Webb wants to get into 2016 race under ‘right circumstances’
Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia says he’d like to get into the race for the Democratic nomination for president in 2016 “under the right circumstances.”
The Vietnam War veteran and Navy secretary under President Ronald Reagan was asked during a C-SPAN appearance Sunday about his timeline, and he answered: “I will know it when I see it.”
Webb already has announced a presidential exploratory committee. Webb says “we’re out talking to people” and the goal is to see if a campaign would be “viable” and could be funded in a way so he could make it into candidate debates.
If the answers are “yes,” Webb says he’ll move forward, and “if not, we won’t.”
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Read more: http://www.salon.com/2015/02/15/webb_wants_to_get_into_2016_race_under_right_circumstances/
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Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)Former Democratic Sen. Jim Webb Explores Presidential Bid
WEBB: Well, I think they can do a better job with white working people. I think this last election clearly showed that. If you look at the candidates that were getting beaten in areas where traditionally they had won, they were getting well less than 40 percent of the white vote. And that doesn't need to happen.
INSKEEP: Is there something about President Obama that's driven people away?
WEBB: No, this was happening before President Obama, you know. And I think that there's a lot of misunderstanding about the motives of people in this group.
INSKEEP: You're saying white voters are misunderstood as being racist in some ways. Is that what you're hinting at here?
WEBB: In many cases, yes.
Listen to the entire interview. I think that a guy who says white voters are misunderstood as being racists is, at best, tone deaf to what is happening today.
former9thward
(31,997 posts)Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)and the historic process of racism.
Whether we white people like it or not, we live in a world where being white grants privileges no one else gets. We drive where we want with out getting pulled over because we look out of place. A white man can go up on his roof, fire a gun, and when the police come to investigate he can even threaten the police and they will talk him down. An unarmed black man with his hands in the air is blown away without repercussions to the officer.
There is no way to address this problem unless we elect representatives that realize that it exists.
Jim Webb clearly does not recognize that problem.
For that reason, I would never vote for him in a primary.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)of people interviewing me for my representative to head the Executive branch of our government.
wolfie001
(2,227 posts)Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)The whole piece is a good read on Hillary and the other contenders. Has profiles of O'Malley, Warren, Sanders, too.
From the article:
Democratic strategists like to divide the Party’s electorate into “wine track” and “beer track” voters. Insurgents typically have done well with the wine track—college-educated liberals—and although that portion of the electorate has grown, it’s still not enough to win. (Hart once told me that he did well in all the states that were benefitting from globalization; Mondale, who had union support, did well in all the states where workers were feeling economically squeezed.) It’s not clear what major demographic group O’Malley could steal from Clinton; for now, he seems like a classic wine-track insurgent. On Tuesday, the Republican victory in Maryland was fuelled by working-class and suburban voters, who revolted against higher taxes.
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 Washington’s 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. “We’re 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 we’ll 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. “I’ve 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 Crane’s “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 Reagan’s 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 Clinton’s.
“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 wouldn’t let me vote on it,” he said. “Because either way you voted on that, you’re making somebody mad. And the financial sector was furious.” He added that one Northeastern senator—Webb wouldn’t say who—“was 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 don’t have stock, and a lot of people in this country don’t have stock, you’re 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 O’Malley’s 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 you’re a hedge-fund manager or making deals where you’re making hundreds of millions of dollars and you’re paying capital-gains tax on that, rather than ordinary income tax, something’s wrong, and people know something’s 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 don’t really address the larger problem,” Webb said. “A lot of the Democratic leaders who don’t want to scare away their financial supporters will say we’re going to raise the minimum wage, we’re going do these little things, when in reality we need to say we’re 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. “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.
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: Clinton’s record on war. In the Obama Administration, Clinton took the more hawkish position in three major debates that divided the President’s 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 Iran’s 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. “I’ve 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. “There’s 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 don’t think they need to come to Congress if there’s 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.”
Early on as a senator, Webb championed the idea of the so-called “pivot to Asia,” a rebalancing of America’s strategic and diplomatic posture from the Middle East to the Far East—an idea that Obama and Clinton subsequently adopted. Webb pushed Secretary of State Clinton to open up relations with Burma, a policy that Clinton includes in her recent book, “Hard Choices,” as a major achievement. (Obama is travelling to Burma this week.) When I raised the subject with Webb, he seemed annoyed that he hadn’t received adequate credit for the Burma policy. People who know him well suggest that part of what’s motivating him to consider a primary challenge to Clinton is his sense that she hasn’t expressed the proper gratitude.
It remains to be seen whether Democratic voters will care as much about foreign policy in 2016 as they did about Iraq in 2008. And it’s unclear how Clinton’s record on the Middle East will look two years from now. If Webb runs, Clinton will face an unpredictable debate about her hawkishness.
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.”
OKNancy
(41,832 posts)Jim Webb Wants to Be President. Too Bad He's Awful on Climate Change.
