James Carville - Buck Up, Suck Up . . . and Come Back When You Foul Up: 12 Winning Secrets from the War Room

Also by James Carville

S TICKIN : T HE C ASE FOR L OYALTY

A ND THE H ORSE H E R ODE IN O N

W ERE R IGHT , T HEYRE W RONG

A LLS F AIR (with Mary Matalin)

Also by Paul Begala

I S O UR C HILDREN L EARNING? : T HE C ASE A GAINST
G EORGE W. B USH

James Carville & Paul Begala

Buck Up, Suck Up and Come Back When You Foul Up

12 WINNING SECRETS FROM THE WAR ROOM

SIMON & SCHUSTER

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Copyright 2002 by James Carville and Paul Begala

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For John and Willie:
Had we but world enough and time

Paul

For Miz Nippy, 19182001

James

So many people helped to make this book come about not the least of whom are the many political candidates who gave us their trust and confidence over the years. We learned from every one of them, and we hope their wisdom is adequately reflected here.

Paul would especially like to thank his mother and stepfather, Peggy and Jerry Howard, who loaned him their computer and splashed in the pool with his kids so that he could work on this project. Pauls in-laws, Jean and Dean Friday, also contributed their laptop and their baby-sitting services. Pauls dad, David Begala, offered sage advice and sanity-saving fishing trips, and his sister, Kathleen, was his consigliere, cheerleader and favorite sister.

Both James and Paul particularly want to recognize the many contributions of Dalit Toledano, who painstakingly researched, fact-checked and edited this little tome. Dalit proved yet again that she is as talented as she is decent and shes the most decent person we know.

Dave McNeely of the Austin American-Statesman and Beverly Reeves and Amy Todd of the Austin law firm of Vinson and Elkins provided hard-to-find research on a long-ago Texas scandal that provides a powerful lesson for today. Keith Mason was a helpful resource on politics in general and Georgia in particular. Bob Barnett, aided by Kathleen Ryan, proved to be both an able attorney and a good friend. David Rosenthal and Geoff Kloske of Simon & Schuster had endless faith and a surprisingly deep reservoir of patience for this project, for which were grateful. Those whom we contacted to assist in this book, from Tim Russert to Tom DeLay to Hillary Rodham Clinton, were unstinting in their generosity. Jamess old pal Gus Weill of Baton Rouge was a wealth of wisdom. And our dear friend Mark Weiner was and is a real winner.

Above all, Paul would like to thank Dianefor giving him all the things that matter in life, especially the four things that make it worth living: John, Billy, Charlie and Patrick. Paul would have dedicated this book to Diane, as he did his last one, but his whole life is dedicated to her anyway.

And James would like to thank Mary, Matty and Emma for everything.

T HIS book wont change your life.

If you buy this book and read it, you will not make $1 millionat least not because you bought this book. This aint the New Testament or the Tibetan Book of the Dead or the Talmud or the Koran. Buying it wont cause the Today show to do a one-hour special on you, and the opposite sex (or the same sex if thats what floats your boat) will not suddenly find you irresistible.

Heres what youll get: good, sound advice on how to win. Youll get techniques and tactics that are battle-tested and proven in the white-hot crucible of politics.

In writing this book, weve learned a lot. As intuitive, trust-your-gut political strategists, were a far cry from the political philosophers or political scientists who have dissected political strategy in scholarly texts. Nor are we corporate turnaround artists, self-help gurus, motivational speakers, retired CEOs or former coaches. All of them have written books that offer unique insights into the game of life as played on their turf.

But our turf is different. American politics at the dawn of the twenty-first century is a brutal, bloody, winner-take-all game. As it should be. The stakes in political combat are not multibillion-dollar mergers or championship rings. Those things are nice, and were sure theyre important to the folks who have a stake in them. But America and the world will not long remember or care whether Ford or GM had the bestselling family minivan, much less whether the Lakers can three-peat or Tiger Woods shanks a drive.

There are no higher stakes than determining who runs the only superpower on Gods earth. Politics matters. It determines in large measure whether the Dow Jones Industrial Average goes up or down. It determines whether unemployment goes up or down. Whether the welfare rate and the crime rate and the prime rate go up or down whether America itself goes up or down. Politics, as John F. Kennedy Jr. used to say, is the only game for grown-ups and too important to be left to the politicians.

And the best thing about American politics is that, on Election Day, you matter more than all the special-interest groups and all the pundits and all the corporations. Because with your vote you decide the fate and future of the greatest nation in human history. Thats why, while we never take ourselves seriously, we always took our work in political campaigns very seriously. Candidates have entrusted us with their lifes dream, with their fondest hopes, their deepest ambitions, their darkest secrets.

The two of us combined represent nearly a half-century of involvement in politics. From local judicial races to the presidency, weve won some, weve lost some and weve blown some. And along the way weve learned a lot. A Carville-Begala campagin had certain attributes, some of them accidental, but most of them intentional, that reflected our approach to our craft.

We believe our approach is different from most of what youd find in corporate life for one very simple reason: in business a 49 percent market share means youre rich. In campaigns it means youre through. In our business there is only absolute victory and abject defeatand both your victories and your defeats are played out on the front page of newspapers. That kind of zero-sum game, with those kinds of stakes, sharpens your approach.

Will political lessons translate to your corporate culture, your life, your work, your country? Youll have to judge for yourself. But we think so, and heres why: Having run campaigns on three continents and in too many states to mention, we recognize how very different each unique set of circumstances is. So weve tried to focus these rules on the eternal verities, on the stuff that works anywhere.