Take It Back: Our Party, Our Country, Our Future

by James Carville, Paul Begala

By being too timid and too weak, too hesitant and too confused, Democrats have allowed Republicans to run amok. Republicans today control the White House, the Congress, the Supreme Court, the federal bureaucracy, the military, and the corporate special interests and their lobbyists. They operate powerful right-wing organizations, right-wing think tanks, and a conservative media that serves as an attack dog against Democrats. Republicans have used their absolute power to corrupt our democracy, degrade our military, weaken our health care system, diminish our stature in the world, damage our environment, reward the rich, hammer the poor, squeeze the middle class, bankrupt our Treasury, and indenture our children to foreign debt holders. In this important book, James Carville and Paul Begala show Democrats how they can "take it back." They offer a clear-eyed critique of their party's failures and make specific, concrete recommendations on how Democrats can avoid losing elections on divisive issues such as abortion, gun control, gay rights, and moral values and start winning them on health care, political reform, energy, the environment, tax reform, and more. Carville and Begala say that liberal Democrats are right that too many establishment Democrats kowtow to corporate interests and shamefully supported George W. Bush's rush to war. And moderate Democrats are right to complain that too many Democrats are out of step with middle-class values, too removed from people of faith, too enthralled with intellectual and cultural elites. But the problem with the Democrats, Carville and Begala argue, is not ideological. It's anatomical. They lack a backbone. "Take ItBack" is a spinal transplant for Democrats and an audacious battle plan for victory.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction

368 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

James Carville is an former U.S. Marine, political consultant, commentator, actor, media personality and pundit. Known as "the Ragin' Cajun," Carville gained national attention for his work as the lead strategist of the successful presidential campaign of then-Arkansas governor Bill Clinton. Carville was the co-host of CNN's Crossfire until its final broadcast in June 2005. Since its cancellation, he has appeared on CNN's news program, The Situation Room. As of 2006, he hosts a weekly program on XM Radio titled 60/20 Sports with Luke Russert, son of NBC's Tim Russert. He is married to Republican political consultant Mary Matalin.

Reviews

[Mandi Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Back To The Future--A Better One
Written by Mandi Chestler on May 6th, 2007
Book Rating: 5/5
Take It Back charts the way back to a better future for democracy and America. Carville and Begala give practical, can-do advice on how the Democratic Party can actually win elections and get our country back on track. They present their case with wisdom, moderation and humor. The result is a book well worth the listen.

[Dan Myers · Rating 1 out of 5]

I like listening to books-on-tape in the car. This is probably because I’m getting older and can’t stand most of the music played for "kids these days" on the radio. I wouldn’t mind listening to more talk radio if I could find someone who shared my biases. Even that darn NPR is too far to the right for me with its nutty journalistic commitment to "balance." Please! You can’t "balance" the truth with a bunch of lies.

The last couple of weeks I have been making my way through a recorded version of James Carville and Paul Begala’s book, Take it Back. The idea of the book is to call Democrats on the carpet for (1) being wimps that need a backbone transplant, (2) being too darn complicated in their approach to their message, and (3) just generally being intellectually elitist in their attitudes.

That’s a message that the Dems need to be hear, but I’m having trouble getting through the book because its tone is so insufferable. It’s ironic in a way, because despite their attempts to seem all down-homey (the CD starts with some nice banjo playing), they end up being just as condescending as the wimps they’re attacking. It’s also pretty easy to call other people wimps when you don’t have much to lose. And, despite the fact that the most-used phrase in the book is, "It's simple," they end up dealing with an extremely wide array of issues that I can’t even keep track of (we’re talking five full-length CD’s).

In the end, these guys end up proving their own point and demonstrate exactly why liberals can’t make it on the talk radio circuit: They’re boring. There are a lot of ways to be boring including getting into complications and details no one can follow, not giving people a take-home sound bite, and just generally yammering on about things people don’t really care about that much. But these guys' biggest problem is they can't write or tell a joke that's worth a damn.

The "best" one I’ve heard so far: "They [the dems:] are, in our view, like the proverbial blind people examining the donkey...Hey! We're Democrats and we can't very well use an elephant analogy!"

I think if I ever run for president, a good fraction of my campaign budget is going to be used to hire Jay Leno and Jerry Seinfeld to write jokes for me.

[Linda Conley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Got this in my Christmas stocking. I think the giver got it at the dollar store. In a nutshell - what the democrats do wrong. Should be a thicker book. And I'm a dem. Remember to vote!! Make history!

[Angel · Rating 3 out of 5]

See my blog post on it:

http://itinerantlibrarian.blogspot.co...

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

So obvious it hurts, not that it was bad, but that others in the Dem party hadn't been doing what these guys called for.

[Joe Hilley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a good book, even if you don't agree with Carville's point of view. He has some unique insights into American culture and the ways in which we express our views through politics.

[Elizabeth · Rating 1 out of 5]

used audiobook