The fate of the world may hang on the upcoming presidential election, if James Carville’s projection is correct.

About a hundred students and faculty filled Marquette Theatre almost to capacity Thursday to hear the famous political analyst speak. Carville ignored a prepared podium in this small setting, opting instead to stand on the ground in front of the stage. Eliciting frequent laughs from the audience, “the Ragin’ Cajun,” as he’s known to some, spent 45 minutes presenting his take on today’s political climate. While Carville said pundits have a habit of touting each presidential election as the one to change the world, he said “it’s possible that we’re right this time.” His evidence of this election’s unusual playing field:

• This is the first election since 1924 with no president, vice president or five-star general on the ballot.

• This is the first election since 1818 that comes after two consecutive presidents served two consecutive terms.

• This is the first time a woman, a black man and an Italian man have a shot at winning the presidency.

“Usually in politics, things happen incrementally,” Carville said. In this election, he said, things are moving unusually fast.

In this respect, “(Barack) Obama has one screaming advantage,” he said. In a nation that’s looking for something, Obama is everything different, from his different name to his different skin tone, he said.

“It’s a measure of the depth of what’s going on in the country. It’s stunning,” Carville said.

Carville also said he believes the Republican Party is becoming a regional party, confined to the southern states.

He said that Tthe Republican Party has broken away from the traditional political doctrine of getting as close to the center as possible without alienating core voters, he said. Now, he saidadded, the party is more interested in keeping its base fired up and getting them to the voting booths, at the expense of more moderate voters.

Still, one advantage the Republicans have over the Democrats is their narrative strategy, Carville said. Instead of giving a litany of beliefs, the Republicans talk to potential voters in a conversational way.

Carville compared this story-like approach to Winnie the Pooh. “It’s the same thing, Pigger and Tiglet and the whole thing,” he said, as the room broke into laughter over his verbal slip.

The key to winning this election, he said, is to stand up and say it’s ridiculous for opponents to attack every piece of a candidate’s political history when the country has much bigger problems to tackle.

He added that no one would ever follow that advice.

After the presentation, the Rev. Kevin Wildes, S.J., university president, said of Carville, “He’s been a good supporter of the university and he’s been good for us.”

“To be honest, James (Carville) called us,” said Tommy Screen, Loyola’s Director of Government Relations and one of the people who arranged for Carville to speak. Screen said Carville was scheduled to speak at Tulane and called Loyola to ask if he could speak here too. What was originally a tentative plan to speak with just a few classes evolved into the event in Marquette.

The visit comes nearly a year after Carville spoke at Loyola’s 2006 commencement ceremonies.

Catherine Cotton can be reached at [email protected].