I am very proud of him for this. Here is a quote from David Sirota of an interview James Webb gave recently.
From Working Assets blog, Sirota says he found this Webb interview in the Washington Times.
Webb lauds freshman power"He criticized what he called 'the Rubin wing of the Democratic Party,' after Robert E. Rubin, former President Bill Clinton's Treasury secretary, saying those Democrats share the same problem as many Republicans: 'We're not paying attention to what has happened to basic working people in the country.' He said of the freshman Senate Democrats, six of them take a 'populist' view, and said they are bringing needed reinforcements to the Senate: 'We've got a number of us that pretty well see the economic issues the same way. I think that's the Democratic Party of the future."
Robert Rubin is a good man, but I agree with Webb. Rubin's concerns are not the ones we average people have. He has been given almost exclusive access to the freshmen Democrats, while labor leaders were turned away.
Robert Rubin gets the floor to himself to talk to new Congress folks.William Greider at The Nation questioned this.
So why does Pelosi begin the education of her freshman members with a seminar on Rubinomics? Robert Rubin, the Citigroup executive and former Treasury secretary, will appear solo next week before the party caucus to explain the economy. Pelosi has scheduled another caucus briefing on Iraq, but that includes five expert voices of varying viewpoints. Rubin gets the stage to himself.
When labor officials heard about this, they asked to be included since they have very different ideas about what Democrats need to do in behalf of struggling workers and middle-class families. Pelosi decided against it. This session, her spokesman explains, is only about "fiscal responsibility," not globalization and trade not the deterioration of wages and disappearing jobs. Yet those subjects are sure to come up for discussion. Rubin gets to preach his "free trade" dogma with no one present to rebut his facts and theories.
I remember Rubin told Howard Dean in 2003 to stop criticizing NAFTA, that he could not get him any big donations if he didn't. There were several articles on this, but this one sticks in my mind. A couple of paragraphs show the difference in what Rubin advocates and Dean's ideas. Dean told him NAFTA needed to be changed, told him to get back to him. Rubin had no response.
The governor has shown flashes of the same bluntness in his prime-time campaigning. Last summer, he told a revealing story on himself--a conversation with Robert Rubin, the former Treasury Secretary and Wall Street's main money guy for Democrats.
Rubin had warned that unless Dean stopped attacking NAFTA and the multinationals for the migration of US jobs, he couldn't raise contributions for him from the financial sector. As Dean told it, "I said, 'Bob, tell me what your solution is.' He said, 'I'll have to get back to you.' I haven't heard from him." What I like so much about the story is that powerful, influential Bob Rubin pokes Dean in the chest, and he pokes him back. Then Dean discloses the exchange to the Washington Post. In the higher realms of politics, this is not done. But he is not one of them.
http://www.commondreams.org/scriptfiles/vi... More on that issue, from an Alternet article by Chris Suellentrop.
Won't Dean's plan make the price of goods go up? "Yeah," he says quietly. "But so what?" My 25 minutes are up. We've arrived in Osceola, the site of Dean's next talk, and I'm being ushered out of McFun by Dean's staff. But I think Dean realizes he's ended the interview on the wrong note because he quickly adds:
"Because in return for making the price of goods go up, you've fixed the illegal immigration problem, you've fixed the drain of jobs problem, you've created a middle class that can buy American exports. There's a lot you get for that." Now it really is time for me to go. "I've got to make a phone call," Dean says as I step outside.
http://www.commondreams.org/scriptfiles/vi... James Webb sounds like a good leader going in the right direction on this issue.
