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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsJim Webb Forms Exploratory Committee
The announcement video is kind of rough though. 14 minutes long!
I don't think I want the primaries to start yet...we just got done with 2014.
elleng
(130,864 posts)Interesting, tho.
morningfog
(18,115 posts)Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)Criminal justice reform.
A sort of economic populism.
Foreign policy cred.
herding cats
(19,559 posts)I others still being brandied about in the top include (in no particular order):
John Hickenlooper
Brian Schweitzer
Hillary Clinton
Elizabeth Warren
Bernie Sanders
Andrew Cuomo
Kirsten Gilibrand
Also, there's these two I don't really expect to see run at this point but still may.
Martin O'Malley - who was expected to make a run at it, but lost his election and is now being called "damaged goods."
Joe Biden
Maybe even, Tammy Baldwin. It's still early and anything is possible.
On edit: Yeah, I'm not ready to transfer into the 2016 primary season either. It's insane how they switch from one to the next instantaneously now.
merrily
(45,251 posts)Last edited Thu Nov 20, 2014, 10:09 AM - Edit history (1)
that does not seem to be true anymore. For example, we ran Coakley in Massachusetts for Governor after she lost the special election Senate race to Brown (Kennedy's seat) and, well, there's Hillary, but I don't think her 2008 primary loss will be what hurts her. To the contrary, it might help her.
But, I am not optimistic about O'Malley sadly.* I don't think they will run someone for President who did not win the Governor's race because of the risk of not carrying his or her own state in the general, ala McGovern and Gore (which Hillary might also face, if you consider Arkansas her "own state" instead of NY).
Sweitzer put his foot in his mouth terribly, just about as soon as a number of people started talking about him as a potential Presidential candidate. Until then, I was finding him very appealing and his electability potential also looked good to me. He did apologize soon after, but it's hard to unring the bigotry bell within the Democratic Party.
On edit: *Information in this post about O'Malley is erroneous. Please see Reply 21.
herding cats
(19,559 posts)You can lose local and come back and run again for a different seat, or even the same one again. Nothing wrong with that. It could have been timing, the wrong position, or a lack of support which lead to the loss in the previous race, these things happen in politics. I really don't think a loss is a death sentence to a political career depending on the circumstances of the loss.
As for O'Malley, I'm afraid his largest potential financial backers are the ones who will judge him the most harshly for his recent loss. I wanted to see him in the fray, I don't deny it, but it's looking less likely now. Which is something I find disappointing, and hope proves to be wrong. He has/had a lot to offer to the primaries.
As to Schweitzer, I think he's done but he's still put all of the stock he has left into 2016 so he may attempt a run. I've not heard if he has any real support left to make a go of it, though. If he does, I don't think he'll survive the primary. He has more than his image problems from his last slip of the tongue to overcome, he still has to learn how to manage his verbiage under a national spotlight. Which is no easy feat in this day and age.
merrily
(45,251 posts)Aside from the Presidency, which is an electoral vote, all elections are either truly local (city, town, county) or statewide. So, basically, Malloy lost in the biggest constituency he could run before, short of running for President (and Coakley did so twice).
And Coakleys loss of that election was due to many factors, but certainly including that her campaign was bloody awful. She did a lot better in her campaign for Governor, but she lost again. I suspect part of that loss would be attributable to her inability to shake entirely the bad impression she made the first time she ran. If you look in the Mass forum, you will see I thought running her again was a mistake and, sadly, I was correct about that.
O'Malley, if he still wants to try, will be judged by the PTB of the Party as well as by truly private donors who act totally independently of the PTB of the Party, though I don't think many large donors do that. And, the PTB of the Party seem to be pretty much in the bag for Hillary, anyway. I would also like to see him in the race, though.
And, that's it for me for tonight. Sunrise is coming soon where I live. Have a good night.
LawDeeDah
(1,596 posts)My dog, Hillary has silos full of those.
I'm not too crazy about Schweitzer, overall, but I would like to see him in the race. We need a diverse debate and he fits in well that way.
merrily
(45,251 posts)I don't think people who don't believe those things say them, especially politicians. You know what they say about a "gaffe?" It's a politician accidentally telling the truth.
But, I am fine with his being in the primary. That's the forum for hashing out things like that.
No comment on Hillary, who I don't think made many slips of the tongue.
Midwestern Democrat
(806 posts)succeed him. It was still damaging to O'Malley - Maryland is a very Democratic state and the election could be seen as a referendum on his Governorship but I don't know if it's fatal - for example, no one held it against Reagan that Jerry Brown succeeded him as Governor of California in 1974.
merrily
(45,251 posts)lost his election and was being seen as damaged goods. Apparently, the first part of that statement could have been worded more precisely than it was. Do you know if he is indeed being seen as "damaged goods?"
