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Posted on 01/04/2015 5:35:56 PM PST by SeekAndFind
President Obama is likely to leave office with one of the lowest approval ratings in American history — primarily because of his dogged insistence on dragging the country as far left as he can in both foreign and domestic affairs.
Nominating a first-term senator from Massachusetts such as Elizabeth Warren, whose shrill pronunciamentos mark her even further to the left than Obama, likely would relegate the Democratic Party to the political sidelines for at least two decades.
And with Hillary Clinton now moving leftward and endorsing Obama’s major diplomatic and economic initiatives to counter Warren, the Democrats seem hell-bent on committing on-camera suicide.
At this moment, one of those two women appears the only Democrat with a good shot at the nomination. Hillary remains well ahead in the polls, but Warren has emerged as the darling of the ultra-liberal left, which — after last fall’s congressional elections — may well be the dominant force in the Democratic Party.
Although Clinton continues to enjoy a strong lead among Democratic voters, recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News polling shows she’s fast losing support among white, working class voters.
Nowhere is this erosion more evident than in Clinton’s adopted state of Arkansas, where Democratic office holders held a lock on voter majorities as recently as five years ago.
The Republican Party’s near-landslide sweep of Congress last November swept newcomer Tom Cotton into the Senate and veteran Asa Hutchinson into the governor’s office, leaving Arkansas without a single federal or state Democratic officeholder.
The WSJ/NBC poll showed support for Clinton among whites without college degrees ebbing as steadily as the evening tide.
In the summer of 2008, Clinton was viewed favorably by 43 percent of that group; by last month that number had fallen to 32 percent. The fallout means that she could easily lose most of the South, but also such populist industrial states as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Although Warren has made herself the darling of progressives by constantly bashing Wall Street and big banks, it’s hard to see how the Harvard professor’s brand of passionate stridency can play well beyond the confines of her native state.
By the fall of 2016, indeed, both Clinton and Warren may well be spent forces and mainstream Democrats could be looking for an experienced moderate — one who as president could practice the seemingly lost political art of compromise with the Republican majority on Capitol Hill.
The one Democratic candidate who fits that bill is former U.S. Sen. James Webb of Virginia, a combat-decorated Marine who served as President Reagan’s Navy secretary. Webb has voiced forceful opposition to U.S. interventions in Iraq and Libya and has railed against the corruption of Wall Street and the shrinking of the middle class under Obama’s presidency.
Webb’s remarks have drawn plaudits from such liberal pundits as Al Hunt and Mark Shields. And his background as a wounded veteran with Scotch-Irish working class-roots and an economic populist, almost certainly would appeal to blue-collar, middle-income voters likely to exhibit stay-at-home disdain for the likes of Hillary and “Fighting Liz” Warren.
It may be a long-shot, but there’s a growing feeling among Washington insiders that by mid-summer Jim Webb may well be sprinting into the lead for the Democratic nomination.
-- Whitt Flora, an independent journalist, is a former chief congressional correspondent for Aviation & Space Technology Magazine and a former White House correspondent for the Columbus Dispatch.
That’s why they will lose in 2016.
The Democrats White Male problem has been around for a long time.
Now its sliding into the Red Zone and going Critical.
I wouldn’t say “Webb” and “Shot” in the same sentence. This guy is a nutjob, especially with his guns.
If the dems learned ANYTHING from the 2014 wipeout, it's that you don't win with pinko "novelty" candidates.
We've gone that route before.
Warren gives the left orgasms, but she is a total dud nationally.
Is Hillary being a woman, enough to carry the democrat carcass across the finish line in 2016?
Again, I don't know.
The dems must be scrambling for an electable person.
Even kookburgers must understand Hilary's baggage.
Laughing at defending rapists doesn't play well in Peoria.
How about they draft Jeb Bush? They want him to run so bad, so why not run him for themselves? We can through in Romney for their VP.
I get what you’re saying but the level-headed adults don’t run the Democratic Party anymore. It’s the wide-eyed radical kooks who run it now and they want diversity in their presidential candidates. That means it’s going to be a woman and not a white male heading that ticket. The activist class and the big money people want a woman to be president so it’s a done deal!
If ObamaCare is still the law in 2016, even losing the 2016 election won’t matter. It will all be worth it for the Left.
What’s a Presidency or 4 if they have the country?
Sometimes you do. A pinko novelty candidate won presidential elections in 2008 and 2012.
never happen. Webb is nearly sane. Wrong and misguided, but nearly sane. Dem primary voters would never go for this guy. hell, they turned on Hillary Clinton because she wasn’t liberal enough, for crying out loud.
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From your link, here’s a glimpse of what he believes:
* “We need to be able to project our forces in hot spots, but we don’t need to be in a hockey fight now in some of the places where we have been,” he said.
* Webb also called for a debate about the power of the presidency when it comes to the “unilateral use of military force around the world.”
* At home, he said, the National Security Agency plays a “vital role” in protecting the nation, but that information it has collected on people who are not engaged in terrorism or illegal activities should be destroyed.
* Webb also said the country has a “national crisis” in its criminal justice system with the mass incarceration for nonviolent offenders and their ability to successfully re-enter society.
* He preached a message about economic fairness, noting that while the stock market has nearly tripled since 2009, real wages for working people have declined.
“We actually have seen an economic recovery for those who have assets. … If you don’t have assets you’re not making money,” he said.
* Calling for a discussion of streamlining the tax code, reducing corporate income tax and increasing the tax on capital gains.
* “There has to be a way that people equally pay their fair share for the obligations that we have to keep this country going,” he said.
* Webb said voting for final passage of the Affordable Care Act was the hardest vote he took while serving in the Senate from 2007 to 2013.
He said he supported the measure because “doing something was better than doing nothing.”
He noted that his mother saw three of her siblings die in childhood in rural Arkansas because they did not have health care.
* But he believes the Affordable Care Act needs fixing.
* On immigration, Webb said President Barack Obama’s executive order delaying deportation of illegal immigrants appeared to be within his presidential powers, but there is a need for a broader, more comprehensive policy.
Chuckles, that works for me!
“Jim Webb is a White male. That party doesn’t want a White guy getting their nomination for president. “
Unless they pair him with a gay VP.
Seriously, that would seal his win.
James Webb, or someone like him, could beat a weak GOP-e nominee.
Absolutely.
The likes of Webb might give them an outside chance in 2016, which they do not deserve!
The real question is, Who is the Republican nominee?
We mustn't waste such a historic advantage on a RINO!
2014 is divisible by two but not by four. Years divisible by four reach a lot deeper into the sheeple cesspool.
Laughing at defending rapists doesn't play well in Peoria.
And that wasn't even her husband.
Webb’s book appeared to me to be a condensed version of David Hackett Fischer’s ‘Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America’.
One large section deals with the Scots Irish and Webb’s book read like a paraphrase. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Webb’s book was ghosted by Fischer himself.
The Democrats learned a lesson from 1972 and so they advertised Carter as being conservative when he ran in 1976. Carter wasn’t of course but they ran him that way in contrast to the McGovern crowd.
Webb is about as close to conservative as the Democrats get in this era. It would take a major revolt against their dominant Left for him to get the nomination. But if he did and he got to set their agenda Webb could be trouble for the GOP establishment’s latest offering.
bttt
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