Review: 40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation

40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation by James Carville
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This one has some age on it, and the years haven’t treated this book well. I was greatly disappointed. I was expecting, given the title and description, that this would be a cogent book about changes in politics driven by statistical analysis. Kind of like Zogby’s “The Way We’ll Be” with better stories. Something that hints at a major, long lived review of trends that would have implications for decades. And given the author, I expected some good stories, but knew to expect some tilt to the left. This ends up being primarily a diatribe against the Bush White House. Mixed in to the ranting are some statistical forecasts based on, primarily, two data points. Kinda hard to predict with two data points – so this is no science. And most of the diatribe revolves around name calling. The author leads with name calling, and it precedes any attempt at forecast. It became obvious that this is a textbook case of “preaching to the choir”.

I did finish the book. Carville ends the book with his story of surviving the hurricane in New Orleans and his temporary move to Dallas in its aftermath. This last chapter was well reported and with a little less of the bluster of the bulk of the book. That chapter was informative, mostly as an example of the post-Katrina living conditions of displaced New Orleans residents. Overall, though, the book is not something I’d recommend.


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