Jim Webb says Democrats should focus on kitchen-table populism before global warming [View All]

[jefferson_dem]

This may be a controversial mix of priorities to some but I like it...politically. It certainly firms up my desire for Obama-Webb in 2008.

Appearing yesterday on Meet the Press, Webb discussed his party's challenge on bringing back security-minded voters who believe Democrats have become anti-military.

But I was struck by another, less prominent, passage in the book in which he takes his party to task for veering away from kitchen-table populism. Some Democrats, Webb writes, have learned from the GOP's using social issues to bring over working-class voters:

But at this writing, there are probably as many among the Democratic Party's top leadership who are touting hard-to-grasp themes such as the environment and global warming as the prime political issues of the coming decade as there are leaders who are willing to face the political minefield of economic fairness to our workers.

Issues such as gobal warming are indeed troubling, but at a time when our national security is in such disarray and our workers are watching their jobs disappear, those themes are no clear enough to r strong enough to generate a defining, rock-hard support any broadly based political platform. To understand this reality, one need only consider basic human nature, according to the hierarchy of needs. First, people want to eat and to be clothed and to procreate. Then they want employment and personal security. Once they have that, they look for meaningful careers and community stability, which also translates into national security. And once all of that is accomplished, they will be able to turn toward global issues such as the suffering on other continents and whether thet polar ice cap is melting.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0508/Jim_Webb_unplugged.html