[SOLD OUT] Elson Lecture Featuring an Evening with James Carville

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Join James Carville and director Matt Tyrnauer for a screening of their documentary Carville: Winning is Everything, Stupid. The screening will be followed by a conversation between James and Matt, moderated by Greg Bluestein, chief political reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Carville: Winning is Everything, Stupid chronicles eighteen tumultuous months inside what many consider the most consequential election in U.S. history from the distinctive vantage point of one of the most influential, charismatic, and combative voices in the Democratic Party: James Carville. The film features intimate interviews and verité footage with famed Republican operative—and James’s wife of over 30 years—Mary Matalin. Democratic Party luminaries such as Bill Clinton, George Stephanopoulos, Paul Begala, Donna Brazile and others help trace the story of Carville’s rise from the bayou to the Beltway, culminating in his masterminding of Bill Clinton’s stunning presidential upset in 1992. Carville’s biography is intercut with his present-day efforts to shape the Democratic Party landscape by taking on the ultra-progressive “woke” wing of the party (which he believes subscribes to an election-losing ideology) and to get Joe Biden to step aside—a high-stakes gambit that puts him at odds with the very establishment he helped build.

Interwoven throughout is the unlikely love story of Carville and Matalin—a union that defies political tribalism and offers a glimmer of hope in our highly polarized times.

Their eccentric, endearing, and occasionally hilarious dynamic, captured in intimate moments and conversations, serves as a counterpoint to the gladiatorial nature of modern politics.

The Elson Lectures are made possible with generous funding from Ambassador and Mrs. Edward Elson.

About James Carville

James “The Ragin’ Cajun” Carville is America’s best-known political consultant.

His long list of electoral successes evidences a knack for steering overlooked campaigns to unexpected landslide victories and for re-making political underdogs into upset winners.

His winning streak began in 1986, when he managed the gubernatorial victory of Robert Casey in Pennsylvania. In 1987, Carville helped guide Wallace Wilkinson to the governor’s seat in Kentucky. Carville continued his winning streak in New Jersey when he helped Frank Lautenberg get elected to the U.S. Senate. He next managed the successful 1990 gubernatorial campaign of Georgia’s Lieutenant Governor Zell Miller, including a tough primary win over Atlanta mayor Andrew Young. Then, in 1991, Carville—who had already become prominent in political circles—drew national attention when he led Senator Harris Wofford from forty points behind in the polls to an upset landslide victory over former Pennsylvania Governor and U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh. But, his most prominent victory was in 1992 when he helped William Jefferson Clinton win the Presidency. In recent years, Carville has focused his strategic thinking on guiding international campaigns—reaching more than 23 countries around the globe.

James Carville is also a best-selling author, actor, producer, talk-show host, podcaster and speaker. His titles include It’s The Middle Class Stupid!; All’s Fair: Love, War, and Running for President (with wife Mary Matalin); We’re Right, They’re Wrong: A Handbook for Spirited Progressives; And the Horse He Rode In On: The People vs. Kenneth Starr; Buck Up, Suck Up… and Come Back When You Foul Up; Had Enough? A Handbook for Fighting Back; Stickin’: The Case for Loyalty; his children’s book, Lu and the Swamp Ghost; and 2006’s Take It Back, 40 More Years: How the Democrats will Rule the Next Generation; Love & War: Twenty Years, Three Presidents, Two Daughters and One Louisiana Home; We’re Still Right, They’re Still Wrong: The Democrats’ Case for 2016. Carville is currently co-hosting Politics War Room, a weekly podcast, with revered journalist and long time friend, Al Hunt.

Along with pollster Stanley Greenberg, Carville founded Democracy Corps, an independent, non-profit polling organization dedicated to making government more responsive to the American people.

Carville returned to his home state of Louisiana in 2008, where he is now a prominent advocate for the city of New Orleans.

About the Director

Matt Tyrnauer is an award-winning writer, journalist, and director whose films include Valentino: The Last Emperor, which was short-listed for an Academy Award for best documentary feature; the multi-part, Emmy-nominated series Victoria’s Secret: Angels and Demons, about the man behind the commercial empire; Where’s My Roy Cohn?, about the Svengali behind Joseph McCarthy and Donald Trump; Studio 54, about the famed New York City nightclub that became a cultural phenomenon; Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood, about the secret history of sex in Hollywood in the pre-Stonewall era;…

Community event in Atlanta, Fulton County, GA 30305.