James Carville on Zell Miller on the Democrats
As a rule, avoid Crossfire. Not much of substance ever comes out of the cross-current debates, and there isn’t a whole lot of surprises that are going to come out of the mouth of Carville, Carlson, Novak, or that other guy. (All apologies to “that other guy”, but I can’t think of his name.)
But, here’s a good exchange from last November anyway, where James Carville does hit on something:
CARLSON: I understand that. But I want to put up, actually, an astute observation about your party from one of its own members, Senator Zell Miller, still a Democrat, of Georgia. Here’s what he wrote yesterday in the “Wall Street Journal”. And I’d be interested to know what you think of this.
And I’m quoting, “I find it hard to believe, but these naive nine” — the nine presidential candidates on your side — “have managed to combine the worst feature of the McGovern campaign — the president is a liar and we must have peace at any cost — with the worst feature of the Mondale campaign — watch your wallet, we’re going to raise your taxes.”
Losers, says Zell Miller. You can’t write him off as a right wing whacko, can you?
….
CARVILLE: Can I put that quote back up there, please? Can we do that? We have the technical ability to put it back up? Because I think there’s something interesting on there.
The McGovern campaign, worst feature, calling Richard Nixon a liar. Now where would someone get that idea from, that Richard Nixon is a liar?
I tell you what, I bet you that Bush has lied more in a month than Nixon lied in his entire lifetime.
JACOBUS: That’s a bet that you’d lose, James.
CARVILLE: Why would anybody get the idea that Dick Nixon was a liar?
……….
Senator Zell Miller, DINO and conservative Democrat (beyond “conservative Democrat”, but never mind) of Georgia, retiring this year. If you look at the AP totals of delegates, you’ll see that “Other” has one delegate pledged to them. This is a “superdelegate” (to give more weight to the insiders after McGovern and Carter, the Democrats vetted the process by giving their Congressional Caucuss votes — so that they could nominate Walter Mondale, I … guess). This is Zell Miller’s vote. He’s voting for George W. Bush in the Democratic Primary.
More on Zell Miller in a later post.