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Political strategist James Carville, during a stop tonight in Birmingham, poked fun at a few people in the news, but got serious about the tornadoes that ripped through Alabama and the recent flooding that threatens his hometown of New Orleans.

Carville spoke to a crowd at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Birmingham for the A.G. Gaston Boys & Girls Club 44th Anniversary Celebration Dinner.

Carville, known as the “Ragin’ Cajun,” brushed upon a wide range of topics in about a 15-minute speech — from SEC sports (he’s a big LSU fan) to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s marital problems and Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the presidential race.

But Carville also defended the opening of floodgates along the Mississippi to keep water from overunning a levee and flooding New Orleans, which is a major port and source of oil for the country. Opening the floodgates, however, is flooding communities and farmland north of New Orleans.

“They are not flooding them to save some drunks in the French Quarters,” Carville said. “If that (New Orleans) levee were to be breached this country would no longer be in a recession. It would be in a profound depression.”

Carville also noted the tragedies of Katrina and the BP oil spill that Alabama’s coast shared with his home state of Louisiana and the pulling together again in the region to respond to the tornadoes that ripped through Alabama.

“This was a real, real tragedy that you had here in the state. I was very pleased to see how the people came together and pulled together,” Carville said.

Carville also applauded those who came to the dinner to help support the children the club serves.

In America, Carville said, “we’re not supposed to succeed because of the circumstances of our birth. We’re supposed to succeed because of our desire and our abilities.”

About 400 to 450 people attended the event for the A.G. Gaston Boys & Girls Club, which serves 1,300 children in Jefferson County, said Rose Walker, director of development for the group. The money was still being tallied from the event but it had already exceeded the club’s goal of $200,000, she said.

Anytime a group a group can exceed its fundraising goal, especially with the state of the economy and the current tornado relief efforts, then it’s great, Walker said. “I am thrilled,” she said.

Carville is a political consultant and frequent commentator on CNN. He has managed a number of successful political campaigns, but his best known victory is the 1992 presidential campaign of Bill Clinton.

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