James Carville Paul Begala Popular Books

James Carville Paul Begala Biography & Facts

Chester James Carville Jr. (born October 25, 1944) is an American political consultant, author, and occasional actor who has strategized for candidates for public office in the United States and in at least 23 nations abroad. A Democrat, he is a pundit in U.S. elections who appears frequently on cable news programs, podcasts, and public speeches. Nicknamed the "Ragin' Cajun", Carville gained national attention for his work as a lead strategist in Bill Clinton's winning 1992 Presidential campaign. Carville also had a principal role crafting strategy for three unsuccessful Democratic Party presidential contenders, including Massachusetts Senator John Kerry in 2004, New York Senator Hillary Clinton in 2008, and Colorado Senator Michael Bennet's campaign for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 2020. Early life and education Carville was born on October 25, 1944, at a U.S. Army hospital at Georgia's Fort Benning, where his father was stationed during World War II. His mother, Lucille (née Normand), stayed behind in Carville, Louisiana, where James was raised, but went to Ft. Benning long enough to have her firstborn son. Carville would later note: "We were availing ourselves to free government health services." Lucille Carville, a former school teacher, spoke French at home, and sold the World Book Encyclopedia door-to-door, and his father, Chester James Carville Sr., was a postmaster as well as owner of a general store. Carville, Louisiana, a neighborhood in the city of St. Gabriel, in Iberville Parish, located sixteen miles south of the capital city of Baton Rouge on the Mississippi River, was named after his paternal grandfather, Louis Arthur Carville, who was once the postmaster. Louis Arthur's mother, Octavia Dehon, was of Belgian parentage and had married John Madison Carville, described in a biography as "Irish-born" and a "carpetbagger," both of whom established the general store operated by the family in Carville, in 1882. Carville has seven siblings (Bonnie, Mary Ann, Gail, Pat, Steve, Bill, and Angela.). Among Carville's earliest political campaign work was ripping down the campaign signs of a candidate for public office during his high school years. Carville graduated from Ascension Catholic High School in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, in 1962. He attended Louisiana State University (LSU) from 1962 to 1966, but did not graduate at that time. In a 1994 feature in Newsweek, Carville characterized himself as "something less than an attentive scholar. I had fifty-six hours' worth of Fs before LSU finally threw me out." Carville served a two-year enlistment in the United States Marine Corps, from 1966 to 1968, where he was stationed stateside, at Camp Pendleton in San Diego. He achieved the rank of Corporal. Following the conclusion of his military enlistment, Carville finished his studies at LSU at night, where he earned his Bachelor of Science degree in General Studies in 1970 and his Juris Doctor degree in 1973. Carville is a member of the Sigma Nu fraternity. He later worked as a junior high school science teacher. Before entering politics, Carville worked as an attorney at McKernnan, Beychok, Screen and Pierson, a Baton Rouge law firm, from 1973 to 1979. Political consulting in the United States 1970s to 1990s Carville was trained in consulting by Gus Weill, who in 1958 had opened the first advertising firm that specialized in political campaigns in the state capital in Baton Rouge. East Baton Rouge Parish, 1970s and 1980s In a 2012 piece he wrote for Foreign Affairs, Carville described one of his earliest political jobs distributing "hate sheets" with negative literature on a political opponent at grocery stores on behalf of Ossie Bluege Brown, during Brown's 1972 campaign for district attorney of East Baton Rouge Parish. Two years earlier, Brown had defended Staff Sergeant David Mitchell, the first of 17 soldiers charged in connection with the deaths of villagers during the Mỹ Lai massacre. Brown's tenure as D.A. was marked by his crusades against narcotics and pornography. In 1973, Brown prevented Baton Rouge theaters from showing Bernardo Bertolucci's X-rated film, Last Tango in Paris, In 1979, Brown blocked the showing of the comedy, Monty Python's Life of Brian. Brown asked Baton Rouge magazine distributors not to offer the March 1977 issue of Hustler, which a state court judge in Ohio ruled obscene. In addition to his work as an attorney, in the late 1970s, Carville also worked for Gus Weill & Ray Strother's Weill-Strother, a Baton-Rouge-based political consulting firm that, over the years, had assisted with electoral campaigns and political messaging for Louisiana governors Jimmie Davis, John McKeithen, Edwin Edwards, and U.S. Representative Otto Passman. In the early 1980s, Carville served as executive assistant to East Baton Rouge Parish mayor-president Pat Screen. In early 1985, Carville consulted to help Cathy Long win a special election to central Louisiana's now defunct 8th congressional district, following the death of her husband, Gillis William Long, of Louisiana's Long family political dynasty. Texas senate race, 1984 In 1984, Carville became acquainted with his consulting partner Paul Begala when Carville managed then Texas state legislator Lloyd Doggett's unsuccessful campaign for the open Texas Senate seat. Carville helped Doggett, an unabashed liberal and committed enemy of special interests, secure the Democratic nomination in a primary that included conservative U.S. Representative Kent Hance, and centrist former congressman Bob Krueger. During the primary, Carville borrowed a rubber vertebrae exhibit from a friend who was a personal injury attorney, and coached Doggett on using it as a prop on the stump to attack Krueger as a political flip flopper who lacked resolve and "backbone." During the general election, Doggett's opponent, Phil Gramm, leveraged vicious identity-based attacks on Doggett. On one occasion, Doggett ended up returning small dollar fundraising he received from a gay rights group. Gramm emphasized themes of "family values," including his insistence at a June 1984 prayer breakfast on "having people who believe in Christianity in charge of government," and Carville counter-punched that theme as antisemitic. Doggett was defeated in the general election, polling 2,207,557 votes (41.5 percent), to Gramm's 3,116,348 votes (58.5 percent). Finding himself out of work after the November 1984 defeat, Carville recalled, "I was scared to death, I was 40 years old, and didn't have any health insurance, I didn't have any money, I was mortified." Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, 1986 Carville helped Bob Casey Sr. win election as the 42nd Governor of Pennsylvania in 1986. Casey defeated Philadelphia District Attorney Ed Rendell in the Democratic primary in March, 56.5% to 39.6%. In the general election, Casey's Republican opponent, Lieutenant Governor Bill Scranton, took the lead in the polls after announ.... Discover the James Carville Paul Begala popular books. Find the top 100 most popular James Carville Paul Begala books.