Jim Webb for VP

WSJ: The Case for Webb as Obama's Running Mate

Link: Political Perceptions : The Case for Webb as Obama's Running Mate.

The excitement among Democrats about James Webb, the senator from Virginia, is understandable. Having a Vietnam-war-hero-turned-Reagan-administration-official-turned-Iraq-War foe on the ticket would lend Barack Obama a stiff dose of military experience, not to mention manly toughness.

But most speculation about Sen. Webb misses just how radical, risky and historic a choice he would be. He’s not some liberal Republican or moderate Democrat a few degrees to the right of the Democratic mainstream. He’s a Vietnam veteran whose driving passion for several decades was contempt for “the Left,” those draft-evading “elites” who came to run the modern Democratic Party.

Democrats have nominated southerners as part of their tickets nine times since 1976 (Jimmy Carter, Lloyd Bentsen, Bill Clinton, Al Gore and John Edwards) and military veterans 11 times (Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, John Kerry, and Messrs. Bentsen, Carter and Gore). They’ve convinced themselves therefore that they have reached out to the Reagan Democrats. But these veterans and southerners were all men who had been on the liberal side of the Vietnam-era culture wars. Not Jim Webb.

Choosing Sen. Webb would either violently reopen old wounds or finally call home the Reagan Democrats.

WSJ: The Case for Webb as Obama's Running Mate

Link: Political Perceptions : The Case for Webb as Obama's Running Mate.

The excitement among Democrats about James Webb, the senator from Virginia, is understandable. Having a Vietnam-war-hero-turned-Reagan-administration-official-turned-Iraq-War foe on the ticket would lend Barack Obama a stiff dose of military experience, not to mention manly toughness.

But most speculation about Sen. Webb misses just how radical, risky and historic a choice he would be. He’s not some liberal Republican or moderate Democrat a few degrees to the right of the Democratic mainstream. He’s a Vietnam veteran whose driving passion for several decades was contempt for “the Left,” those draft-evading “elites” who came to run the modern Democratic Party.

Democrats have nominated southerners as part of their tickets nine times since 1976 (Jimmy Carter, Lloyd Bentsen, Bill Clinton, Al Gore and John Edwards) and military veterans 11 times (Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, John Kerry, and Messrs. Bentsen, Carter and Gore). They’ve convinced themselves therefore that they have reached out to the Reagan Democrats. But these veterans and southerners were all men who had been on the liberal side of the Vietnam-era culture wars. Not Jim Webb.

Choosing Sen. Webb would either violently reopen old wounds or finally call home the Reagan Democrats.

If it's not going to be Clinton, Pascrell likes Webb

What does he mean, IF it's not gonna be Clinton?

PATERSON - U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-8) didn't hesitate today when asked whom he would like to see presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois choose as his running mate.

"Senator (Jim) Webb, from Virginia," Pascrell told PolitickerNJ.com at a press conference on gas prices in Paterson, which he attended with senators Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez and Paterson Mayor Jose "Joey" Torres.

"He'd be a great vice president, and you'd always know where he stands," Pascrell said of the freshman Virginia senator, and Vietnam veteran who once boxed Ollver North to earn a controversial loss when the two were in the Marine Corps.

Buzz Buzz

Sometimes, you wonder if maybe there's a better way to select a running mate than "buzz"

From the Drudge Report to the Huffington Post, Newsmax to The New Republic, there is speculation about Virginia's junior senator and his prospects to become Barack Obama's running mate.

On the web site Donklephant, ("Surprisingly Reasonable," according to its masthead) writer Jennn Fusion last week had this answer to the question "Who is Jim Webb?"

"He's not afraid to bite, if provoked - even if the provoker is President Bush himself! He likes his guns and he's a good Irish Catholic, which may be how he won over Virginia - a traditionally Republican state."

