Posted on 12/27/2014 1:37:14 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
I’ve been dismissive of Jim Webb’s prospects for winning the Democratic presidential nomination. But Jacob Heilbrunn’s column on Webb, and Steve’s commentary on that column, made me take another look.
On second look, I still don’t see Webb getting very far.
Will female Democrats favor Webb — currently in his third marriage and the author of what some might consider a sexist novel — over Hillary Clinton? Not likely.
Will African-Americans favor Webb — so proud of his Scotch-Irish heritage — over the wife of “our first black president”? Not likely.
Will white southern Democrats favor Webb? Arguably. But he’s going to be running as a left-wing populist, and many white southern Democrats remain moderate.
Will wealthy Democrats back Webb? No. They can forgive populist rhetoric if they know it’s insincere, but they can’t be sure that Webb doesn’t mean what he says.
Suppose, however, that Hillary Clinton’s campaign implodes. In this scenario, we can expect Elizabeth Warren to enter. Warren would then become the favored candidate of females, radicals, and many other leftists. Even the wealthy would probably favor Warren over Webb, since she comes across as less than sincere.
If the scenario I’ve just described sounds familiar to old-timers, it’s because it resembles what happened in 1968. Going into the campaign season, President Johnson was the heavy favorite (as Clinton is now) but many on the left were urging Robert Kennedy to run (as they are now urging Warren to do).
Kennedy lacked the guts to challenge LBJ, but Eugene McCarthy was up for the fight. Though McCarthy didn’t defeat Johnson in the New Hampshire primary, he did well enough to cause Kennedy to enter the race. Soon thereafter, Johnson announced that he would neither seek nor accept his party’s nomination.
I would expect Warren to follow Kenney’s example and enter the race if Clinton were to withdraw or falter in 2016. Warren’s challenge will resemble Kennedy’s in terms of ideology, though she will be nothing like the campaign trail dynamo Kennedy was in 1968.
With Johnson out of the race and with two left-wing antiwar candidates fighting for the nomination, Vice President Hubert Humphrey announced his candidacy and attempted to rally the party establishment around him. Would Joe Biden do the same in 2016? I believe he would.
Whether Webb finds himself in a two-way race against Clinton, a two-way race against Warren, or a three-way race against Warren and Clinton or Biden, I consider him very unlikely to prevail.
I don’t deny that Clinton, Warren, and Biden all have serious deficiencies as campaigners. Webb, though he hasn’t shown himself to be a great campaigner, possesses the authenticity Clinton and Warren lack, and is not a bumbling windbag like Talkin’ Joe Biden.
But the logic of the race in a party where identity counts for so much is badly stacked against Webb.
I want another 1980. My choice to bring that about, assuming she’s interested, is Joni Ernst.
Two words in reply:
Sarah Palin.
His opinion is well thought out and analyzed. We shall see.
I think Warren does wish to run, but won’t say so now. She’s wait and let the Hillary Cake fall under it’s own top-heavy weight.
On the other hand, it is nice to see at least one presidential candidate who was man enough to serve his nation in uniform.
1980? Great.
Ernst at the head of that? No freaking way.
If the author is painting a scenario using 1968 as a basis, he forgot completely about George Wallace & the role he played.
There is no Reagan, there isn’t even a Phil Crane. Bill Buckley & Jesse Helms are dead as well by the way.
...Or Sen. Ted Cruz.
Webb is probably the best Veep Candidate for Warren. She is real thin on foreign policy and defense. Webb would shore up her weakness in these areas and since she is a feminist, she would cover for his multiple marriages and his dirty books he likes to write...
Why not?
Both sides of Mr. Webb’s family have a strong citizen-soldier military tradition that predates the Revolutionary War. Mr. Webb’s father was a career Air Force officer who flew B-17s and B-29s during World War Two, cargo planes during the Berlin Airlift, and was a pioneer in the United States missile program. Colonel Webb was the first family member to finish high school and graduated from the University of Omaha in 1962 after 26 years of night school.
While in the Senate, Mr. Webb was selected to deliver the response to the President’s State of the Union address in 2007, and served on the Foreign Relations, Armed Services, Veterans Affairs, and the Joint Economic Committees. He wrote, introduced, and guided to passage the Post-9.11 GI Bill, the most significant veterans legislation since World War II, and co-authored legislation which exposed 60 billion dollars of waste, fraud and abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan wartime-support contracts. A long-time advocate of fixing America’s broken criminal justice system, Mr. Webb was spotlighted in The Atlantic Magazine as one of the world’s “Brave Thinkers” for tackling prison reform and possessing “two things vanishingly rare in Congress: a conscience and a spine.”
Having widely traveled in Asia for decades, as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee’s Asia – Pacific Subcommittee Mr. Webb was a leading voice in calling for the United States to re-engage in East Asia, meeting frequently with key national leaders throughout the region. In 2009, he led an historic visit to Burma, becoming the first American leader to visit that country in ten years, and opening up the dialogue that resulted in the re-establishment of relations between our two countries.
Mr. Webb graduated from the Naval Academy in 1968, receiving a special commendation for his leadership contributions. First in his class of 243 at the Marine Corps Officer’s Basic School, he served as a rifle platoon and company commander in Vietnam and was awarded the Navy Cross, the Silver Star Medal, two Bronze Star Medals, and two Purple Hearts. He graduated from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1975.
How can Jim Web be such a socialist?
No democrats will vote for a Vietnam war veteran after the failure of John F’n Kerry - Did you know he too server in Vietnam
That said, if he gets the nod, I'll support him.
I think with what has been going on in our society these last couple of months with all the divisiveness, the middle has been pushed to support the conservatives anyways.
Kennedy lacked the guts to challenge LBJ, but Eugene McCarthy was up for the fight. Though McCarthy didn't defeat Johnson in the New Hampshire primary, he did well enough to cause Kennedy to enter the race. Soon thereafter, Johnson announced that he would neither seek nor accept his party’s nomination."I will not actively seek, nor will I accept, my party's nomination for President of the United States." That one not only shook the country, it startled the reporters covering it, because it was off-script -- LBJ always released his remarks beforehand, and had either ad-libbed that sentence or hadn't released that part of his prepared text. One reporter who failed to show up for what looked like another routine and stupifyingly boring presser, planning (as usual) to write his story about it off the released text wound up getting fired and blackballed as a result.
With a woman nominee, the women of America will vote for her because they are stupid and will only vote based on the candidate’s sex. And Republican men will have no choice but to vote for her. Right?
That’s how identity politics works, right?
Kerry served in Viet Nam? I never heard that. I wonder why he never mentioned it in his campaign?
Any conservative woman running for President will get no credit for being a woman; that can only go to pro-choice liberal Democrat women.
Ernst would be a good VP nominee for a less-in-your-face-than-Cruz candidate like Walker or Pence. Cruz will need someone who is more like Walker or Pence: perhaps Bobby Jindal or Nikki Haley.
They got the ‘68 race riot angle down pat. I wonder who is going to get to play the role of Bobby Kennedy?
Cruz / Martinez 2016?
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