People are beginning to see just what a find he is, and they're responding.  He's had several superb appearances on his little book tour and Americans are beginning to take notice.  

Because I'll guarantee you that Webb comes to Obama ONLY with a strong plank endorsing gun ownership.  Can you lay your fear of guns aside?

Why aren't we moving past the "God, guns and gays" mentality of the Republicans?  This election cannot and should not be made to be about guns.  It's got to be about the economy, the war, universal health insurance, income disparity, infrastructure repair, and the incarceration crisis.  For crying out loud, let's stop talking about fringe issues.

The issue of guns is probably #15 on a list of peoples' concerns right now (after the economy, Iraq, health care, education, gas prices, the budget deficit, immigration, and a million other things).  

Trusting people with their guns is #1.  It demonstrates an understanding of rural life.  In NoVA I suspect it will simply be used as a cudgel to showcase the Party's commitment to Constitutional rights.

More than the economy, the war in Iraq, gas prices, etc?  Here's a recent LA Times poll on people's top priorities right now:

The economy 56%
War in Iraq 34%
Health care issues 11%
Illegal immigration 11%
Education 8%
Terrorist attacks 7%
The environment 4%
Other social issues 2%
Another issue 6%
None/All (vol.) 9%

Around here, no one is expected to be able to fix much of anything. Expectations will remain low, suspicion will remain high.  The least any politician can do is show some respect and trust.  

This is a poll, nothing to do with Los Angeles.  Check out this link and you can look at polls from CNN, CBS, Pew, ABC, NBC, Gallup, etc.  They all show about the same thing.  And guns aren't on any of them as a top priority issue for people.

I live in New Mexico and we have game out the woo woo. A friend of mine has a ranch about a 100 miles from here. It's been in their family for like 10 generations. It was given to his ancestors under a Spanish land grant. His Dad shot and killed a Mountain Lion years ago. It was at the top of a big Cottonwood tree just yards from their house. It had been killing some of their cattle.
Good friends of mine hunt Elk that are bigger than horses. You have to quarter them with a  hand saw just to pack them out of the wilderness back to camp. I've hunted Mule deer and  wild turkey in the Sacramento Mountains for years when I was younger. People shoot Diamondbacks in their backyards with 22s all the time. I shot Expert the whole time I was in the Marines. I was one of the last Marines to qualify with the M-14 back in 1975.

So with that all said ,my point is, gun ownership is, well, axiomatic out here. A lot of people here own small arsenals (it's like a hobby or a  status thing to some to see how much money they can squander on firearms).
But when I talk to these guys, my friends and co-workers(and they're blue collar working stiffs just like me)They don't worry about gun control all that much. They're mainly concerned about home mortgages, exorbitant college tuition rates for their kids, and sky-rocketing health insurance. One co-worker(he was a sniper in Vietnam)wants to retire but he can't because his wife has a health condition that he can't get covered outside the company health insurance program.

I don't know about you but the last thing I worry about when I can't sleep at night (I do lay awake at night, sometimes,and worry about my country) is some  gestapo goon squad coming my to house, pounding my door down ,draging me out of my bed and confiscating all my guns.

I worry about the dollar and why it's valued less than the euro. I wonder why 90% of the stuff in my house was made in China, yet the majoriy of jobs in my local paper can barely pay a livable wage. I wonder how my children and my grandchildren are going to pay this multi-trillion dollar national debt. I wonder a how a country throws a endless trillion dollar war with no taxes (with no draft to boot)and at the same time preach tax cuts.

These are the things I worry about.

I'm trying to close the deal (with enormously skeptical, and suspicious "government isn't the solution, government is the problem" Reagan babies).

You have the luxury of living in one of the most beautiful, and least populated states in the lower 48.  I know it well thanks to my early fascination with native Virginian, Kit Carson. There is a near innate respect and acceptance of gun ownership in New Mexico.  That is not the case in increasingly urbanized states that split Appalachia. And it defines a cultural divide.

But never mind that; here's the nub of it.  You could add up all the electoral college votes in the mountain west and it would not come close to what is available in Appalachia.  From rural New Hampshire, south to Alabama, west to southern Ohio there are in excess of 100 electoral votes.  

