Carville: Winning Is Everything, Stupid

This is a solid documentary about one of America's foremost political strategists. The film has an excellent balance between the story of Carville's life, his zest for the craft of political advising, and the things in his life that are worth winning for. Tonnes of archival footage is spliced between commentary from friends, his family and the people James worked with, as well as his own thoughts on all of the above. The director presents the subject "head on", with Carville's long history in, and major impact on, politics culminating in the struggle for the Democratic party to replace Biden for the 2024 election. The editing and scoring are top notch, and support a story that's worth watching for a wide range of viewers. Even if you disagree with Carville's politics, this documentary is a window into a master class on winning campaigns, and life.

Carville is a very documentary worthy person, by all means. CNN is not the right choice. CNN lost me back during the Clinton impeachment follies with their nakedly partisan nonsense, of course only after the advertisements were played out. I have not watched CNN since those days. It is filled with dubious persons and in my view barely qualifies as a news organization. All of that dazzling mediocrity is on display in this tedious, jumping around video grab bag of interviews and hacked together scenes. Why would Carville agree to do this? Fame is hard to resist perhaps, perhaps it is vanity. CNN does vanity as poorly as it does all else. So I am not sure why he would agree to this childish and shallow experiment in documenting one of the most interesting and formidable democratic political operatives in recent memory. PS, it did not help that they kept dragging micro-person George Stephenouhalis around on the scree. Never watch him either. Ever. Loose loose.

The subtitle of this documentary is "It's About Winning, Stupid!", a paraphrase of his famous line "It's the Economy, Stupid!" which became a tag for the Bill Clinton campaign of 1992. But I felt that too much of the doc showed him feeding his dogs, walking his dogs, making lunch, and not enough about how he won campaign victories. The doc should have been more about the "winning" and less of the common domestic chores we all share. Sometimes I felt like the doc seemed like "It's About His Dogs and Luggage, Stupid!" Towards the beginning, we see Bill Clinton about to undergo an interview for the documentary. The first question is "What did you see in James Carville to hire him as your campaign manager?" (paraphrased). Great question, but just before Clinton is about to answer the doc cuts to something else! I really wanted to hear that answer, and it was probably the main reason I wanted to see this documentary! The doc to its discredit never returns to Bill's answer to the question. They return to Bill Clinton only once who answers what seems to be a different question. If that answer was the answer, I missed it. I also wanted to hear much more about Carville's first big success when he helped Bob Casey win the gubernatorial race in Pennsylvania but it was only touched upon. How did he do it, what was his strategy? How did Casey find him? Instead we learn he didn't have enough money to fly to Pennsylvania from New Orleans when he was being considered. But what about details concerning the campaign itself? It then just ran through his later wins without any details. The segment on the Bill Clinton campaign was a bit more fleshed out, showing how he and his team came up with "change or more of the same", "it's the economy, stupid", and "don't forget health care". But again I wanted much more development. I still didn't get a sense of how the campaign used these slogans to turn them into votes. They interviewed some people from the campaign, well and good, but again I needed a lot more about how they did it. Probably the strongest part of the doc concerned Carville beginning to have doubts about Joe Biden's reelection. They have an ongoing timeline from late Spring, about May, 2024, through the horrid debate between Biden and Trump to Biden's resignation from his own reelection. But many other things needed a lot more coverage. Way too much of this doc showed Carville with his dogs, walking around hotels, packing up and walking with his luggage. What about the juicier stuff? They showed some of these things already, and it seems we didn't get to see enough of the material which really matters: how he won these campaigns! There were moments when I started fast-forwarding the mundane stuff, trying to get to the meatier stuff, no pun intended. If it's only an hour, the doc should use screen time for the items which really matter. In my view a missed opportunity that could have been a great documentary but only merely good. It's About the Campaigns, Stupid! No one would care about his dogs or his lunch if he hadn't had a very savvy campaign manager.