James Carville Called 80% of Democrats Politically Clueless-Unproven!
Summary of eRumor:
Democratic strategist James Carville said that 80% of Democrats are politically clueless and compared them to a “herd of cows.”
The Truth:
There’s no evidence that James Carville said that 80% of Democrats are politically clueless, so we’re reporting this one as unproven.
The quote first surfaced in an undated post at ThinkExist.com. The website allows users to search for quotes that were uploaded by other users by speaker or by topic. Users who upload quotes can provide a source, but the user that uploaded James Carville’s alleged quotes about Democrats being politically clueless didn’t provide a source, and we weren’t able to find any record of Carville saying or writing the statement:
“Ideologies aren’t all that important. What’s important is psychology.
The Democratic constituency is just like a herd of cows. All you have to do is lay out enough silage and they come running. That’s why I became an operative working with Democrats. With Democrats all you have to do is make a lot of noise, lay out the hay, and be ready to use the ole cattle prod in case a few want to bolt the herd.
Eighty percent of the people who call themselves Democrats don’t have a clue as to political reality. What amazes me is that you could take a group of people who are hard workers and convince them that they should support social programs that were the exact opposite of their own personal convictions. Put a little fear here and there and you can get people to vote any way you want.
The voter is basically dumb and lazy. The reason I became a Democratic operative instead of a Republican was because there were more Democrats that didn’t have a clue than there were Republicans.
Truth is relative. Truth is what you can make the voter believe is the truth. If you’re smart enough, truth is what you make the voter think it is. That’s why I’m a Democrat. I can make the Democratic voters think whatever I want them to.”
By September 2012, the quote made its way to an Amazon.com political forum. A user posted the quote under the discussion topic, “Democratic James Carville Says 80% of Democrats are Politically Clueless.” Hundreds of users commented on the discussion thread, but, again, there’s no indication of where the quote came from, or if Carville actually said it.
The quote has been repeated hundreds of thousands of times over the years, but there’s still no clear indication of when James Carville may have said it, or if he said it at all. That’s why we’re classifying this one as unproven.