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/12/jim-webb-climate-change
wyldwolf
(43,867 posts)stillwaiting
(3,795 posts)7962
(11,841 posts)
Zambero
(8,964 posts)Just a couple of things to keep in mind. As far as military intervention goes, Webb is well to the left of the Hillary-Podesta wing of the party, who are prone to flirt with neocon positions. This is the very issue that put Obama ahead of Hillary in 2008 and it is still a viable issue for 2016. He also managed knock off Virginia's GOP "Macaca" candidate and was part of the razor-thin 60 vote functional majority that Senate Democrats needed to push through important filibuster-proof legislation during the first two years of the Obama presidency. Based on voting record, his progressive ratings are in the 75-85% range -- not perfect but about as good as one can expect for a Senator representing a swing southern state. I'm not sold on Webb as being the best candidate, but just the same, I'm not too excited about a "coronation" for Hillary absent meaningful debate either.
bluedigger
(17,086 posts)I wouldn't vote for him probably, but we need someone at the debates. If we bother to have them.
colsohlibgal
(5,275 posts)I like it that he's more into going after Wall Street than Hillary but I don't know how progressive he really is.
I'm for going hard after Wall Street and taxing/fining the crap out of them.
But income tax needs to incrementally go up as well. I put a share of blame on people for why this has been a hard sell. I'm sure many everyday people, when they hear about raising the top tax rate to 50% or whatever, think that's on all the money from those people.
My take is I should pay a little higher rate than someone making a thousand or so less than me, and a little lower than someone making a thousand or so more. And so on and so on, till after 3-5 million the rate is at least 50%.
The republicans, working off Lewis Powell's plan, have changed the blame for money problems on too much debt rather than on too little revenue - and the right is the one raising the debt most, by far. They get in, spend like drunken sailors, then squawk about debt once democrats have the WH. It's their so called "Two Santa Clauses" scam.
It's suckered in enough non rich people to work - so far. But a reckoning will come someday when people wake up and figure things out correctly.
annominous
(68 posts)
FSogol
(45,481 posts)annominous
(68 posts)Webb "had expressed ambivalence about the prospect of another run, and has said he never planned a life in politics." (from linked article below)
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0211/Source_Webb_wont_seek_reelection.html?showall
Webb's retirement was not senatorial, was not presidential, and was bad for the democratic party. Not quite the scale of mistake made by half-guv Palin, but it is undeniable that Webb, in opting to retire, took himself out of the running for any future elected office.
FSogol
(45,481 posts)It also didn't take himself out of running because he is considering a run. Politico suspect musings are not facts.
annominous
(68 posts)He's a quitter.
There is really no way to spin that, it's what Webb did in retiring from a viable, re-electable senate seat. Free country, no office holder is FORCED to run for re-election, but once they choose to retire, they are done. It would be different it Webb had tried and lost, there's precedent for losing an office, then re-attempting a lost office. Not only did Webb not even try, but now he hints to seek even higher national office? Sorry, he has no cred for that. Well, maybe with you. Perhaps you can cite some precedent to make a case?
Personally, I did what I could to support his election to the senate in 2006, and I will never consider him a viable candidate for any position (dog catcher, e.g.) in the future. His retirement betrays a casual attitude toward the effort and cost it takes to mount a successful national-senate-seat run. It takes him out of the running for serious consideration of national office.
FSogol
(45,481 posts)you hate the Webb's guts?
annominous
(68 posts)For simply stating and restating a valid and honestly held opinion you seem to want to squelch.
I believe I can post an opinion here, and I believe my opinion is meritorious.
The half-guv does that, calls those who disagree with her "haters".
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)Out of office for years.
annominous
(68 posts)JEB should also not be counting on my vote.
Lean
(39 posts)Needs more Republican lite, blue-dog democrats like Jim Webb. Not.
BlueStater
(7,596 posts)Once again, let me just say how pathetic it is that Martin O'Malley is just about the only potential Democratic candidate I've seen listed who's under 65. We really don't have jack shit in terms of young, rising talent at the moment. Instead, we're relying on people who've been around for eons like Hillary and Biden. I don't get it.
Cha
(297,196 posts)
Mr. NFTG @Kennymack1971 Follow
Uh huh: "Jim Webb: Democrats Need "White, Working People," Can't Rely On Black Votes After Obama http://ln.is/breakingnewsusa.com/ivcEi … via @breakingnewsusa
5:02 AM - 1 Feb 2015 16 Retweets 2 favorites
http://theobamadiary.com/2015/02/01/a-tweet-or-two-225/
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)I think he is hoping Hillary Clinton won't run (which is unrealistic). My guess is he's not going to see the right circumstances and close his exploratory committee.
fredamae
(4,458 posts)indeed...but that's sorta up to the electorate, isn't it or does he mean "right" in a different context?
dolphinsandtuna
(231 posts)Otherwise his chances are toast.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)HRC looking to double down with a centrist VP candidate? 
