re: Hagel Stepping Down

He could restore a lot of confidence over the next couple of years by asking someone like Colin Powell to take over - obviously past his political prime and no threat to the Dem party at all - a Republican who endorsed Obama 2 times and is African American himself.

As a uniformed service member, I would trust Powell more than I did Hagel - in fact, I had more trust in Panetta, a Democrat, than I did Hagel, although he hasn't been a disaster.

ETA: I'm not sure Powell would want to be associated with the coming force reductions - and, from a status standpoint, it would be a slight step back - he's been both CJCS AND SECSTATE - from a prestiege standpoint, SECDEF is certainly behind SECSTATE, even if just a little.

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Political horse race sites are name dropping Michele Fluornoy.

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Makes sense - they need someone with expertise from the last draw down - the Clinton 90s - I think she's already heading that team at DoD now, as it is.

A female with no military experience will have zero capital and zero trust with us coming in - she'll have to earn it and she won't have time. In addition, since the cutting is going to be quite severe and painful for the rest of Obama's tenure - especially the Army, it would behoove them to grab someone with some kind of credibility with the men and women in uniform. Petraus is probably off-the-table. Webb is about the only big name Democrat with a hint of the gravitas (some 2000 election lingo for y'all) needed to be any sort of political win as a nomination for Obama - almost anyone else who would take the job would be a push (at best).

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I say Obama should appoint Dennis:

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I don't think that honest people, even Democrats who might be F*CKING INSANE, are on the table here. I like DK - I'm glad he's not President, but I'm also glad Charles Manson isn't President.

Kucinich makes Ron Paul look amazingly rational.

So, Webb is to the right of Hillary and Eliz Warren is to the left of Hillary. That makes Hillary a centrist in the primary.

Webb Comes across as far more left in this article -

LINK

In his senatorial race, Webb did well not only in northern Virginia, which is filled with Washington commuters and college-educated liberals, but also with rural, working-class white voters in Appalachia. In 2008, those voters were generally more loyal to Clinton than to Obama, but Webb believes that he could attract a national coalition of both groups of voters in the Presidential primaries. He laid out a view of Wall Street that differs sharply from Clinton’s.

“Because of the way that the financial sector dominates both parties, the distinctions that can be made on truly troubling issues are very minor,” he said. He told a story of an effort he led in the Senate in 2010 to try to pass a windfall-profits tax that would have targeted executives at banks and firms which were rescued by the government after the 2008 financial crisis. He said that when he was debating whether to vote for the original bailout package, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, he relied on the advice of an analyst on Wall Street, who told him, “No. 1, you have to do this, because otherwise the world economy will go into cataclysmic free fall. But, No. 2, you have to punish these guys. It is outrageous what they did.”

After the rescue, when Webb pushed for what he saw as a reasonable punishment, his own party blocked the legislation. “The Democrats wouldn’t let me vote on it,” he said. “Because either way you voted on that, you’re making somebody mad. And the financial sector was furious.” He added that one Northeastern senator—Webb wouldn’t say who—“was literally screaming at me on the Senate floor.”

When Clinton was a New York senator, from 2001 to 2009, she fiercely defended the financial industry, which was a crucial source of campaign contributions and of jobs in her state. “If you don’t have stock, and a lot of people in this country don’t have stock, you’re not doing very well,” Webb said. Webb is a populist, but a cautious one, especially on taxes, the issue that seems to have backfired against O’Malley’s administration. As a senator, Webb frustrated some Democrats because he refused to raise individual income-tax rates. But as President, he says, he would be aggressive about taxing income from investments: “Fairness says if you’re a hedge-fund manager or making deals where you’re making hundreds of millions of dollars and you’re paying capital-gains tax on that, rather than ordinary income tax, something’s wrong, and people know something’s wrong. ”

So, on the left right scale you'd put him about the same place as Hillary? Obviously, Warren is going to be the standard of the left.

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but also with rural, working-class white voters in Appalachia.

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Anyone's who has ever read "Born Fighting" would understand why.


Really good book ... not his best, though.

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The guy running from the left will be Bernie Sanders.

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He's a kook - no chance.

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Warren will wait her turn thinking it will only be a four year wait.

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Fauxchahontas will be 71 in 2020 brah - she's running in 2016.

What has already begun is that Obama's political machine has been transitioning to Warren, as has been promised. She's going to run a similar campaign as Obama, painting HRC as too establishment, too "conservative" and hang her Iraq War vote around her neck, plus her performance as SECSTATE. Where I thought HRC was a shoe in with almost no viable Democrat opposition about a year, year and a half ago, HRC's shaky popularity has taken a hit over the past 6 to 8 months. She's always had high unfavorability ratings, generally, even with a generally adequate popularity (people aren't lukewarm about her, that's for sure) - with this recent collapse, it is possible she won't even run and will cite health concerns/grandmother responsibilities, etc.

I guess we'll know in a few weeks.

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Webb Comes across as far more left in this article -

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He could only be considered "conservative" or "right" relative to the Democrat party of the past 30 years or so (post-Reagan, they had to turn hard left because they lost so many "Reagan" democrats.)