Jim Webb's Fiery Populist Speech in Arlington

*"...we share in a legacy that is bigger than any one of us individually, a legacy that has set an example around the world for tolerance, achievement, and humanity."

*Webb told the story of his father earning his college degree after 26 years of night classes.  After Webb's dad walked across the stage and received his diploma, he had a "Great Santini" moment, breaking out of line, walking up to the teenaged Jim Webb, and yelling at the top of his lungs, "You can get anything you want in this country, and don't you ever forget it!" Jim Webb never has.

*"Imagine if we had more people like my father in elected office."

[more on the flip]
*"We must uphold our liberty, but that also means we must never fear taking on the status quo."

*"My objection to [the Iraq] war is aimed not at my country, but at the Administration that has chosen to wage it - an administration that has muddied the truth, made mistake after mistake, and refused to accept responsibility. It is our duty to question such policies."

*"I am running for the Senate because our ideals have been placed at risk..."

*"...in the Marines we have a creed - a theory of leadership specific to the Corps but representing an idea that applies to all Americna.  Take care of your people.  Never send them into harm's way unless you can justify their risk, and are willing to share their risk.  Believe in them.  Support them. And never waste a life.  Any Marine will tell you that this creed cuts across political boundaries, racial boundaries, and class boundaries."

*"Our politics has been letting [thos facing enemy fire] down; our leaders have been letting them down."

*"George Allen is right in the middle of this, try as he might to distance himself from it.  Voting with the President 97 percent of the time hold you accountable."

*"Our economy is in trouble. Our tax policies make no sense. Our country is breaking into three pieces..."

*"...we are in the hands of people who follow no creed; they speak to you of values, but they know nothing other than political expediency and blind loyalty to a money-drenched political machine."

*"This administration...mouths the words of limited government, but has ballooned the national debt...This is not 'limited' government."

*"I say to you, the government's power ends at my front door, unless there is a compelling reason to come inside. Leave us alone, and let us live our lives." (this one was a particularly big applause line)

*"I'm going to be very clear here: Despite all their double talk, the other party has enriched itself at the public's expense.  It has grown corrupt.  It has abandoned its principles."

*"The Republican Senate has rubber-stamped this administration's bad ideas for six year."

*...they've wholesaled entire industries such as furniture and textiles to other countries, and outsourced stacks of other jobs as well.  These actions by greedy international corporations that claim on paper to be American are amoral, if not immoral."

*"If you give me the chance, I will become the leader of the ANTI outsourcing of American jobs."

*"Some say the train has left the station on that issue.  I say to you, the corporations who want to betray the American worker need to pay a higher price for a ticket on that train."

*"At the same time we're all hurting to fill up our [gas] tanks, oil companies are reporting RECORD profits.  And Washington isn't just turning a blind eye - they're giving out tax breaks.  Why isn't anyone...standing up and saying no!"

*Here, Webb called for a windfall profits tax on the oil companies.

*"We need to end the war in Iraq...We need to be listening to the military, not the ideologues in these think-tanks who told us we'd be welcomed with rose petals."

*"The Senate, by virtue of our constitution, share the foreign policy power with the President.  When I'm in the Senate, I'll use that power."

*"Our economic policy is seriously off track...Corporate interests should reflect our common interests."

*"The culture of corruption in Washington needs real reform, not the kind of bandaid treatment being done by the current leaders in the Senate."

*"I've always believed that ethics matters.  It mattered on the battlefield when I had to make split-second decisions about whether or not to open fire..."

*Webb again told the story of why he wears combat boots, not just to honor his son the Marine, but also "for all in harm's way."  In contrast, Webb pointed out that, as his son said, "there aren't any cowboys in Virginia" so why does George Allen where cowboy boots?

*"We are proud, honorable people, bound up in a common duty to each other, as much because of - rather than in spite of - our diversity..."

*"We are descendants of gentlemen farmers and...poor white tobacco sharecroppers; we are great-grandchildren of African slaves emancipated after a bitter war...we are sons and daughters of Vietnamese refugees who came to live in a land divided by protest."

*"We are veterans of the war that ignited that protest; we are children of privilege and children of the working poor and children of migrant Mexcian workers; we are seniors who remember Roosevelt's old Democratic party, and we are first time voters hoping that their vote will count." (reference to Diebold, a company that Harris Miller lobbied for?)

*"I am asking for that vote, from all of you, regardless of your party."

*Remember that it is the belief that our nation has a special place in history that binds us all.  We must cling to it and live it."

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