Elson Lecture Featuring an Evening with James Carville

Online ticket sales close at 5pm EST on the day of the event. Tickets will be available at the door prior to the event start time.

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.

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.

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; and Citizen Jane: Battle for the City.

His latest projects include The Reagans a four-part documentary series for Showtime that re-examines Reagans’ America and the impact of their politics, policies and beliefs on our society today, and the documentary series Home, for Apple. Tyrnauer’s upcoming projects include feature documentaries on chef Nobu Matsuhisa, a series on disgraced crypto king Sam Bankman-Fried, and the dramatic adaptation of Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood with Fox Searchlight, written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg.

As a journalist, Tyrnauer has written for Vanity Fair, where he was editor-at-large and special correspondent. His work has also appeared in other publications including GQ, The New York Times, Architectural Digest, L’Uomo Vogue, and Numero.

Greg Bluestein is the chief political reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where he co-hosts the Politically Georgia podcast and curates the morning newsletter of the same name. An analyst for MS NOW, he is also a frequent guest on local and national television, radio and podcasts. He is the author of Flipped, an award-winning book on Georgia's epic 2020 election, and a recipient of the Toner Prize for excellence in local political reporting. The Society of Professional Journalists named him the South's top political journalist in both 2024 and 2025 — though the title he might be proudest of came from Axios, which called him the "most dedicated" Bulldog fan at the 2023 national championship game. A proud University of Georgia graduate with degrees in journalism and political science, Bluestein is a lifelong Georgian who serves on several metro Atlanta civic, educational and religious boards. He lives in Dunwoody with his wife and two daughters.