That said, Jerry Brown was not Reagan's Lt. Governor. It may be more like Romney's Lt Governor, who lost to Deval Patrick. Or even Clinton and Gore. (I am one of few Democrats who did think that Clinton hurt Gore, but you know what they say about opinions.)
There were so many other circumstances in 2006, and Axelrod was Patrick's campaign manager to boot, so I don't know if anyone saw Patrick's win as a comment on Romney. When analyzing a relatively routine election loss or an election victory, you can rarely pin it on just one fact.
But I digress: Back to O'Malley. If there is no particular reason to blame his Lt Gov's loss on him, I don't think it will be held against him, either in the primary or, if he makes it, in the general. I don't even think anything Bubba did will be held against Hillary, except Billarycare and anything she expressly approved of or claims to have been part of.
FSogol
(45,473 posts)O'Malley was prohibited from running again by MD term limit laws and Webb resigned because he saw Senate gridlock as a detremit to changing anything.
merrily
(45,251 posts)As to O'Malley, I obviously relied on this clear statement from another poster (whom you did not choose to question).
How about this: Excuse me for not double checking every comment in a post before I reply to it at 2 am and I'll excuse you for implying that I posted that Webb lost an election when I didn't.
FSogol
(45,473 posts)merrily
(45,251 posts)I thought your post seemed a lot angrier than mine.
Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)FSogol
(45,473 posts)MD law prevented him from running again.
merrily
(45,251 posts)Former Repubican (think Panetta),o Reaganite, questions about sexism, both in his real life and his novels, that, for me, are very serious, etc.
Also, I saw him interviewed when he was publicizing his book about the Scotch Irish and was troubled by his references to "white culture" during that interview. Sounded a little too Pat Buchanan about it for my taste.
Seemed as though someone had already challenged him on it, too: The first time he mentioned the term, he added quickly and, I thought, defensively--"and there is such a thing."
I don't want to see him be the nominee, and doubt he will be, but, welcome to the fray, Senator.
madville
(7,408 posts)He could have misspoke but there is also an overwhelming white culture in the US that will have to be overcome before progress is made.
merrily
(45,251 posts)I don't imagine he will repeat that as a candidate.
How are you referencing it when you say there is an overwhelming white culture in the US that will have be overcome before progress is made? I don't know what any of that means.
merrily
(45,251 posts)bluestateguy
(44,173 posts)An archeological dig?
merrily
(45,251 posts)Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)The whole piece about "inevitable" candidates, Hillary, and other possible contenders is quite good.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/17/inevitability-trap
Former Virginia Senator Jim Webb, who served one term, from 2007 to 2013, and then retired, has the potential to win the beer-track vote. In early October, I drove from Washington to a residential building that sits high on a hill in Arlington. On the eighth floor, in a condominium with a sweeping view of Washingtons monuments, Webb has been plotting his own path to defeating Clinton. I do believe that I have the leadership and the experience and the sense of history and the kinds of ideas where I could lead this country, he told me. Were just going to go out and put things on the table in the next four or five months and see if people support us. And if it looks viable, then well do it.
Webb is a moderate on foreign policy, but he is a Vietnam veteran from a long line of military men. His condo, which he uses as a study, is filled with antique weaponry and historical artifacts from his ancestors. He showed me a bookcase filled with collectibles. Ive been to a lot of battlefields, he said. He pointed to some sand from Iwo Jima; glass from Tinian, the island from which the Enola Gay was launched before it dropped an atomic bomb on Japan; and some shrapnel from Vietnam. I have that in my leg, he said.
After the war, Webb became a writer. His most famous book, Fields of Fire, published in 1978, is a novel based on his own experiences and has been credibly compared to Stephen Cranes The Red Badge of Courage for its realistic portrayal of war. Webb has always moved restlessly between the military and politics and the life of a writer. In the late seventies and early eighties, he worked as a counsel on the House Veterans Affairs Committee and later as Ronald Reagans Secretary of the Navy. He has also travelled around the world as a journalist for Parade. In 2007, I interviewed him in his Senate office weeks after he was sworn in. He noted that he was having a hard time adjusting to life as a senator and missed his writing life. Now, in Arlington, he talked about the unfinished business of his Senate career.
