Because they ARE Bubba.  They are the poor whites.  At least they were while they were young.

That's why Obama needs Webb on his ticket in 2008.  That way, Webb can say what Obama can't to poor whites, and Obama can say what Webb can't to poor black.  It's our only chance at re-establishing the FDR coalition.

http://www.vbdems.org/?p=2496

Unfortunately, the mopes that buy the load of crap are dragging the rest of us -- that is, those of us who don't deserve what we've been getting -- down with them.    

And I would strongly disagree that it's "poor whites".  Maybe that's the way it might feel in Virginia, but those of us who live in areas of this country that are considered more worldly and progressive know better.

Citizens of the Republic of Dumbf*ckistan can be found everywhere, in every region and within every demographic -- it's a state of mind, not a state per se.

"Maybe that's the way it might feel in Virginia, but those of us who live in areas of this country that are considered more worldly and progressive know better."

Jeesh, dude, tone it down a bit.  Yeah, I spend half my time in Virginia Beach, hardly a progressive town, and half my time in the mountains.  So what?  Does that make you better than me?  Talk down to people much?

My syntax got a bit twisted there re the mopes who will buy the load of crap.

What I was trying to say was that even in the famously ultra-liberal, intensely urban place where I live and work - the actual name of which is probably among the top five Fox News pejoratives -- there are subscribers to the Dumbf*ckistan state of mind merchandised by the likes of Karl Rove.  Folks who call Hillary Clinton a socialist and mean to say communist.  A completely postmodern looking woman who said she could never vote for a black man; an otherwise reasonable seeming guy who still believes Saddam's wmd were spirited out to Syria.   Gun nuts, Reagan worshippers, homophobes, border militia, Gore mockers ... they're all here.

And I've also lived out on a country road so rural it was on the dirt side of gravel, where one of the few visitors to the chicken farm was the feed company's route salesman.  He was a rabid atheist, could quote Tolstoy and Thomas Jefferson chapter and verse and was, if you had to come up with a political label, kind of a grange libertarian patriot, for whom hard work was ennobling and any politician above, say, town assemblyman was inherently a cancerous leech.

Economic fairness and missed opportunities by lower income working class - both black and white is a core theme of Jim Webb's political world. Barack Obama is making the same point and he has been doing so for years.

Its nice to be able to hang back and play it safe - it may even make it a bit easier on a legislative agenda, but there is a heck of a lot of Jim Webb supporters out there that are hoping he adds his support for Obama right about now.

To me all the democrats are offering is protectionisim and income redistribution

Two policies that I strongly disagree with

Feel free to correct my interpertation

You say you "strongly disagree" with the "policies" of "protectionism" and "income redistribution."  This is much like strongly disagreeing with the "policy" that the Earth should spin on its axis and the "policy" that water should feel wet.  None of these things, including protectionism and income redistribution, are "policies."  They are simply facts of life.

Everyone's income is constantly being redistributed in some fashion and all of our interests are either being protected or ignored in some fashion.  The relevant question is not whether these things should happen (it's impossible to live in a society where these things don't happen), but whether these things tend to happen in a way that is fair, just, honest, and in the interests of the common good.

Don't be fooled by standard Rotary Club speech Republican rhetoric.  Republicans are, and have always been, engaged in protectionism and income redistribution.  And they think it's just fine, as long as all the protectionism is for themselves and their interests and as long as all the redistributed income flows from someone else's pockets and into their own.  

Keep this in mind and you'll begin to see much more than you claim to be seeing in our current political debate.

Republicans are very much into redistributing income from the working people to the rich.  Then, when someone calls them on it, they scream "class warfare" and usually the critic slinks away.  How they get away with this, year after year, just boggles my mind.

how about beoming part of the solution instead of relying on stale talking points

You leave me no choice but to respond in kind

Democrats are about redistributing income from the people who actually generate jobs in this country to people looking for a handout.  (Its over the top on purpose)

Now BP actually responded intelligently

I actually agree there is no excuse for oil companies to get all these tax breaks.

My question remains however what is the solution to this issue.  I'm not claiming there are any easy answers

My solution would involve small business and alternate energy tax breaks to generate jobs and exploring alternative education methods in certain areas where the public education buraucracy has failed the public

Unfortunatly the recent rhetoric from the Democrat candidates seems almost solely focused on protectionisim  and income redistribution policy.

...on issues relating to alternative energy and education.  I would guess, however, that with some Googling and/or exploration of the candidates' web sites, you could find the information you need.  I'd help, but I'm a little too tied up with TurboTax in preparation for redistributing a sizable share of my income to Dick Cheney and the Halliburton Gang.

For what it's worth, I don't think Lowell's comment is a stale talking point.  I think it's a comment too few people have heard and considered.  If it were a stale comment, we wouldn't have so many members of the middle and working classes voting against their own economic interests.

