This is CBS. I am the world. I'm John Batchel. I welcome my colleague Peter Berkowitz of the Hoover

Institution, writing at Real Clear Politics, about two vivid and sensationally successful personalities.

One on the left and the other one works for the left. We'll begin with James Carvel, the tactician for election time, a man who speaks extremely cleverly.

And you will recall that he emerged from the PAC with Bill Clinton's first term because of a phrase that he used again and again to explain the success of Mr.

Clinton's campaign against a sitting president.

It was, it's the economy stupid.

Well, it's the economy stupid is an accurate description of how the American people vote.

We vote our pocketbook.

But, Peter, a very good evening to you. Mr. Carville, writing an essay about the shortfall of the Democratic vote in 2024.

He believes the economy is still the story, the only story that matters, and that the Democratic Party and in particular its leading candidate,

the vice president, did not convey that opinion adequately and that the Democratic Party

needs to reorganize itself and go back to the lesson that he taught in 1992. You do not entirely

agree with that. Why not, Peter? Good evening, Peter. Good evening, John.

No, I do not entirely agree with it, or really hardly at all. So Carville's view, which expressed

in this guest essay that appeared in the New York Times, his opinion is, as you said, that it was, it is, it always will be the economy stupid.

And his analysis actually is superior to that, which you heard from many people on the left to

explain Trump's victory. That is that Trump won because the American people or a majority

are too racist or sexist to elect an African-American woman.

Carville says it was the economy, and in fact, inflation was a leading issue.

However, Carville's argument is that it wasn't really the economy.

It was people's perceptions of the economy.

And so what the Democrats really have to get right is not how they govern.

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