We're trying to win an election here, and for all the reasons you cite.  NAFTA has devastated our economy, CAFTA hasn't helped. Walmart sells us stuff we used to make. We have taken a licking and we're looking for a champion.  It could be an easy sell. It will not be someone who does not trust us with our guns.  We just don't relate to those kind of people, because we see them as irrational, or elitists.  

We just don't relate to those kind of people, because we see them as irrational, or elitists.

But can you understand that urban and suburban folk plagued by violent gun crime might see rural hunters and sport shooters who resist, via the NRA, any and all efforts to limit easy access to semi-automatics, cheap pistols and armor-penetrating teflon bullets as irrational?

Since you decided to use the word pejoratively, can you take a few moments to explain why 'elitist' is a bad thing when it comes to electing qualified people to run our complex government and country of 300 million diverse people?  By elitist, one presumes you mean someone who is highly educated, an expert in his or her chosen field or discipline, speaks a language in addition to English and is well-traveled and familiar with countries and cultures other than our own.    

Celebrating spectacular paper gains on Wall Street, and in urban centers, mega-million celebrity CEO's,  while our small towns have died, our jobs left the country, and our children have been forced to find work elsewhere...Then pointing at a malaise of crime, violence, and substance abuse as a problem with semi-auto guns, pistols, and teflon bullets.  

Then take it off the table.  Endorse the 2nd Amendment and move on.  The only reason guns are an issue is because Dems continue to allow it to be one.  

most Democrats already have endorsed the 2nd Amendment and moved on, as you suggest. As far as I can tell, there hasn't been a serious national debate on guns since the 1990s, or at the latest during the Gore-Bush campaign in 2000.

Where Barack has done so.  I've got a Valley full of boys itching to hear about it before they get on board...or more alarmingly, go vote for the goofy geezer who HAS endorsed gun ownership.

The suspicion is that left unmentioned, the Obama admin will turn and regulate.  

this is pretty clear!

Because of this

has evolved over the years.  But there's no sense arguing; if this is a litmus test issue for you, there's no way Obama (or most anyone else) is going to please you.  Vote for McCain and enjoy 4 more years of Bush foreign and economic policy.

The real decision about gun control and gun rights is going to come from SCOTUS and its current 2nd Admendment case. Doesn't mean that in turn, that you shouldn't consider who the president is going to appoint to the Court and how it will effect 2nd admendment rights, but for the immediate future we all wait on the Supremes. (point of disclosure, I don't own a gun, but support 2nd Admendment rights).

the big red tent supposedly was?

Is it going to be big enough to embrace those who hold the 2nd Amendment sacrosanct and, say, anti-war pacifists who might be also militantly anti-gun?

Truth is, single issue purists are never going to be happy with anybody.

I mean, here's the thing: according to Gallup, 51% of Americans believe gun laws should be "more strict," with just 8% saying "less strict."  According to an ABC News poll, 67% of Americans support a ban on "the sale of assault weapons," with 30% opposed.  Perhaps most relevant to this discussion, 31% of Americans answer "could not" to the question, "If you agreed with a political candidate on other issues, but not on the issue of gun control, could you still vote for that candidate, or not?"

Source

putting Webb on the ticket should certainly satisfy those who hold the Second Amendment sancrosanct.  

But of course Webb's gun thing really ticks off the left wing flower children.  What to do?  

If it means anything, the big blue tent pitched over my house covers three Volvos and three guns.

Guys, we seriously need a Webb action team out there... a lot of us also read dkos and huffington post... there are so many diaries/blogs every day about Webb's past writing regarding women in the military... I personally am sick and tired of the shear hate for Webb from these people.  We have got to mobilize to respond to every Webb attack, especially from our 'own' people.

To the gnats, it apparently doesn't matter that he wrote "Women Can't Fight" nearly thirty years ago.  And that he's since said he was wrong.  Repeatedly.  The 100% approval rating from NARAL on who Jim Webb is today counts for nothing.

Note the factually incorrect comment that Webb is a "government rookie".

Anyone but Webb
Why Jim Webb would make an awful running mate.

