Last month, “Ragin Cajun” James Carville – a 79-year-old Democratic strategist known for his work on former President Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign – told columnist Maureen Dowd of The New York Times that Democrats have a problem with their messaging.
“A suspicion of mine is that there are too many preachy females… ‘Don’t drink beer, don’t watch football, don’t eat hamburgers, this is not good for you,’” he said. “The message is too feminine: ‘Everything you’re doing is destroying the planet. You’ve got to eat your peas.’”
This comment garnered backlash and rebuttal pieces.
“Fellas, just don’t say ‘females,” said Jamil Smith, editor of The Emancipator, in response.
In the interview. Carville also recommended that “Democratic elites” (he used NPR as an example) should focus more on male voters.
“The whole talk is about how women, and women of color, are going to decide this election. I’m like: ‘Well, 48% of the people that vote are males. Do you mind if they have some consideration?” Carville said.
Audacy also reported that Carville quit his job at Louisiana State University because he was “scared to death” of campus culture.
As things sit this week, it seems like the “preachy” approach might be working for the party, if not for President Joe Biden.
Poll results from the Wall Street Journal showed that former President Donald Trump, the presumptive 2024 GOP presidential candidate, had a lead over Democrat incumbent President Joe Biden in six out of seven key swing states. Another poll from Emerson College found that Trump had a slight lead on Biden nationally. A smaller poll from Marquette University showed Biden in the lead, but both indicated that support for the candidates is pretty evenly split.
“When I look at these polling numbers, it’s like walking in on your grandma naked. You can’t get the image out of your mind,” said Carville of Biden’s numbers last month.
According to a Quinnipiac poll from earlier this year, women voters don’t seem to be Biden’s problem. He had support from 58% of women, compared to Trump’s 36%. Trump had more support from men at 53% to Biden’s 42%. Gallup polling from this year also showed that women have been getting more liberal over time, while men’s political leanings have stayed steady.
That follows a trend going back decades.
“In every presidential election since 1996, a majority of women have preferred the Democratic candidate. Moreover, women and men have favored different candidates in presidential elections since 2000, with the exception of 2008 when men were almost equally divided in their preferences for Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain,” said the Center for American Women and Politics. “In 2020, a majority of women favored the Democratic victor, Joe Biden, while a majority of men voted for the Republican candidate, Donald Trump.”
Biden had a steady lead among women voters against Trump in 2020, but not among white women.
Carville’s comments may have also been aimed at “The Squad,” a group of women in Congress known for progressive politics (Newsweek reported that Squad member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, a Democrat from New York, clapped back at Carville after the interview). As for Congressional politicians in the U.S., FiveThirtyEight data updated Saturday indicated that Americans would rather have Democrats in office than Republicans.
Concerning the specific topics Carville mentioned – beer, football, eating meat and climate change – here’s what we found about American opinions.
Per The Washington Post, participation in football has been on the decline following reports of how the sport can lead to health issues such as traumatic brain injury. In 2016, a UMass Lowell Center for Public Opinion poll found that most Americans believe concussions and brain injuries resulting from football were a major problem.
Still, Carville said in February that Biden missed an opportunity by not doing an interview during Super Bowl coverage.
A majority of Americans polled last year by the Pew Research Center also agreed that climate change is causing harm to people in the country. Last spring, a Newsweek poll found that most Americans do in fact like eating meat and that they don’t think it is bad for the climate. However, they do appear to be drinking less beer.
Overall, a Politico Magazine/Ipsos poll from last summer showed that around one in three Americans (31%) do think that the Democratic party is hostile towards masculine values. This broke down to 68% of Republicans, 27% of independents, and 6% of Democrats.
Despite Carville’s critique of Democrats in 2024, he told Dowd that he likes Biden and thinks he has done a good job. Carvile also said there are many talented politicians in the party who aren’t getting media coverage yet, including former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu.