COVER FEATURE
2004 REALTORS® Conference & Expo Orlando
Friday, Nov. 5 through Monday, Nov. 8
Keynote: Reconcilable differences
Online Exclusive Complete Interview with Mary Matalin and James Carville
BY BARBARA BALLINGER
Mary Matalin and James Carville may be best known for their different political views, but they’re in total agreement about the joys of owning a home in the Old Town neighborhood of Alexandria, Va., just outside Washington, D.C. Matalin, 51, who formerly served as assistant to President George W. Bush and counselor to Vice President Dick Cheney, even dreams of a post-campaign life as a real-estate investor. Prior to joining the White House, Matalin hosted CNN’s “Crossfire.” Her most recent book is Letters to my Daughters (Simon & Schuster, 2004). Carville, 60, is best known as the chief campaign strategist for Clinton/Gore in 1992. Together the couple co-authored All’s Fair: Love, War and Running for President (Simon & Schuster, 1995). They spoke separately with REALTOR® Magazine on politics, marriage, and parenting. Here are their edited responses to our questions.
Q: You spoke at the REALTORS® Conference back in 1998—a different world. What’s the essence of your message this time around?
Matalin: That this is the most critical election of our lifetimes. Policy matters now and into the future. We’re in the midst of a global transformation on every issue that affects our daily living. We need to put in place new 21st century strategies since this is a different economy and world than the one we grew up in. The changes didn’t happen overnight—though the transformation of our national security policy did happen almost overnight.
Carville: I want everyone who comes to the convention to have a good time. I always have—and since it will take place right after the election, we’ll probably focus on that. It’s a big elephant in the room.
Q: What advice would you give to others who work together or are married and don’t see eye-to-eye?
Matalin: Respect your partner and define what success is for you. If it’s to persuade or convert the other, you’re going to live in perpetual frustration. I don’t try to change his views. We agreed to disagree. We have different circles of friends. Last night I was with some political girlfriends from the campaign. We don’t make the other person fit into our world. We also put politics into perspective. Some people can’t do that. One factor that’s helped us is that we married when we were older, and were older when we had children. We wake up every morning and feel blessed.
Carville: I’ve employed three strategies to succeed: Retreat, capitulate, and surrender. Also, whatever she says goes.
Q: Do you try to avoid political issues on the home front and at social gatherings—or is it too tempting to bring them up, especially before the election?
Matalin: It’s easy not to talk politics at home because in the 11 years we’ve been married we haven’t persuaded the other on anything, so we don’t try. I think he’s wrong, but he’s not dumb. I base my opinions on facts and empirical data; he looks at data differently. He’s often said, “Figures lie, and liars figure. But talking politics can be a problem in our world since it’s has become so brutal, polarizing, and personal. In the 20 years I’ve been in this town—from the Reagan years to the Poppy Bush years, you could have friends on the other side, but it’s become harder to do at social gatherings because there’s this huge elephant in the room. This was true in the Clinton years, too.
Carville: Sometimes something comes up so we talk politics at home and sometimes we don’t. It’s not like, “Oh, my goodness, I can’t bring it up.” But you also learn. We’ll be married 11 years this Thanksgiving. One of the great secrets of this political business is that you can take anything and make it come out any way you want it to.
Q: How do you end a discussion that gets heated, and what advice can you share?
Matalin: Don’t start that discussion. It’s easy to know—you can tell almost instantly—if you’re hitting someone’s hot button. If you don’t want to have an extended confrontation, don’t. Of course, some people like to engage. I like to do radio shows with callers from around the country to hear people’s opinions.
Carville: I recommend what any good doctor does: prevention rather than a cure. Try not to let a discussion get heated in the first place.
Q: What’s the reason for the 11-year-success of your marriage, and the most important thing you learned from one another? Also, do you mind this question being asked repeatedly?
Matalin: The reason keeps changing because we keep learning. But the central, pivotal motivation once you have kids is that the older the children get the more they pick up on everything.
Carville: I honestly believe this, and maybe I’m a Pollyanna, but we just love each other, and I certainly can’t imagine being without her. Like anybody we’ve had our icy spots. But we’re public people so I don’t mind being asked such questions as long as they’re not too personal. I view myself as a national park: Use me but do not abuse me. We’re also fortunate to each have a separate room and bathroom; not everybody can afford that.
Q: Is there anything you agree on politically? And any advice you’re giving your candidate that you’d share?
Matalin: We agree on the idea of a debate. It’s a big, hard, strong, vocal debate but not a polarizing, personal one. We agree on the importance of participating in the political process. We agree on the idea of majority rule and minority protection. We’re both put off by cynics and elitists.