In his senatorial race, Webb did well not only in northern Virginia, which is filled with Washington commuters and college-educated liberals, but also with rural, working-class white voters in Appalachia. In 2008, those voters were generally more loyal to Clinton than to Obama, but Webb believes that he could attract a national coalition of both groups of voters in the Presidential primaries. He laid out a view of Wall Street that differs sharply from Clintons.
Because of the way that the financial sector dominates both parties, the distinctions that can be made on truly troubling issues are very minor, he said. He told a story of an effort he led in the Senate in 2010 to try to pass a windfall-profits tax that would have targeted executives at banks and firms which were rescued by the government after the 2008 financial crisis. He said that when he was debating whether to vote for the original bailout package, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, he relied on the advice of an analyst on Wall Street, who told him, No. 1, you have to do this, because otherwise the world economy will go into cataclysmic free fall. But, No. 2, you have to punish these guys. It is outrageous what they did.
After the rescue, when Webb pushed for what he saw as a reasonable punishment, his own party blocked the legislation. The Democrats wouldnt let me vote on it, he said. Because either way you voted on that, youre making somebody mad. And the financial sector was furious. He added that one Northeastern senatorWebb wouldnt say whowas literally screaming at me on the Senate floor.
When Clinton was a New York senator, from 2001 to 2009, she fiercely defended the financial industry, which was a crucial source of campaign contributions and of jobs in her state. If you dont have stock, and a lot of people in this country dont have stock, youre not doing very well, Webb said. Webb is a populist, but a cautious one, especially on taxes, the issue that seems to have backfired against OMalleys administration. As a senator, Webb frustrated some Democrats because he refused to raise individual income-tax rates. But as President, he says, he would be aggressive about taxing income from investments: Fairness says if youre a hedge-fund manager or making deals where youre making hundreds of millions of dollars and youre paying capital-gains tax on that, rather than ordinary income tax, somethings wrong, and people know somethings wrong.
The Clintons and Obama have championed policies that help the poor by strengthening the safety net, but they have shown relatively little interest in structural changes that would reverse runaway income inequality. There is a big tendency among a lot of Democratic leaders to feed some raw meat to the public on smaller issues that excite them, like the minimum wage, but dont really address the larger problem, Webb said. A lot of the Democratic leaders who dont want to scare away their financial supporters will say were going to raise the minimum wage, were going do these little things, when in reality we need to say were going to fundamentally change the tax code so that you will believe our system is fair.
Webb could challenge Clinton on other domestic issues as well. In 1984, he spent some time as a reporter studying the prison system in Japan, which has a relatively low recidivism rate. In the Senate, he pushed for creating a national commission that would study the American prison system, and he convened hearings on the economic consequences of mass incarceration. He says he even hired three staffers who had criminal records. If you have been in prison, God help you if you want to really rebuild your life, Webb told me. Weve got seven million people somehow involved in the system right now, and they need a structured way to reënter society and be productive again. He didnt mention it, but he is aware that the prison population in the U.S. exploded after the Clinton Administration signed tough new sentencing laws.
The issue that Webb cares about the most, and which could cause serious trouble for Hillary Clinton, is the one that Obama used to defeat her: Clintons record on war. In the Obama Administration, Clinton took the more hawkish position in three major debates that divided the Presidents national-security team. In 2009, she was an early advocate of the troop surge in Afghanistan. In 2011, along with Samantha Power, who was then a member of the White House National Security Council staff and is now the U.N. Ambassador, she pushed Obama to attack Libyan forces that were threatening the city of Benghazi. That year, Clinton also advocated arming Syrian rebels and intervening militarily in the Syrian civil war, a policy that Obama rejected. Now, as ISIS consolidates its control over parts of the Middle East and Irans influence grows, Clinton is still grappling with the consequences of her original vote for the war in Iraq.
Although Webb is by no means an isolationist, much of his appeal in his 2006 campaign was based on his unusual status as a veteran who opposed the Iraq war. Ive said for a very long time, since I was Secretary of the Navy, we do not belong as an occupying power in that part of the world, he told me. This incredible strategic blunder of invading caused the problems, because it allowed the breakup of Iraq along sectarian lines at the same time that Iran was empowering itself in the region.
