Greetings from Kabul where I have been reporting for the last two weeks. Although I am the Pentagon correspondent, I always spend at least a couple weeks amongst the people in countries where U.S. troops are based. I want to develop some understanding of their experiences before I go into the embed bubble. And my time here in Kabul has been enlightening indeed. You can read my dispatches here.

These days, all the talk around the capital is about security and the presidential elections, which are scheduled for Aug. 20. As such, I have been meeting with several of the 41 candidates. During an interview with one presidential candidate, an interesting name popped up, James Carville.

For those who don’t remember, James Carville was a top advisor to Bill Clinton and is currently a frequent TV commentator on behalf of the left. (Perhaps a loud guy with a shiny bald head will help jar your memory.) As it turns out, he also spent two days in Kabul earlier this month advising leading presidential candidate Dr. Ashraf Ghani, the former Finance Minister, on how to run his campaign.

Ghani told me that Carville’s two days “were worth two years.”

Carville has worked on 13 campaigns around the world, Ghani explained to me. And at the end of Carville’s visit, Ghani said he and his campaign came away with the following lesson:

“He brought focus,” Ghani said. He stressed “staying on message. …He is a storyteller.”

From what I can tell, Ghani's message is that he will bring responsible government and practical solutions to Kabul. As he said to me several times, "I am offering solutions."

The United States introduced its brand of democracy to Afghanistan just eight years ago, and yet Carville has already brought the uniquely American campaign style to the streets of Kabul. I wonder if in a country where electricity is limited, literacy is low and faith in the power of government is lacking, the U.S. style of an insistent, repetitive campaign message – ala Change we can believe in – will work here. In just a few weeks, we will find out.