Hi, Citizenindy,

I like your idea about small business and alternative energy incentives. I say incentives because it should be a lot more than just tax breaks. After all, major corporations get major contracts from the government which in reality are nothing but subsidies considering the higher-than-market prices that they often have.

We obviously want to trade with other countries, but just as with income redistribution, we must think how we want it done.

Right now it benefits those who run major corporations and who get to import cheap goods into the U.S. In the process, they kill the U.S. industry and the local industry.

As we have learned recently, these kinds of unfair trading practices create food riots throughout the world.

It has also destroy major sectors of the U.S. industrial sector. This should be a major worry to us since it is a matter of national security. WWII was won by US factories. I am sure that the communists during the cold war fantasized about destroying the U.S. industrial capacity. Would they ever had believed that it was going to be Americans themselves who distantled their own power?

This is no rhetorical strech. The U.S. business leaders have built China's rise by transfering manufacturing from our country abroad. I don't have data with me, but I feel that China may be very close to outright rival the U.S. industry in its production capacity.

Now, let's both put down talking points and try to figure how what we need to do to fix these problems :)

I have a differnt view on some of your main points

I think there is no going back on much of the manufacturing sector moving out of the United States.  John McCain said in Michigan that many of the auto jobs aren't coming back.  I actually think the loss of the manufacturing base is a long-term net benefit.  Prices have adjusted downward which benefits everyone. Most of those jobs are dead-end realitvely low wage with limited educational skills needed.  (will come back to a solution on last paragraph)

Interesting point on the war issue.  I actually think that modern warfare is more about technology and information rather than traditional things that you can manufacutre.  Two sepereate examples with Iraq and China.  With Iraq we shocked and awed the heck out of them but it didn't really accomplish much at all.  China might be harder to see and a conventional war might still happen however I personally believe it will be more about technology and information.    

This ties into my last point education.  Why are there riots around the world or why is there terrorisim even?  I would argue much of it has to do with  a lack of opportunity which stems from poor education.  Bringing it back to the United States many areas of the country have been losing blue collar high school education jobs which are basically dead-end.  To transform these neighborhoods (you could also extend this out to urban cities as well) lets focus on getting more college educated individuals.  These people are the "weapons" of the 21st century whehter its enivronmental issues, business, or even modern warfare.  China and India aren't waiting around for us.  

Please appreciate what is currently going on in the world with the food riots. Food riots are happening in places where the agricultural market became liberalized. It killed the local agriculture of these places, and then the whole nation becomes a victim of the world markets, with dire consequences once those prices rose.

A lot of the benefits of trade that the proponents of it proclaim come from having everything working just fine. Unfortunately it often doesn't work out that way.

Look at the food riots again. A combination of a bad crop one year, combined with an unexpected rise of oil, combined with a push towards ethanol fuel have created people going hungry in several countries and rioting.

A sensible plan to allow each nation to protect key sectors such as agriculture would have prevented the current crisis.

The same can happen with key manufacturing. Having domestic industrial capacity is a cushion for unexpected economic events.

As for war, I will briefly say that it also boils down ultimately to production capacity and resources, and that enemies can find ways to bleed those resources in an indirect manner. Must I remind you of Iraq?

And obviously we both have more complex views of the world than any talking point would even hint that they exist.

At this point radical protectionism has been discredited and radical economic liberalism has been discredited as well. We have to find a third, pragmatic, and non ideological way out. I believe that conservative thought has a lot to contribute, but we got to listen to each other to realize that :)

when used politically, to my way of thinking. Hillary has bought into the Republican framing of issues, political and economic.  And so have many of the people making comments, probably unconsciously, because of the power of the past 20 years of successful framing of public dialog by those wordsmiths over in Republican-land.

The thing which strikes me about all this persistant snarling (rural vs. urban, red-neck versus non-NASCAR--- or however one chooses to describe one's caste) is how Old Style the whole kit and kaboodle of the talk-talk really is. Hillary and her DLC backgrouhnd is so, uh, 1990's, and sounds proto-Republican, not progressive.

If she is thinking, planning, and speaking from that mindset there is no way she would be able to beat John McCain in the general election. Why? Because he is the genuine article, Republicanism, and therefore he would have the advantage of the original over the imitation (despite his carefully nurtured pretensions as a "maverick," take a good look at his actual record, and you will see a bone-deep Republicanism).

Obama, notwithstanding some of his fund-raising connections and some of his advisors, is thinking outside the traditional political box. We can be sure of this because, every time he does so, both Clinton and McCain pounce and attack him. The Old Establishment, the traditionalists, cannot tolerate such independence.  

you make over $40M dollars and yet you have the gonads to say you're from ... down home!