By Timothy Noah
Posted Monday, June 9, 2008, at 6:41 PM ET

...  "Like a boxer or a military man, Webb decides on his targets and charges straight at them." ...

It's this last characteristic that's the problem. Webb, 62, is a bit of a blowhard. Because he's a writer, he's left a paper trail. In a 1979 Washingtonian article, "Women Can't Fight," Webb wrote that it had been a mistake to open the military service academies to women ...

Such piggy statements won't endear Webb to the white female Hillary Clinton supporters who are threatening not to vote in the general election. ...

No sooner was Webb elected in 2006 before he picked an utterly pointless fight with President Bush. ...

... Four months later, Webb's aide Phillip Thompson was arrested carrying Webb's gun into the Capitol. Asked at a subsequent press conference whether he, Webb, was in the habit of obeying a strict handgun ban in the District of Columbia, Webb replied defiantly, "I'm not going to comment in any level in terms of how I provide for my own security." They may love that in Appalachia, but is it wise to place on the national ticket a candidate who virtually boasts about violating the law? ...

... Webb may yet turn out to be a great senator. (Though that raises another problem: He only arrived there last year! The Obama ticket doesn't need another rookie, and, setting aside Webb's deep knowledge and experience in the area of military affairs, Webb is a government rookie.)

But Webb's personal history has demonstrated time and again that he can't play well with the other children. A volcanic temperament is endurable in a novelist or an opera singer. It is not endurable at the bottom of a national ticket. Nominating Webb isn't worth the risk that he'll alienate important constituencies, embarrass Obama, or break with him outright, as John Nance Garner did with Franklin Roosevelt. He's trouble, and Obama's already had too much of that.

http://www.slate.com/id/2193217/

at dkos/huffingtono post ranting and raving about the same issue on Webb.  I believe dkossers hate webb more than repubs do/could.

We all really need to stick together and continue to fight these comments/diaries.

Stupid is everywhere.  Maybe we should just keep Webb for ourselves and enjoy the benefits!  A strong majority in the Senate is a good thing.

Webb must definitely be out in front, what with these now almost daily buckshot blasts to his rear.

So now, in addition to being a closet Republican, a gun nut, a pedophile pornographer and a misogynist adamantly against women's rights, he's an unreconstructed rebel -- with the clear implication, per this article, that it would therefore be fair to assume he's a racist.

The premise of this ludicrous piece is that Webb would be bad for the ticket 'cause African-Americans would find out that he is a "Neo-Confederate" and thus, oh, I dunno, he's all for bringing back slavery?

This piece of yellow journalism missed kind of a key item:  if Webb is picked to run as VP, he would be picked by his African-American friend and close political ally, Barack Obama.  So Obama's black supporters would presume Barack picked a Confederate sympathizer and racist?

Yep, Jim Webb as running mate would be a slap in the face to women and blacks.

Webb's rebel roots: An affinity for Confederacy

... There's nothing scandalous in the paper trail, nothing that on its face would disqualify Webb from consideration for national office. Yet it veers into perilous waters since the slightest sign of support or statement of understanding of the Confederate cause has the potential to alienate African-Americans who are acutely sensitive to the topic.

Ron Walters, director of the African American Leadership Center at the University of Maryland and a professor of political science there, said Webb's past writings and comments on the Confederacy could dampen enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket, should he appear on it.

"Unless he is able to explain it, it would raise some questions," Walters said.

Edward H. Sebesta, co-author of the forthcoming "Neo-Confederacy: A Critical Introduction" (University of Texas Press), said Webb's views express an unhealthy regard for a political system that propped up and defended slavery.

His book, in fact, will cite Webb as an example of the mainstreaming of neo-Confederacy ideas into politics, said Sebesta, a widely cited independent historical researcher and author of the Anti-Neo-Confederate blog.

"I don't think people have thought through the implications of how his ideas have racial overtones, even if they are inadvertent," Sebesta said.

But, umm, as a bone tossed to fair and balanced, at the end of this long article is one single sentence about Webb's victorious race for the Senate:

Webb won overwhelming support from black voters - 85 percent - who accounted for 16 percent of all voters, according to exit polls.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politi...