( CNN ) -- A long time ago a great three-time governor of Louisiana , Earl Long , said about Jimmie Davis , the two-time not very good governor of Louisiana , `` You could n't wake up Jimmie Davis with an earthquake . '' As I go around the country and see various Democrats and talk to them on the phone , honestly I 'm beginning to think that we have become the party of Jimmie Davis . My message is simple : WTFU . Translated -- wake the you-know-what up , there is an earthquake . You think that Democrats around the country are going to win -- as I hear time and time again from people on the street . Democratic fundraisers , activists , supporters , and even politicians alike have somehow collectively lapsed into the sentiment that the president is going to be reelected and that we have a good shot to take the House back while holding the Senate . I ask : What are you smoking ? What are you drinking ? What are you snorting or just what in the hell are you thinking ? Look around the world -- do you see any governments or incumbents winning any elections out there ? Did it happen in small elections in Germany or Britain , big elections in France and Greece or how about huge elections in the United States in 2008 and 2010 ? Please folks -- wake up ! The polling ? Not that encouraging . The latest Democracy Corps poll was 47-47 . The Real Clear Politics average of polls has the president up a whopping three-tenths of a percentage point . And I am hearing the garbage that Democratic donors are telling Democratic fundraisers ... '' Obama has it in the bag . '' Newsflash : Nothing is in the bag . Nothing can be taken for granted . Everybody from the precinct door-knocker , to the Chicago high command , to the White House , to the halls of Congress , to the Senate and House committees , to congressional leadership , here is a simple message : If we do n't get on the offense , reconnect with the American people , talk about how the middle class is in a struggle for its very existence , hold the Republicans accountable and fight like the dickens , we are going to lose . You can shoot five Bin Ladens , you can save 10,000 banks and 20 car companies , even pass the most sweeping legislation in modern American history ; if people do n't think that you are connected to their lives and are fighting for their interests they will vote your tush out of office in a nano-second . For historical reference see Winston Churchill election of 1945 and President George H.W . Bush in 1992 . So , fellow Democrats -- we 've got a fight on our hands . We 've got to fight in the same way that the people we care most about have fought for quite some time . They have been crushed by high health care costs , soaring education costs , stagnant wages and financial bailouts for irresponsible firms . Combine all of this with the fact that the Republicans are raising not millions , not tens of millions , but potentially hundreds of millions of dollars from the pollution industry as result of Citizens United v. FEC . There is a full-fledged legislative agenda in many states to keep Democrats from even voting . We are literally being attacked from every side while simultaneously being lulled into some self-induced stupor thinking that this thing is somehow in the bag . It is not . Oh I know what you are going to say , `` Look at Mitt Romney , look how pathetic he is ... '' Actually pathetic is a kind word for Romney and this campaign . Mitt Romney is to presidential campaigns as the Delta House grade point average was to Faber College -- the worst in history . I mean , my God , when you hold a press conference to rebut charges that you have a Cold War mentality and then you have foreign policy `` experts '' talk about Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union in `` contemporary '' terms -- really ? I know that the Swiss and Cayman Island bank accounts drive swing voters and independents over the edge . I 've gotten all of the reports from focus group moderators as to how devastating this is to Romney . Why a man who knows he is running for president ( who claims to know something about the American economy ) would for any reason keep money in offshore accounts , I have no idea . And I know that we are going to take him out to the cornfield ( like at the end of the movie `` Casino '' ) on the Ryan budget . However , I fear that all of this will not be enough unless we have a real change of attitude about the difficult campaign ahead of us . It has been said that , `` Nothing so focuses a man 's attention as the prospect of being hanged . '' Look around Democrats -- Come November let 's make sure that it 's Mitt and his bunch at the end of that figurative rope and not us . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of James Carville .
James Carville : « He says the polls show the race is extremely close ; incumbents losing around world . Touting accomplishments such as killing bin Laden , saving GM wo n't do the trick , he says . Carville : Democrats must connect with voters ' worries about the economy .