Irregular Books

I’ve had enough of Had Enough? by James Carville

When I saw the glossy cover of Had Enough? A Handbook for Fighting Back, I was hooked. James Carville stands against a white background in a black t-shirt, arms folded, bandaged, with a black eye and looking seriously miffed. Next to his shaved head are the words “Had Enough? A Handbook for Fighting Back.”

Great, I thought, Carville will share his years of accumulated wisdom with us, telling us how to go about fighting for the progressive ideals so many of us believe in. How do you get noticed? When should you raise a ruckus, and when does quiet persistence pay off? How do you win a debate? How do you get your policy priorities enacted when you’re not in control of government? These are all strategic questions that have a great deal of importance in the Bush era. And strategic, tactical, practical direction is what typically makes up something called a “handbook.” This is what I looked forward to finding in the pages of Carville’s “handbook.”

But, with the exception of seven pages (16-19 and 293-295) out of three hundred and six pages, that’s not what I got. Instead, I got five pages of folksy-seeming recipes to bolster Carville’s bona fides as an outside-the-beltway kind of guy, and a few hundred pages pages of Carville telling me what policy positions I and other progressives like me needed to take on the issues in order to win.

This was depressing on two counts. First of all, most people who pick up a a book with a title like “Had Enough? A Handbook for Fighting Back” have already made their own commitments to policy priorities, since you’ve first got to choose a side in order to fight back against the other side. I already know what I believe, thank you very much. I don’t need yet another pundit telling me what to think, or even suggesting that I need to sacrifice my ideals to the altar of Victory. By doing just that, Carville shows his true colors as just another inside-the-beltway talking head with disdain for the capacity and idealism of those outside the beltway.

Carville’s dictating approach is distrustful of what we liberals love: diversity and pluralism. Instead of being so sure that he is right and the rest of us are ignorant and in need of schooling on his Party Line, why doesn’t he trust his readers’ ability to identify their own set of ideals that — gasp — just might differ from his own? If he’d have respected me as an ordinary citizen, he’d have known that I don’t need his advice on what to think. I need his professional help as a campaigner when it comes to DOING — when it comes to taking action. Rather than tell us what cookie to push, he might have better spent his time doing what a good handbook does: telling us how the cookies of our own choosing are best pushed.

Second, by making the assertion that progressives need to change the content of their ideas, Carville falls right into the trap of the Republicans, who love to “helpfully” say that the Democrats need to change what they believe in in order to win. The trap in this is twofold: it results in Democrats engaging in self-examination and internal debate rather than critique of the Republicans. At the same time, it communicates a wobbly lack of confidence in progressive Democrats in their own beliefs. The Republicans love this, because it saves them from getting a stinging rebuke and it reinforces the notion that Democrats need to reinvent themselves.

When Carville wants to share his considerable experience as an organizer and strategist, I’ll be happy to read another of his books. Until then, I’ll listen to my Great Auntie Gertie’s dinnertime sermons when I need to be told what to think.