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For decades, Democrats have clung to James Carville’s mantra: “It’s the economy, stupid.” It became the default excuse for every campaign message, every strategy and every setback.
We need to retire that phrase from our political lexicon.
My fellow Democrats forget that Carville’s first rule on his whiteboard in Little Rock wasn’t the economy, stupid. It was “Change vs. more of the same.” Voters still want change — not numbers, not excuses. And if President Donald Trump offers change while Democrats defend the system as it is, Democrats will lose.
Today, my party is jumping onto a shiny substitute considered to be the winning message that unites all — “affordability” — as if the idea that lower prices are better than higher ones is a revelation. Has a candidate ever campaigned on the reverse?
Democratic strategist James Carville is famous for his economic advice, but that no longer applies if the party wants to win. (PBS)
During the Biden administration, consumer costs inflated on our watch, but now we are asking midterm voters to give us the keys back to the car anyway.
When is my party going to learn that politics is about culture and connection, not charts and spreadsheets? It’s about being relevant to the lives of ordinary people, not proving to them that we are right.
Voters aren’t sitting in some academic economics lecture. They don’t care about GDP growth, labor-force participation rates, or the Bureau of Labor Statistics when they feel prices are too high. They don’t want to hear that homicides, robberies and carjackings have decreased according to the latest stats, when they feel unsafe. Sending in the National Guard won’t be a solution to ending crime in our inner cities, but it does make communities feel protected.
Are Democrats so disconnected from reality that we’ve unlearned the most basic political principle of all, that perception and politics go hand-in-glove?
Voters are not looking to be informed by candidates, especially when they sound like human calculators, vomiting out numbers. Being informed isn’t the same as feeling informed and telling voters that how they feel isn’t real, because numbers say otherwise, isn’t a winning message. Shaming Trump voters for their choice last year or lecturing them that this isn’t what they voted for, offends them rather than persuades them. Patronizing voters is not a strategy.
What voters in this midterm election want is some cultural common sense, and to borrow a bullet from the Democratic talking points, Democrats have not been meeting voters where they are — yet.
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Voters want to hear us acknowledge that crime is bad and say we need more cops on the street, but not necessarily troops. They want our candidates to give a straight answer and plainly state that boys shouldn’t compete in girls’ sports as a matter of fairness. It’s okay for Democrats to say they believe in merit-based hiring instead of DEI and box-checking quotas.
Most Americans feel this way — and Democrats lose credibility when they dodge these conversations or give evasive answers.
President Biden stumbles while boarding Air Force One in Montgomery, Alabama on Sunday, March 5, 2023. (Fox News)
Democrats avoid going where the news and conversations are happening. Our leaders and candidates too often duck and cover. When issues turn culturally sensitive, they play hide and seek. We need to run straight into the culture war fires, not away from them. Those are the conversations voters are having and we need to join them.
My old boss, President Joe Biden, learned this lesson the hard way. Biden’s presidency illustrates this danger for Democrats on the ballot everywhere in 2026. At the very moments when Americans were craving leadership — like a national debate over college campus unrest and violent antisemitism — Biden was absent. Scranton Joe, who built his career on a chip-on-the-shoulder authenticity that connected with ordinary people, became the first non-Ivy League president in decades. Yet, he was silent when he could have drawn the sharpest contrast from the elites.
Voters are seen at a polling station on November 5, 2024, in Orlando, Florida. (Photo by Paul Hennessy/Anadolu via Getty Images)
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Biden told Americans the economy was the envy of the world, and then his Baghdad Bobs in the White House told us he was as sharp as ever. Polls said Americans felt otherwise, still his instinct was to retreat further. Voters saw fewer unscripted moments, such as interviews or news conferences, smaller steps off Air Force One and a greater reliance on teleprompters. In a political age where imagery shapes public opinion, Biden looked feeble, distant and disconnected. He followed an outdated media strategy that led him into a political death spiral.
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Trump, by contrast, dives headfirst into every news cycle and runs into every cultural fire — from campus protests to celebrity dust-ups like Sydney Sweeney’s jeans or Cracker Barrel’s new logo. He doesn’t hesitate, he doesn’t duck, he doesn’t wait for the perfect poll-tested phrase. Love him or hate him, voters can’t miss that he shows up with an opinion and a position. He doesn’t keep them guessing.
Democrats don’t need to copy Trump’s style. But they do need his guts. If voters are talking about trans athletes, immigration, DEI or crime — and they stay silent or pivot — then they’re absent from the conversations Americans outside the Beltway are having with friends, family and their neighbors. It’s these social conversations that are shaping political identity, not stats and charts.
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Voters will tune out any type of hell Democrats try to raise about prices, tariffs or cuts to Medicare if they think we don’t “get” them on culture.
The way out of the wilderness isn’t another slogan about affordability. It’s courage and common sense. Stop hiding behind statistics. Start running into the fire. Only then will Democrats earn back voters’ trust.