He thinks Obama, Clinton, and Power made things worse by intervening in Libya. Theres three factions, he said. The John McCains of the world, who want to intervene everywhere. Then the people who cooked up this doctrine of humanitarian intervention, including Samantha Power, who dont think they need to come to Congress if theres a problem that they define as a humanitarian intervention, which could be anything. That doctrine is so vague. Webb also disdains liberals who advocate military intervention without understanding the American military. Referring to Syria and Libya, Webb said, I was saying in hearings at the time, What is going to replace it? What is going to replace the Assad regime? These are tribal countries. Where are all these weapons systems that Qaddafi had? Probably in Syria. Can you get to the airport at Tripoli today? Probably not. It was an enormous destabilizing impact with the Arab Spring.
pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)Webb's antiwar views are one of his main strengths. He's certainly not a pacifist, but his intimate experience of the horrors of war as a Marine combat infantry platoon leader in Vietnam informs his judgement well on matters of war and peace and foreign policy.
His novel, 'Fields of Fire,' is realistic and helped me overcome many years of psychological suppression of my own VN War experience.
From a progressive viewpoint Webb may not seem to offer much of a leftward push to the primary field (certainly not like Sanders), but he has credibility, especially with conservative Democrats and Independents, and his inclusion might add to the debates.
I agree with you that Webb could be very interesting, and even surprising.
Skeowes28
(62 posts)Vote for him
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)It would be interesting if he got in the race.
Ykcutnek
(1,305 posts)The more who run, they better off we'll be...
But this guy seems too cookie cutter and
wyldwolf
(43,867 posts)Think denial is a big river? Wait until we meet Justification.
PDittie
(8,322 posts)There's a huge unrepresented constituency there. Webb understands that Hillary is just too liberal to pull those conservative military-type white rural males that Democrats are going to need to win the White House in 2016.
And he's not running for vice-president or even Secretary of Defense either, by God. (This is not intended to be sarcasm.)
Faryn Balyncd
(5,125 posts)(can't find it on WSJ website, but Truthout has it)
Class Struggle
By Jim Webb
The Wall Street Journal
Wednesday 15 November 2006
The most important-and unfortunately the least debated-issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America's top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country. Few among them send their children to public schools; fewer still send their loved ones to fight our wars. They own most of our stocks, making the stock market an unreliable indicator of the economic health of working people. The top 1% now takes in an astounding 16% of national income, up from 8% in 1980. The tax codes protect them, just as they protect corporate America, through a vast system of loopholes.
Incestuous corporate boards regularly approve compensation packages for chief executives and others that are out of logic's range. As this newspaper has reported, the average CEO of a sizeable corporation makes more than $10 million a year, while the minimum wage for workers amounts to about $10,000 a year, and has not been raised in nearly a decade. When I graduated from college in the 1960s, the average CEO made 20 times what the average worker made. Today, that CEO makes 400 times as much.
In the age of globalization and outsourcing, and with a vast underground labor pool from illegal immigration, the average American worker is seeing a different life and a troubling future. Trickle-down economics didn't happen. Despite the vaunted all-time highs of the stock market, wages and salaries are at all-time lows as a percentage of the national wealth. At the same time, medical costs have risen 73% in the last six years alone. Half of that increase comes from wage-earners' pockets rather than from insurance, and 47 million Americans have no medical insurance at all......
http://www.truth-out.org/archive/item/66991:jim-webb--class-struggle
a personal memory:
8 days before Webb wrote this, in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, November 8, 2006, I remember dosing off after no longer being able to stay awake for more returns. At the time, about 3 AM, the returns & media prognosticators were predicting that Webb had not succeeded in his battle with George Allen, and that the Republicans were going to retain control of the Senate (50/50, with the tie-breaker being Dick Cheney).
When my alarm went off about 6AM, and I learned that Webb had pulled ahead, and that Webb would tip control of the Senate to Democrats, tears of joy overwhelmed me.
8 days later, Webb let the WSJ know his views on economics & Class Struggle in America.
TBF
(32,045 posts)We don't have enough of them in the party.
Le Taz Hot
(22,271 posts)Only ONE progressive so far in the possible pack and that's Bernie Sanders. Everyone else, meh. More of the centrist sell outs.
TBF
(32,045 posts)He's not a revolutionary socialist but he does care about people and he has been in Washington at least 20 years. He has the experience to know how to get things done in that city. Better than any of the other folks I've seen floated around.
bullwinkle428
(20,629 posts)more "centrist-ier"!
Vinca
(50,261 posts)Don't waste (other people's) money. Snowball. Hell.
Algernon Moncrieff
(5,790 posts)I'd also love to see him in the Veep spot.
Robbins
(5,066 posts)At least Hillary won't be getting a cornation In primarys.
If you attack Webb as too centist then so is hillary.
Hopefully someone else besides him runs against Hillary.I am anyone but her till someone runs i can firmly get behind.Hopefully bernie sanders runs in primarys with ELizabeth warren out.
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)My hope is there will be at least one challenger from the Left.