James Carville Quotes (50 Quotes)


    They seem to be getting it together. How much damage will the picture of people spending four or five days on rooftops do That depends on how well it goes from here on out.

    If you want to be angry at Gore, be angry at him for not fighting harder in Florida.

    Ideologies aren't all that important. What's important is psychology.

    Bob is really getting a bum rap on this one. ... Bob is really a sweet old man who is kind of having a really tough day. I don't think he meant any harm or ill will towards anybody. I think he is just miss-understood.



    When you become famous, being famous becomes your profession.

    As a result of that forgiveness, I will never criticize or attack any of your past actions or remarks concerning matters of race relations or civil rights. Remember senator, we all make errors. Committing errors is not a tragedy, but failing to learn from them is a great one.

    I used to think if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or a .400 baseball hitter. But now I want to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.

    I think Ralph Nader is the biggest liar in American politics when he said it didn't matter who was president.

    I think that America will not trust a party to defend America that isn't willing to defend itself.

    Conceding that the bar is really high ... We're not here to make a good movie We want to do something better than that. . . . And it ain't like we don't have a good cast.

    We should not run away from religious teachings. We should run to them.

    Sometimes the right thing gets done for the wrong reason and sometimes, unfortunately, the wrong thing gets done for the right reason.

    This show will be another opportunity for me to engage in the back-and-forth debates on sports that, until now, Luke and I have limited to the stadium.

    I will not be intimidated by Ken Starr, I will not be intimidated by Newt Gingrich and I will not be intimidated by House Democratic staffers who don't know any better when I do things that are designed to get Democrats to vote,

    It was kind of like having a dream You're riding a wagon down a hill and all of a sudden you're in a swimming pool, asking, 'How'd I get here'

    If you didn't have some sense of idealism, then what is there to sustain you?

    As with mosquitoes, horseflies, and most bloodsucking parasites, Kenneth Starr was spawned in stagnant water.

    I think the Democratic Party has the chronic problem of appearing to be weak, of not standing and fighting for what it believes in, not fighting for its own.

    There's a 30 chance that Gore loses the popular vote and wins the electoral vote.

    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.

    Drag a $100 bill through a trailer camp and there's no telling what you will find.

    We learned from that one, ... When something like this happens, you got to get out in front of it. When we had our first disaster, the floods in Iowa in 1993, Clinton was right there, saying 'I feel your pain.'

    It's unbelievable what LSU football does to the psychology of the state. If they play well on the 24th, it'll go a long, long way toward building back the morale of the people.

    No one will ever accuse James Carville of taking himself seriously.

    Anybody who can't understand what football means to us doesn't understand what the heck goes on down there.


    Maybe it comes back stronger. No one forgot how to play the saxophone or how to cook or write. Or have a good time. That's all still there. Calamities and disasters are part of New Orleans' history. This too shall pass.

    Don't get mad. Don't get even. Just get elected, then get even.

    You have to have sharp elbows if you want to change something.

    It makes sense, because if he appears with Gore, it just sucks all the air out of everything it's all people want to talk about. . . . Gore is in a tight, tight, tight race, and he's got to make his case himself.

    The real trick with any 61-year-old dealing with any 16-year-old is to get them to listen to a word you say. I'm remarkably unsuccessful with my own.

    The American people are going to be ready for an era of realism. Theyve seen the consequences of having too many big ideas.

    It's a feel-good story, this Romney thing. Republican governor, Democratic Legislature. Romney is an ascendant guy.


    if the coming word in American politics was neo-isolationism. Somebody in one of these parties is going to run on this platform.


    He's got to show the right-wingers that he's got backbone. Go ahead, the Wall Street Journal editorial page is watching. Show them you're tough.

    When your opponent is drowning, throw the son of a bitch an anvil.

    The law says that the court should appoint someone who does the job quickly and stays with it 'til it's done, ... It's a political process going here, this is not rooted in anything in the law. This is a Republican effort to harass the president, the first lady and their friends.

    If we think about it, in terms of racial and ethnic strife or things, if we don't forgive, we'll just stay the same. If we don't forgive people, we can never make any progress.

    The president's many visits to the Gulf Coast seem to have shored up, at least somewhat, his eroded standing. In the NEWSWEEK Poll, his job-approval rating inched up two points, to a still-dismal 40 percent. But, safely back in the White House, he now has to deal with another disaster area Republican Washington. The list of official inquiries is long and growing, involving issues ranging from arguably excusable bureaucratic mismanagement to insider trading to allegations of lawbreaking that potentially lead to the highest levels of the White House staff. Look, the Democrats' numbers are just as low as the Republicans' are, ... People see a lot of this stuff just as 'more Washington.' But the danger for Republicans and for Bush is that there are too many things they can't controland the odds are that all of them aren't going to work out in their favor.

    It's action-oriented, ... I hope Alan Webb can keep up with me.

    At a gut level, we know something's wrong. Instead of arguing about it, let's figure out what to do.

    Every day Catholics prove that you can be a good Catholic and a good Democrat and have a different position from the Church on abortion.

    We want people of every political party to come because we want this to be a unifying thing. The Gulf Coast Relief Run will provide an opportunity for area friends and neighbors to come together to support their fellow Americans suffering across the Gulf Coast.

    The teachings of the Church line up more with the Democratic Party than the Republican Party.

    I ran races a long time ago. I won't be going for time. My philosophy is to start slow and taper.

    I was against gay marriage until I realized I didn't have to get one.

    We are in the midst of one of the biggest stories of our time. Every day brings countless more tragic and heartbreaking stories out of the ravaged Gulf Coast.


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