Carville: I think we also agree that we’re not in favor of term limits, we’re not that far off on gay issues, and I lean against the death penalty and think Mary does, too. Our distinctions are mostly about economic issues.
Q: Any guesses you’d like to make on how the upcoming Presidential election will turn out?
Matalin: I don’t know. Everything that’s been said hasn’t come to pass. In the past we had a template to measure campaign progress—where a race is, where job approval is, etc. But this election is about events beyond the campaign and our current reservoir of information. Every day we learn more about the threat to our country and how we should try to thwart it. It’s an evolving process. As a strategist, not a partisan, I have concern over the uncertainty about terrorism. I don’t think the numbers represent a disapproval of Bush but rather anxiety about the situation and how we should go forward. I think you can equate this election to a diagnosis of cancer. We’re all still wondering, why me? Why us? We’ve got to get past that and deal with it rather than wish we didn’t have to. It’s not going to go away.
Carville: I think Kerry will win, and the election won’t be particularly close.
Q: How do you balance work and family?
Matalin: Sometimes well and sometimes not so well. But I decided, over the long haul, you can’t set aside quality time for your kids. They can’t be shoehorned into a specific period. Where their heads are is where their heads are going to be. The girls are already freaking out about the campaign. I try to put it in perspective. We’re here all summer. We don’t have a babysitter. They travel with us. Yesterday, we went to lunch and just sat there, and there was a comfortable silence. James and I try to set dates for time together.
Carville: With great difficulty and not with success all the time. Sometimes we’re on the road for too long. The girls don’t complain, but if they do they probably do more to Mary. They’ve been pretty adaptable and understand what their folks do.
Q: Do you think the press has been fair with coverage of the movie “Fahrenheit 9/11”—and what about all the stories of media bias?
Matalin: If you’re a conservative you accept as reality that the majority of the press by its own definition is liberal. The biggest newspapers like The New York Times are liberal. So you keep finding other ways to penetrate public opinion, which is why I like radio and TV. The data seems to suggest that if people don’t like Bush, they like the movie, so I don’t think it’s really had much effect. I don’t want to see it since I don’t like things where facts are manipulated. It’s based on a ridiculous premise that Bush is corrupt and a liar.
Carville: I think the proof is in the box office for such movies and the proof is in advertising rates for radio shows. I saw the movie and found parts of it very powerful, especially the end. I did not go with my wife.
Q: How would you each describe the other and what makes the other successful as a political consultant?
Matalin: What makes him a successful person is his unquestioned loyalty. He’s a fighter to the end as he showed in his defense of President Clinton regarding Monica Lewinsky. What makes him a brilliant consultant is his creativity, bursts of clarity, innovative thinking. He’s a breakaway genius. He’s never been boring in 11 years of marriage.
Carville: I’ve got this real, real, real respect for her and her political talents. She’s got the heart and soul of a fighter. I’ve noticed over the years that her political edges have gotten sharper; she’s more adept with a scalpel and machete. She’s also got a gift for knowing what she can change, and she doesn’t worry about what she can’t. She’s very, very good at what she does.
Q: What’s the secret of being a good communicator with clients and colleagues?
Matalin: Know your objective. That sounds obvious, but people forget and lose sight of it. If you have a message to deliver, be sure you’re clear about it, that it’s relevant, and that you stay on target with that message in your work.
Carville: To succeed as a political communicator you take what you know and multiply it by subtraction, or in other words, the less you say the more you say. And the more you say the same thing the more profound people think you are. You pretty much repeat the same message.
Q: And the secret of being a good entrepreneur and enjoying your work?
Matalin: I don’t function well in a traditional, structured environment. I’m not good about going to an office. I went to the White House and was honored by the work and loved my bosses, but I find it hard to function in structure. I like to have flexibility, not because of my kids but because when I’m creative, I want to be creative—and that may be at 5 a.m.
Carville: I enjoy my work, but I wouldn’t say I’m a good entrepreneur. I like what I do and make no bones about it. I love campaigns and politicians and think I work in a noble, honorable profession, though I’d never want to hold public office. I love being a political hack and the secret to doing anything well is that if you love what you do and love the people you work with you’re fortunate. I’m fortunate.
Q: What’s the hardest part of raising two young daughters, who are sometimes in the spotlight?
Matalin: Being in the spotlight isn’t hard. What’s hard is their exposure to the world as it is. You can’t turn off the TV. The world we’re involved in—our friends—leads to an expansive understanding of current events, which is good and bad. At 6 and 9 years, our daughters wonder, why don’t we pray for Saddam Hussein?
