Taught how to hawk a product by his beloved mother, James Carville has spent his entire career being a salesman for the American Dream. And the new documentary Carville: Winning is Everything, Stupid is a snapshot of the work, conviction, and personality necessary to be successful at that relentless job.
Set during 2023 and 2024, director Matt Tyrnauer’s documentary lionizes its subject, not only for his triumphs for the Democratic Party but also for his prescience about Joe Biden’s age, which no one listened to for a full year until the disastrous June 27 debate proved Carville right, and everyone else wrong. Celebrating him as an old-school firebrand who knows how to proselytize and strategize as well as anyone in the modern political business, it’s a non-fiction affirmation of Carville’s belief that you can’t affect change without power, and you can’t attain power without winning.
Its title a riff on his famous slogan for Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign—“It’s the Economy, Stupid”—Carville: Winning is Everything, Stupid (Oct. 5, on CNN) is both a fond look back at Carville’s life and a real-time portrait of his continuing efforts to make his voice heard, and to combat Donald Trump’s quest to re-seize the White House. As timely as it can be given those constraints (its action ends with Biden’s calamitous debate and, in headlines, Kamala Harris replacing him on the ticket), Tyrnauer’s film finds Carville as feisty, committed, and quick-witted as ever.
Clearly, he’s lost none of his ability to distill complex ideas into easily digested (and incendiary) soundbites, and to say what many are thinking but are too afraid to utter out loud, from his claim that the Democratic Party has become overtaken by “preachy females,” to his criticism of the woke left (“These people are annoying, silly, and most people don’t even know what they’re talking about”), to his assessment of Alabama’s Republican senator Tommy Tuberville as “a colossal fool” and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson as “a human piece of shit.”
Bill Clinton and James Carville
CNN
Carville is hailed as “the smartest son of a bitch who’s ever done this for a living” by his long-time friend and colleague Paul Begala, and as a “two-fisted shit-catcher” by his wife Mary Matalin, his adversary in the political arena—famously, she’s a high-powered Republican consultant—and his partner in life.
As genuine as he comes across in speaking engagements and media appearances, where his folksy straight-shooting is always on entertaining display, Carville is a true believer, driven by a desire to improve the lots of all Americans, and his marriage to Matalin is proof that his mission need not be stymied by engaging with those across the aisle. Their union is a striking example of a less polarized America where individuals could fight about issues without demonizing and alienating one another, although Matalin is quick to point out that “we do not have bipartisan civility, we have marital civility, we have bipartisan cacophony.”
Carville is dubbed “relentlessly authentic” by his spouse and that shines through in Carville: Winning is Everything, Stupid, whether he’s chatting on MSNBC, decrying Democrats for not being “huckster enough,” or praising his native New Orleans’ beignets as “a sign of an advanced civilization” whereas a “donut is a sign of a fat cop.”
The man’s enthusiasm and passion are infectious, and posited as outgrowths of his upbringing in a tiny Louisiana town that was named Carville thanks to his postmaster grandfather. Having grown up poor and then struggled to make a name for himself as a consultant—he didn’t visit Washington until he was 33, manage a campaign until he was 38, and win an election until he was 42—Carville is a salt-of-the-Earth type who can relate to vast swaths of the public, who respond to both his no-holds-barred manner and his zealous belief that the system can do right, and better, by everyone. As former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile says, “He talks like he’s a real person because he interacts with real people.”
Carville: Winning is Everything, Stupid’s praise is hampered by a lack of opposing viewpoints on Carville, whom everyone involved—including Bill Clinton, George Stephanopoulos, and Sidney Blumenthal—applauds as a smart, likable, and ardent trailblazer. Nonetheless, via Carville’s prophetic warnings about Biden’s health and the damage it could do to his re-election crusade, the film demonstrates that he’s still intensely keen, and that his commentary is to be ignored at one’s own peril. For months on end, Carville proves to be one of the sole prominent Democrats willing to sound the alarm about polls showing Biden trailing Trump by multiple percentage points, and to blame those bad numbers on a combination of the commander-in-chief’s physical and mental condition as well as a growing progressive caucus that “cares more about changing dictionaries than changing lives.”
The documentary weds juicy soundbites to behind-the-scenes glimpses of Carville’s everyday life at home with Matalin and traveling around the country to push his message. Getting exercise by running in hotel hallways (which, given his pace, is more like vigorous walking), visiting a local coffee shop in New Orleans—a city he loves because, among other things, they respect the elderly—or taking his dog for a walk, Carville is himself at all times. Director Tyrnauer doesn’t have to strain to capture the essence of the political consultant because he’s exactly as he advertises himself—thus putting the lie to past suggestions that he and Matalin were merely a performative act designed to enhance their profile and fatten their wallets.
Whether the Democrats’ decision to replace Biden with Harris was the correct move won’t be known until November. Yet Carville: Winning is Everything, Stupid illustrates that the famous consultant’s compatriots (and adversaries) would be foolish to dismiss him, considering that despite his own advancing age—and inability to tour the nation he loves as he once did—he remains sharp, savvy, and comfortable doing the dirty work and taking the heat if it means moving his cause forward. In an increasingly bifurcated America, he’s a partisan who consistently puts country ahead of party.
