"Webb could challenge Clinton on other domestic issues as well.

[hedgehog]

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. “We’ve 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 didn’t mention it, but he is aware that the prison population in the U.S. exploded after the Clinton Administration signed tough new sentencing laws."

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/17/inevitability-trap

I thought I would never see this; someone willing to campaign on the need to reform our prison system.

[msongs]

1. another republican stealing a dems populist strategy nt

[hedgehog]

2. I'm not certain what would make him a Republican aside from the fact he's from the same

ethnic group as Pat Buchanan.

[Thirties Child]

3. Except he isn't.

Pat Buchanan is Irish Irish, with ethnic roots in Ireland. Jim Webb is Scots-Irish, with ethnic roots in Ulster, a.k.a. Northern Ireland.

[hedgehog]

5. It turns out that Buchanan is a really odd duck - having Irish-Irish and Scots-irish Roots -

but I'd say the Scots-Irish dominates:


"His father was of English, Irish, and Scottish descent, and his mother was of German ancestry.[2][5] He had a great-grandfather who fought in the American Civil War in the Confederate Army, which is why he is a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans[6] and admires Robert E. Lee.[7]

Of his southern roots, Buchanan has written:

I have family roots in the South, in Mississippi. When the Civil War came, Cyrus Baldwin enlisted and did not survive Vicksburg. William Buchanan of Okolona, who would marry Baldwin’s daughter, fought at Atlanta and was captured by General Sherman. William Baldwin Buchanan was the name given to my father and by him to my late brother.

As a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, I have been to their gatherings. I spoke at the 2001 SCV convention in Lafayette, LA. The Military Order of the Stars and Bars presented me with a battle flag and a wooden canteen like the ones my ancestors carried.[8]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Buchanan

[Thirties Child]

6. Thanks for clarifying

Too often I speak from jumped-to conclusions.

[truebluegreen]

4. Um, not a Republican.

Not terribly liberal either, but not a Republican.

[fujiyama]

7. Great article

with a nice overview of three potential challengers to Hillary's coronation, er....nomination.

Webb is an interesting candidate, but I believe he has said or done things that were considered sexist (I don't remember the details). I don't think he'll get the nomination, but I hope candidates do address issues like criminal justice reform, prison industrial complex, the drug war, etc. These are issues we rarely hear candidates say anything about.

[hedgehog]

8. He's 70 years old - old enough to havemade mistakes,

and old enough to have grown up in a different time with different standards. I'd be wiling to judge him on where he's been say, the lat 10 or 15 years. At the very least, I'd want him out campaigning for the candidate. I think he can talk to the people the Tea Party is duping.

[davishenderson265]

9. Webb has a lot of personal baggage. Been married three times.

The Repukes would tear him up.

[hedgehog]

10. As i said - he's lived a long life. They wouldn't have to dig deep - he's

never been shy about stating exactly what he thinks.

[sorechasm]

11. I wonder what cause he wants us to believe in?

At the end of our interview, I noticed a picture of Don Quixote on Webb’s wall of military treasures. He laughed when I asked about it. “The beauty of Don Quixote is not that he dreamed impossible dreams,” he said. “It’s that, because he believed, he caused other people to believe.”

Like Elizabeth Warren, he speaks a lot about the common man's plight, and fairness in the workplace. Yet his voting record remains clearly to the right of center, while his ego and chauvinism clouds his delivery.