CONFERENCE SPEAKERS
James Carville
Media Personality & Political Icon
James "The Ragin' Cajun" Carville is America's best-known political consultant. His long list of electoral successes evidences a knack for steering overlooked campaigns to unexpected landslide victories and for re-making political underdogs into upset winners.
His winning streak began in 1986, when he managed the gubernatorial victory of Robert Casey in Pennsylvania. In 1987, Carville helped guide Wallace Wilkinson to the governor's seat in Kentucky. Carville continued his winning streak with wins in New Jersey with Frank Lautenberg elected to the US Senate. He next managed the successful 1990 gubernatorial campaign of Georgia's Lieutenant Governor Zell Miller, including a tough primary win over Atlanta mayor Andrew Young, and in 1991, Carville-who had already become prominent in political circles-drew national attention when he led Senator Harris Wofford from 40 points behind in the polls to an upset landslide victory over former Pennsylvania Governor and U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh. But his most prominent victory was in 1992 when he helped William Jefferson Clinton win the Presidency.
In recent years, Carville has not been a paid political consultant for any domestic politicians or candidates for office, instead focusing on campaigns in more than 20 countries around the globe, including leading Ehud Barak to victory in his campaign to become the Prime Minister of Israel in 1999.
Carville is also a best-selling author, actor, producer, talk-show host, speaker and restaurateur. His titles include "All's Fair: Love, War, and Running for President" (with wife Mary Matalin); "We're Right, They're Wrong: A Handbook for Spirited Progressives"; "And the Horse He Rode In On: The People vs. Kenneth Starr"; "Buck Up, Suck Up... and Come Back When You Foul Up"; "Had Enough? A Handbook for Fighting Back; Stickin': The Case for Loyalty"; "40 More Years: How the Democrats will Rule the Next Generation" (2009) and the New York Times best seller, "It's the Middle Class, Stupid!" (2012), co-authored with Stan Greenberg. He also authored a children's book entitled "Lu and the Swamp Ghost".
In their second joint memoir," Love and War: Twenty Years, Three Presidents, Two Daughters and One Louisiana Home" (January 2014), Carville and Matalin take a look at how they-and America-have changed in the last two decades. In their two distinct voices, they pick up their story from the end of the 1992 Presidential campaign to their new life in New Orleans today where their efforts to rebuild and promote that city have become a central part of their lives-and a poignant metaphor for moving the nation forward.
Along with pollster Stanley Greenberg, Carville founded Democracy Corps, an independent, non-profit polling organization dedicated to making government more responsive to the American people. Democracy Corps has conducted over 200 national, congressional and local surveys, interviewing over 220,000 American voters during the past 10 years.
Carville was a frequent political commentator and contributor on CNN and now can be seen on other networks worldwide and is a columnist for The Hill newspaper which publishes daily when Congress is in session. He serves as a Professor of Practice at Tulane University in New Orleans, where he lives with his wife Mary Matalin and their two daughters.
