Carville to discuss loyalty to Clinton in appearance

  UCLA Performing Arts Political strategist James
Carville, known for making political underdogs into
winners, will speak at at 7 p.m. Oct. 15 at Royce Hall.

By Megan Dickerson
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

Call the Virginia office of America’s most famous
political consultant, and you’ll hear dogs. Not just any
dogs, mind you ““ the two canines that roam Carville’s
farmhouse-based international consulting firm are rambunctious,
purebred King Charles spaniels, with silky fur and well-groomed
coats.

Anyone familiar with James Carville, the down-home,
quick-talking Louisianan who gained national attention as manager
of Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential race and appears at Royce
Hall this Sunday, might half expect him to own earthy bloodhounds
or Southern mixed-bloods, animals with bites just as powerful as
their barks. But Carville’s genteel spaniels, though loud
enough to intercept a phone call, are no such animals. Neither, for
that matter, is Carville.

When Carville brings his no-holds-barred, kick-in-the-pants
style of political debate to Royce Hall, he’ll come armed
with a sharp take on American politics and a strong stand on
loyalty that would make man’s best friend proud.

Which is not to say that Carville, a self-described
“ham” known for sandwiching Cajun recipes between
scathing criticisms of the political right, is all political bottom
line.

“I like to have fun,” said Carville in a phone
interview, squeezed in between meeting clients and retrieving his
daughter from a friend’s house. “My first desire for my
audiences is for them to walk out and say “˜I had a good
time’ than for somebody to say, “˜Yeah, I picked
something up.'”

The author of “Stickin’: The Case for
Loyalty,” Carville has spent ten years immersed in the stoic
Brutus mentality of Washington, D.C. He, like his good friend Bill
Clinton, also knows what it’s like to get called a few
unsavory names by Republicans and Democrats alike. Serpenthead.
Presidential Doberman. Clown.

And all this was before he decided to stick by Bill Clinton in
the face of the 1998 Monica Lewinsky scandal.

“My take on it was that it’s just a grown man acting
stupid with a young woman,” Carville says of Clinton’s
interaction with the intern Monica Lewinsky. “I’m not
going to fall out with anybody over it.”

When the scandal broke in January of 1998, Carville was set to
appear on Larry King Live the next day. For a man used to winning
without the other side ever realizing there was a contest, spinning
a political conflict like this was no new challenge. Here, however,
Carville found himself stuck between two worlds: political and
personal. As Carville got a little drunk as the night progressed,
he considered how Clinton hired then-unknown Carville to head his
1992 campaign. Years before, Carville literally hung out in the
gutters of Washington, D.C., 41 years old, jobless and wondering
whether his decision to leave an admittedly “mediocre”
law practice had been a big mistake.

Clinton stuck by Carville, so Carville stuck by Clinton. Some
things, even in politics, are pretty easy.

Carville went on to write four books, gain fame as one of the
main subjects of D.A. Pennebaker’s documentary “The War
Room,” and marry the equally savvy Republican political
consultant Mary Matalin, who ran George Bush’s 1992 campaign.
He and Matalin have capitalized on their “opposites
attract” union, appearing in several American Express ads and
even a Heineken endorsement.

On a more political front, Carville now works with friend and
colleague Stan Greenberg to run campaigns for candidates such as
Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and Ernesto Zedillo, the leader
of the PRI party in Mexico.

As he explains in his book, his brand of loyalty in both
national and international races is certainly not blind. This is
not dog-like obedience, which in the political world can border on
sycophancy. This is the thinking man’s loyalty, led by the
gut but tempered by a strong moral base.

This take makes sense for someone raised in Louisiana, a state
known as much for its unique Cajun food as its widespread political
corruption. Carville grew up in the small town of Carville,
Louisiana, the oldest of eight children. His mother, nicknamed Miss
Nippy, sold encyclopedias to put her kids through college. By
sticking up for her family with a feistiness Carville says he can
only imitate, Miss Nippy subtly embedded feelings of loyalty and
morality in her son.

“All the people that I knew that had character never
talked about it,” Carville said of his Louisiana upbringing.
“Now people go around saying “˜I have character.’
And almost the assertion that you have character is proof positive
that you don’t.”

In an election fueled by issues of character, Carville is quick
to call all four candidates in the November race good family men
““ though he stresses that fatherhood is no qualification to
be president.

“It’s okay to have a picture with your kids and
Fido, you know what I mean?” Carville said. “Dance with
your wife, you know?”

Carville is more often than not prone to folky, somewhat bizarre
sayings that might knit their way out of a feisty Louisiana
grandma. Louisiana, for instance, is a “naughty girlfriend
““ you just can’t stay away from her, though she
disappoints you from time to time.”

Yet he still stands by the state that bred him, gave him his
melodic Southern accent and unrelenting wit. His two daughters,
Matty and Emma, love visiting the large brood of cousins that still
live in the sultry Southern state. And as if an entire chapter on
family in “Stickin'” wasn’t enough,
Carville includes a picture of a recent family reunion on the back
dust jacket. You might falter in your support of your country,
politics or even friends, he says, but you never turn your back on
your family.

“I do believe that I’ve got a bit of the Corleone in
me,” Carville says. “Family loyalty is a very high form
of loyalty. But it’s also a form of loyalty that’s
instinctive.”

There are a lot of reasons why Carville stayed loyal to Bill
Clinton as the tide turned against his good friend and former
employer. Most of the reasons are pretty convincing, much like
Carville himself. But in Louisiana, friend is family, and family,
friend. You stick with your allies, Carville says, and stick it to
your enemies.

“Depending on where you come from, there’s
x-bagillion years of biology involved in that sort of visceral,
almost primordial love,” Carville said.

Carville writes in his book of how one such enemy, Newt
Gingrich, divorced his wife as she battled uterine cancer.
Carville, by word and action, is not that kind of man. After wife
Mary Matalin suffered a miscarriage in 1994, Carville took time off
to help her recuperate. Thinking a “lapdog” would cheer
her up, as the New York Times reported, Carville bought his wife
two spaniels, the same spaniels that now share his political and
personal life.

Six years later, man, wife, kids and dogs live on a working
farm, complete with rural animals and the occasional American
Express photo shoot.

Some loyalties are easy to define, even in a place like
Washington.

SPEAKER: James Carville will deliver a speech on “American
Politics” this Sunday at 7 p.m. Tickets are $8 for students
with ID. Call the CTO at (310) 825-2101 or visit the Performing
Arts Web site at http://www.performingarts.ucla.edu
for tickets or information.