Former Virginia Senator Jim Webb launches exploratory committee!

[Anonymouse]

Hard-charging antiwar war hero who's actually lasering in on income inequality and has true working-class appeal? I'm not endorsing him but I'm very glad he's running.

And so it begins. That video sucked. He sounds way too much like a Republican.

"The Democratic Party used to be where Americans could go not for a handout but a fair handshake."

He is going to run on anti-elitist, Great Society economic progressivism, and he wants to bring the white working class back home to the Democratic Party. Talk like that is how you reach them, and he knows that. You don't talk down to poor whites like you're giving them charity and then sneer at how "stupid" they are when they vote against you, again and again- you talk about they'e earned a piece of the American Dream, I would really love to see the results in places like eastern Kentucky with Webb as the nominee...

[Anonymouse]

I want to like Webb, but I'm not sure I can vote for him.  I can post a link later if anyone's interested, but I believe I once read that he's written some pretty sketchy stuff about the the run-up to the Civil War and the Confederacy (including that he was at least somewhat supportive of "popular sovergnity" and implying that the South had a right to secede, IIRC).  I hope it was distorted or taken out-of-context somehow because as I said earlier, there is a lot to like about Webb.  However, if the article was right, then that's a deal-breaker as far as I'm concerned.

Yes I do recall that as well regarding the right to secede.

What do you think of Webb? He seems like a Democrat you would like and respect, if not necessarily ote for.

[Anonymouse]

Just for the record, since it appears some people here like posting things out of context:

We haven’t been perfect and from time to time, as with today, we have drifted to the fringes of allowing the very inequalities that our Constitution was supposed to prevent. Walk into some of our inner cities if you dare, and see the stagnation, poverty, crime, and lack of opportunity that still affects so many African Americans. Or travel to the Appalachian Mountains, where my own ancestors settled and whose cultural values I still share, and view the poorest counties in America – who happen to be more than 90 percent White, and who live in the reality that “if you’re poor and White you’re out of sight.”

The Democratic Party used to be the place where people like these could come not for a handout but for an honest handshake, good full-time jobs, quality education, health care they can afford, and the vital, overriding belief that we’re all in this together and the system is not rigged.

That sounds like a Republican, right?

[Anonymouse]

Why, in your opinion, does he seem that way? What makes him seem to be someone I would respect? Not that I am expressing doubt, just genuinely curious here.

Intuition? He is one of the very few prominent politicians in either party who is a genuine product of white working-class culture and his values reflect that.

[Anonymouse]

Even though I would like this to ocme to pass, I am a Republican would likely remain such unless something extremely crazy were to happen, even if the Democrats went this route.

So you like and respect Webb, although you will not necessarily vote for him?

Look, man, I am also a product of the white working class. "White trash," if you want to be less charitable, and I'm not one of these sheltered upper-middle-class white kids telling others how the world works because they're taking sociology courses and OMG #MindBLOWN. All I'm saying is, Webb speaks to me in a way I'e seen very few prominent politicians do.

EDIT: and , I agree, "white working-class" needs to stop being code for "racist homophobe who's kinda dumb." This gets old.