoes, horseflies, and most bloodsucking parasites, Kenneth Starr was spawned in stagnant water.
James Carville
Mitt Romney is to presidential campaigns as the Delta House grade point average was to Faber College – the worst in history.
James Carville
If you want to be angry at Gore, be angry at him for not fighting harder in Florida.
James Carville
Democratic strategists and operatives should not design a strategy based off today’s conditions. They should be setting a strategy for where the trajectory of polling is headed.
James Carville
My high school job was putting insulation in attics – in Louisiana in the summer. It must have been 95 degrees every day, and the insulation used to get all over me. It was not fun. But I didn’t know any different. It wasn’t like I was spending summers on Cape Cod.
James Carville
But I’d rather not predict. I’d rather affect.
James Carville
When you dehumanize a group, there’s lasting consequences because they know that they’re being dehumanized.
James Carville
I have people ask me if I’m going to convince my daughters to be Democrats, and I say, ‘I have yet to convince my daughters to close a door.’ I don’t how in the world I would ever convince them to be in a political affiliation.
James Carville
I love young people. I identify with them. It never was a goal of mine to grow up.
James Carville
Over the course of history, governments, political regimes, and leaders have done some stupid things despite all arguments to the contrary, at times even against their own self-interest.
James Carville
Most of the stuff I’ve ever said is pretty insignificant and, by and large, has been said off the cuff and without much thought to the potential consequences.
James Carville
Momentum has always counted for something, not everythi

Momentum has always counted for something, not everything, but it’s always perceived as being something that matters in American politics.
James Carville
The only thing I’m running for is the state line.
James Carville
When you run for president, and become president, they just rip you apart. Every facade of privacy that you have is gone. I think everybody believes that, to some extent, you can maintain privacy. And I think in the end, everybody gets proven wrong.
James Carville
My dad was actually a college boxer at L.S.U. and a good one, too. He was the captain of the boxing team.
James Carville
It is undeniably the duty of the opposition party to field a credible slate of candidates for the nation’s highest office.
James Carville
Politics is a messy business, but campaigning prepares you for governing. It prepares you to get hit, stand strong, and, if necessary, hit back.
James Carville
You know there’s nothing a Hill Democrat would rather do than criticize another Democrat. It is their favorite activity. Then they can read about how honorable they are in an Op-Ed piece, how bipartisan.
James Carville
I always find it offensive when people say God showers riches on you if you’re good.
James Carville
I’ve had enough of giving millionaires like Dick Cheney and myself tax breaks and giving America’s kids a mountain of debt.
James Carville
It is literally painful to watch Rick Perry as a candidate.
James Carville
I point out the Democratic party won two world wars and beat the depression, cut out the poverty by two thirds, and was responsible for the same sustained prosperity that we’ve had in the United States. What the hell do we have to apologize for?
James Carville
You have to have sharp elbows if you want to change something.
James Carville
I grew up in a French-dominated Catholic part of the country. I was an altar boy. I went to Catholic school. I have a cousin who is a priest – it’s part of my DNA. It’s kind of hard to separate me from the church, to try to say where one starts and the other stops.
James Carville
The American psyche has not recovered, and likely will not ever fully recover, from the profound and relentless incompetence of George W. Bush’s disastrous, multitrillion-dollar war.
James Carville
I’m not sure the people who are voting for Trump want to be pulled together with the people who are voting for Clinton and vice versa.
James Carville
Drag a $100 bill through a trailer camp and there’s no telling what you will find.
James Carville
I have always loved the college atmosphere – sometimes too much, which is why I spent so long at LSU.
James Carville
Honestly, I enjoy nothing more than two Republicans going after each other.
James Carville
To be a contrarian, you’ve got to be a contrarian against your own people.
James Carville
As Mike Tyson says, everybody has a plan until they get hit in the mouth. The one thing we know about American presidential politics is you’re going to get hit in the mouth.
James Carville
Cajuns eat Italian on Sundays.
James Carville
Some comments are within bounds, while some are not. But by whining about every little barb, candidates are trying to win the election through a war of staff resignation attrition, and Americans are losing the ability to distinguish between what is fair game and what is not.
James Carville
In 1992, the most treasured voter was a voter that would sort of swing back and forth, one that might vote for Republican for president, Democrat for governor. The voter that didn’t have that strong of a partisan ID. These were the voters that we targeted.
James Carville
The thing I love about politics and sports is that there is an end goal – winning – and there are indeed winners and losers.
James Carville