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| Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va): the populist "angry potato" |
| 2008-06-24 |
| Jim Geraghty, "Campaign Spot" @ National Review Two lines of note in this week's Economist, in an article on potential Obama running mate Jim Webb. Webb is an indifferent campaigner. His speeches are awkward, he clearly dislikes all the flesh-pressing and he looks like an angry potato. That's [stifled chuckle] not funny. Not funny... [holding back laughter] at all. Senator Webb does not look at all like [biting inside of cheek to control guffaws] an "angry potato." But forbidden laughs aside, this line is a quietly devastating indictment: The main worry about Mr Webb, however, is that he is a genuine fire-breathing economic populist. He appears actually to believe the sort of stuff that Mr Obama only says during Democratic primaries. The idea that vast swaths of Obama's rhetoric on economic issues were "just words" and not to be taken seriously took root awfully quickly, didn't it? |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #5 Webb had no hesitance to throw his aide under the bus for toting Webb's gun through security. A perfect match for Obama, if the bus has high-ground-clearance carriage. I find his stupid populist assholisheness perturbing |
| Posted by: Frank G 2008-06-24 19:38 |
| #4 I've read that around DC he's referred to as "One-Term Jim." As a Virginia voter, I certainly intend to do my best to insure he lives up to his nickname. The bastard MSM lynched George Allen in the last campaign. |
| Posted by: Thaimble Scourge of the Pixies4707 2008-06-24 18:23 |
| #3 He rode to office on the MSM macaca lynching. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2008-06-24 16:36 |
| #2 Webb's a pretty angry guy most days. He wrote a couple of good books, and Born Fighting was an interesting political manifesto. Not clear to me if he's ever happy. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2008-06-24 16:24 |
| #1 some rhetoric. Obama DOES beleive in national health insurance, progressive taxes, and stuff like that, AFAICT. but hes NOT a protectionist/economic isolationist. Webb, OTOH, is a former Reaganite playing the angry Jacksonian, and while he has no historic ties to the above social democratic policies, he very much rode to office on (aside from Iraq discontent) populist anger on H1B visas, outsourcing, etc. He ran over Harris Miller, a more conventional moderate Clintonian soc dem that way ( a guy with longstanding activist support for nat health Insur, but whod been a lobbyist for Silicon Valley and so was on the wrong side of the H1b Visa thing) in the primary. On for policiy, hes something of a beligerent hawk - on China - well the man did build a Navy good to bankrupt us when the Soviet navy was deep in terminal decline - but hes on the warpath against eevil neocons. Needless to say, I dont like Webb very much. His pick would be virtually a deal killer for me. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2008-06-24 09:35 |