James Webb is Dems’ best shot in 2016

Boston Herald ^ | 01/04/2014 | Whitt Flora

[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.

[DaveA37]

“James Webb is Dems’ best shot in 2016”......

Fun to move words around.......
“Dem. James Webb shot in 2016 bid for presidency.”.

NOTE, I AM NOT suggesting anything, just twisting words around like the media does all the time.

[jmaroneps37]

Mellon head can finally explain the books he wrote.