The Skimmer

40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation By James Carville Simon & Schuster; 209 pages

No one does partisanship better than the Ragin' Cajun. In his latest book, the Louisiana-bred campaign strategist, who recently returned to teach political science at Tulane, takes a victory lap celebrating the Democrats' 2008 electoral trifecta. "The myth of Republican competence and fiscal responsibility is shattered," a victim of the strategic and economic missteps of the Bush years, Carville gleefully notes. If Democrats play their cards right, he argues, they can dominate politics for the next four decades. The key? "To rebuild Americans' trust in government as a force of good." His excitability is infectious, if only to those on the same side of the aisle. ("Let's go out and spank the Republicans again and again," he exhorts readers.) Those who tend to agree more with his wife, conservative pundit Mary Matalin, might want to sneak a look too--if just for Carville's reasoned, though perhaps scathing, explanation of how "the demographic foundations of the Republican Party are crumbling." Professor Carville's class is now in session.

READ SKIM [X] TOSS