Carville: It’s not hard. I’ve got the best of everything: the best wife in the world, the best daughters, the best family back in Louisiana. But I get upset if someone isn’t nice to my daughters; it rips me apart. The most difficult thing is to see when they’re hurt and inevitably that happens. I’m not the sternest disciplinarian. I used to see parents feeding their kids Chicken McNuggets and hear kids screaming. I’d be mildly critical to myself but no longer am. I’ve been very humbled being a parent. I’ve also become a better negotiator by having children.
Q: Is the escalating price of houses a big topic of conversation among your friends? And do you put any stock in the bubbles theories now circulating?
Matalin: Yes, it’s a big topic, particularly as part of Bush’s agenda to help more people become homeowners. Homeownership is at an all-time high and typically a family’s greatest source of wealth. Because of lower interest rates, more are acquiring that wealth, which brings with it stability. If the economy keeps expanding—July numbers not withstanding, which I think reflect seasonal figures—people will keep moving toward ownership. I don’t see a collapse. There was maybe a mini-slowdown in D.C. in the 1990s. I bought high and sold low when we married. One thing I want to do after this campaign is get into real estate—maybe buy and flip, though my problem probably would be that I’d want to move into each house I fixed up. I’m fascinated by the industry.
Carville: Yes, people talk about real estate prices, especially if someone in the office is thinking about moving to D.C. You’ll hear how awfully high the prices are. But unless I moved from Washington, D.C., back to Baton Rouge I don’t think I’d be able to put money in my pocket. More important I hope never to move again, though I hope my house appreciates.
Q: Knowing that you’re talking to a group that believes in real property ownership, what’s your view on homeownership and the movement to increase the U.S rate?
Matalin: I like the concept of ownership; it’s very progressive. I grew up as a liberal and went to college at Western Illinois University in Macomb, Ill. I was writing a paper and one of the things I did was look at the Great Society programs. The one that seemed counterproductive was the idea of public housing projects. I found there was an incentive to take better care of your home if you owned it and that translated to other aspects of your life, such as insurance and retirement savings. So the importance of homeownership changed my political views and made me a conservative. My parents scraped together funds so I could live in a house rather than in a dorm. As a 20-year-old I was pruning trees and cleaning my house. It’s irrefutable that you take better care of things that are yours. Similarly you’re less responsible toward someone else’s property. Nobody washes a rental car.
Carville: I think homeownership is fine; my mother sold residential real estate. But I don’t think prices will go up forever.
Q: In your experience what value does the real estate practitioner bring to the transaction, and did you have a good experience when you bought your current home?
Matalin: She’s still one of our best friends. They bring so much to the process—they’re almost like a midwife since buying a home is such a huge emotional commitment, not just an investment but it’s that, too. I’ve gotten emotionally attached to each home we owned. We bought our farm before the kids and thought it would be great to get away, but we never did get away with them. So we reconfigured our thinking to live near D.C. in Virginia since we didn’t want to expose them to crime on Capitol Hill. We moved about one-and-a-half years ago to another house in our area, and our current house is almost perfect. James has his own room and bathroom.
Carville: If you do something every day of your life, you know more about it, are better at it, and can answer more questions about it. If you do it on your own, you don’t have all that experience behind you. I wouldn’t let my internist do my root canal, for example. I want the person doing my root canal to be doing it every day. If all you do is help people buy and sell real estate, you’ll be better at it. I like where I live because I don’t like traffic. I’m six blocks from my office and 10 minutes from the airport, and I’ve got all the stuff I need in Old Town. It takes me only 15 minutes to get to the Capitol, though I don’t go to the Hill that much. It may not be for everyone else, but it’s great for us and our kids.
Q: What would each of you like this group to know about you, which we don’t know and which you’ll share?
Matalin: That our primary life is our family life. The last book I wrote was about our daughters and parenting. That’s where my head is now. I’ll always have a passion for politics, but things change. We don’t feel defined by our work. Hanging out with the girls and going to movies with them is the most fun thing we do.
Carville: I like to spend one-on-one time with my daughters since it’s good for them and they like the attention. The oldest likes to go to seafood restaurants in the area, and the younger one likes to hang out at my office and answer the phone. It’s special since 90 percent of the time we’re all together. Also, I’m signing up to teach a course at Northern Virginia Community College about political affairs. Community colleges are the real future of America. I’d like people who think Mary is so outgoing and social to know that it has to be something really big and important to pull her away from our house. She loves it there.
Carville and Matalin speak at the REALTORS® General Session Nov. 6, 4 p.m.
