Dems Future Lies in Rejecting Rubin Wing; Is Obama Listening?

[Guest Gandalf Grey]

Webb: Dems Future Lies In Rejecting Rubin Wing; Is Obama Listening?

 

By David Sirota

Created Jul 17 2007 - 1:13pm

 

Following the New York Times' belated report [1] on how economic populism is

on the rise in the Democratic Party, I caught this from Virginia Sen. Jim

Webb (D) in today's Washington Times [2]:

 

"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.'"

 

This critique from Webb echoes his earlier statements [3], and regular

readers know that I couldn't agree more. Whether it's wages, jobs,

outsourcing, globalization, health care or pension protection, the future of

the Democratic Party lies in leaders who are willing to take on the

fundamental issues of corporate power and wealth concentration in a

sustained way - David Broders and Joe Kleins be damned.

 

At the presidential level, John Edwards (D) should be congratulated for

making economic populism the centerpiece of his campaign [4]. And I'm

encouraged by signs that suggest Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) seems to be

figuring it out as well. The Washington Post reports this morning that

"Obama's campaign is doing some retooling [5]: He is focusing more on the

economy, which was the subject of a town hall meeting in Iowa last week as

well as recent events in South Carolina." And the New York Times [6]

reported yesterday that Obama smacked down what I have called the Great

Education Myth [7] - the Tom Friedman-ish concept that the path to economic

success is not to challenge any Big Money interests, but simply to educate

our way out of our troubles - as if that's possible. Here's Barack

smackdown:

 

"While campaigning in Iowa last week, Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of

Illinois, suggested that even those who followed the standard advice for

coping with a globalized economy -- get more education for higher-skilled

jobs -- were losing out. 'People were told, you've got to be trained for

high-tech jobs,' Mr. Obama said, "and then it turned out that some of those

high-tech jobs were being outsourced. And people were told, now you need to

train for service jobs. And then it turned out the call centers were moving

overseas.'"

 

This is a fairly different Barack Obama than I met a year and a half ago

when I interviewed him [8] for The Nation. It's unclear whether this

apparent change is happening because he's reacting to Edwards, or because

he's trying to differentiate himself from the Establishment campaign of

Hillary Clinton - or, perhaps, because he's a good politician and sees the

truth that Webb stated. Either way, I say the more Democratic politicians

who stand up for ordinary folks and refuse to parrot their Wall Street

donors' rhetoric, the better.

 

Cross-posted at Working Assets [9]

 

UPDATE: A reader writes to remind me that before I get too psyched by

Obama's potential populism, I should remember that the Illinois senator

lists executives at Lehman Brothers ($160,760), Citadel Investment Group

($152,150), Goldman Sachs ($103,550), JP Morgan Chase ($101,950) and Rubin's

employer Citigroup ($61,125) as his campaign's top contributors [10]. That

is, indeed, troubling - though I will counter by saying that at least his

campaign has thousands of small-dollar contributors to counter the influence

that these Wall Street titans undoubtedly are exerting to "refine" [11] his

economic positions, as Businessweek has reported.

_______

 

 

 

About author David Sirota is a political strategist and NY Times bestselling

author whose work appears in major newspapers and magazines. He has appeared

on CNN, MSNBC, CNBC and The Colbert Report. He has appeared in TV debates

with right-wing icons like Ann Coulter, John Stossel and John Fund. Email:

david [at] davidsirota.com.

 

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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their

spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their

government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are

suffering deeply in spirit,

and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public

debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have

patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning

back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at

stake."

-Thomas Jefferson

[Guest zzpat]

Gandalf Grey wrote:

>

> "He criticized what he called 'the Rubin wing of the Democratic Party,'

> after Robert E. Rubin, former President Bill Clinton's Treasury secretary,

 

Most informed people know Robert Rubin was the best Treasury Secretary

in US history - helping to take us from record deficits under Reagan and

Bush to record surpluses under Clinton.

 

The essay is attempting to blame Clinton (and Rubin) for what Bush has

done to the economy. That's silly.

 

During the Clinton years wages grew. During the Bush years wages fell.

During the Clinton years poverty dropped. During the Bush years poverty

soared. During the Clinton years we had record surpluses. During the

years he put us back into debt.

 

Obama would be well advised to remember who screwed things up and it

wasn't Rubin.

 

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