Really. Whose dirty work is being done by Carville? Because what he has been doing this week sure isn’t for the benefit of the Democratic party as a whole. He continued his crusade against Howard Dean yesterday when he appeared on CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer (via Raw Story):
Appearing on CNN’s The Situation Room with host Wolf Blitzer and alongside conservative commentator Bay Buchanan, Democratic political consultant James Carville once again targeted Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean.
Describing a “cult” within the DNC surrounding Dean and his national campaign strategy, Carville continued what has been a steady stream of criticism against the former presidential candidate, often regarded as a populist outsider among “old money” Democrats.
Here’s the video:
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So who is behind Carville’s tirades? The Clintons? Rahm Emanuel? The Democratic Leadership Conference (DLC)? Or is it just a bit of grandstanding by his lonesome, trying to justify the outrageous consulting fees he has charged clients over the past decade for advice on how to lose elections? If he’s not doing it as a lone wolf (which is reprehensible enough), I’d sure like to know who has taken off his leash and told him to attack the best thing to happen to the Democratic Party in my lifetime: Howard Dean as head of the DNC.
Frankly, his campaign to besmirch Dean smells like the type of politics Carville practiced in the mid-90’s when he would go on the air to attack Republican critics of the Clintons. With one exception, of course: this time he is attacking his own party, and in particular the grass roots and net roots activists that ensured that a Democratic victory would be a tidal wave across the entire country and not merely a ripple in a small, DLC managed pond.
In short, Carville is attacking me and you, and everyone else who has taken it upon themselves to participate in the greatest challenge of our times, restoring participatory democracy to the United States of America. Howard Dean is at the forefront of that movement which is why he is in Carville’s target at the moment, but make no mistake, it is the ordinary people who have made it their business to get involved in politics in order to advance a truly progressive, people first politics who Carville sees as his enemy.
So when Carville attacks Dean, just remember he’s really trying to slam the door shut on you, me, and every other person who has dared become active in Democratic and progressive politics over the last 6 years. He wants to keep us on the outside, looking in at all the fat cats and DLC consultants divvying up the government pie for their benefit and at our expense. He wants to destroy the hard earned respect and influence our movement has earned.
That is his real agenda. And that is why his attacks on Howard Dean are so despicable.
Democratic Leadership Conference