James “The Ragin’ Cajun” Carville is America’s best-known political consultant.
His long list of electoral successes evidences a knack for steering overlooked campaigns to unexpected landslide victories and for re-making political underdogs into upset winners.
His winning streak began in 1986, when he managed the gubernatorial victory of Robert Casey in Pennsylvania. In 1987, Carville helped guide Wallace Wilkinson to the governor’s seat in Kentucky. Carville continued his winning streak in New Jersey when he helped Frank Lautenberg get elected to the U.S. Senate. He next managed the successful 1990 gubernatorial campaign of Georgia’s Lieutenant Governor Zell Miller, including a tough primary win over Atlanta mayor Andrew Young. Then, in 1991, Carville—who had already become prominent in political circles—drew national attention when he led Senator Harris Wofford from forty points behind in the polls to an upset landslide victory over former Pennsylvania Governor and U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh. But, his most prominent victory was in 1992 when he helped William Jefferson Clinton win the Presidency. In recent years, Carville has focused his strategic thinking on guiding international campaigns—reaching more than 23 countries around the globe.
James Carville is also a best-selling author, actor, producer, talk-show host, podcaster and speaker. His titles include It’s The Middle Class Stupid!; All’s Fair: Love, War, and Running for President (with wife Mary Matalin); We’re Right, They’re Wrong: A Handbook for Spirited Progressives; And the Horse He Rode In On: The People vs. Kenneth Starr; Buck Up, Suck Up… and Come Back When You Foul Up; Had Enough? A Handbook for Fighting Back; Stickin’: The Case for Loyalty; his children’s book, Lu and the Swamp Ghost; and 2006’s Take It Back, 40 More Years: How the Democrats will Rule the Next Generation; Love & War: Twenty Years, Three Presidents, Two Daughters and One Louisiana Home; We’re Still Right, l They’re Still Wrong: The Democrats’ Case for 2016. Carville is currently co-hosting Politics War Room, a weekly podcast, with revered journalist and long time friend, Al Hunt.
Along with pollster Stanley Greenberg, Carville founded Democracy Corps, an independent, non-profit polling organization dedicated to making government more responsive to the American people.
Carville returned to his home state of Louisiana in 2008, where he is now a prominent advocate for the city of New Orleans.