Maybe It Really Does Matter

Sure, Bentsen stomped Quayle in the 1988 VP debate, and Quayle wound up riding GHWBush's coat-tails to Naval Observatory but:

Here is what you do need to know about vice-presidential choices: Does the nominee make a "micro" choice or a "macro" choice? A micro choice would mean picking a running mate who would help carry one important state. In 2000, Democrat Al Gore, instead of choosing Connecticut's senator Joe Lieberman, could have selected the popular senator and former Florida governor Bob Graham. With Graham, Gore carries Florida and goes to the White House, and George W. Bush returns to Texas.

Nice Work

If You Can Get It:

WASHINGTON - For Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, a best-selling author and producer, the U.S. Senate is just a day job.

The freshman Democrat made at least $250,000 last year in
in royalties for his new book, "A Time to Fight," according to his new financial disclosure report, released Friday.

The Senate pays him an annual salary of $169,300.

Webb, a decorated combat veteran and author of a half-dozen novels, earned more than $314,000 total in royalties last year, along with a $36,000 pension from the Writers Guild of America.

The disclosure report underscored Webb's dual role as a senator and a creative talent who has ongoing business deals with publishers and movie studios.

Aside From the VP Speculation...

Joe Klein in Time reminds us that Senator Webb...

...has written a book, A Time to Fight, that may be the best evocation of the 21st century Democratic Party's emerging style and philosophy. In the process, the Senator bids a not-too-fond adieu to the hapless late-20th century Democrats—at least those who made "interest-group rights" a higher priority than the economic well-being of the middle class ... and especially those who disdained or didn't take time to understand the U.S. military.

Positives Outweigh the Negatives

Hell, nobody gets to their sixth or seventh decade on this planet without accumulating some manner of baggage:

A newly published article gives the sense that Jim Webb, the junior senator from Virginia, may have a better shot at being Barack Obama's running mate than generally thought. The piece, by Elizabeth Drew in The New York Review of Books, doesn't dwell on the running mate question at great length, but it does suggests Webb's liabilities may not be as great as some believe.

The choice of Webb, in sum, would allow Obama to tap someone with the background and seasoning that Obama himself lacks, while also reinforcing Obama's image as a post-partisan agent of change. Webb could, in theory at least, solve Obama's central dilemma as he looks for a running mate: how to find someone with the background to offset Obama's relative inexperience, without undermining his message of change.

So why isn't Webb considered a shoo-in? In large part because he has the reputation in some quarters of being unpredictable and strong-willed.

Most famously, when the new senator met President Bush, he reportedly refused to shake his hand. Bush asked Webb how his son was doing in Iraq, and Webb replied, "I'd like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President." "That's not what I asked. How's your boy?" Bush replied. The senator said, "That's between me and my son, Mr. President."

The New York Review piece doesn't change the fact that Webb may be too independent to make a good running mate. But it does make the case that he is hardly the loose cannon some suggest.

Obama may seek military leader as running mate

Certainly makes sense to us:

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama is considering former top military leaders among his possible running mates, according to a senator who met yesterday with the Democratic presidential candidate's vice presidential vetting team.

The South Will Rise Again?

I suppose this could be a problem:

Barack Obama’s vice presidential vetting team will undoubtedly run across some quirky and potentially troublesome issues as it goes about the business of scouring the backgrounds of possible running mates. But it’s unlikely they’ll find one so curious as Virginia Democratic Sen. Jim Webb’s affinity for the cause of the Confederacy.

Webb is no mere student of the Civil War era. He’s an author, too, and he’s left a trail of writings and statements about one of the rawest and most sensitive topics in American history.

He has suggested many times that while the Confederacy is a symbol to many of the racist legacy of slavery and segregation, for others it simply reflects Southern pride. In a June 1990 speech in front of the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, posted on his personal website, he lauded the rebels’ “gallantry,” which he said “is still misunderstood by most Americans.”

 

The original article has spawned the usual round of follow-up "explanations" of the original remarks:

Sen. Jim Webb responded to an article this morning suggesting that
as a vice presidential candidate he would have difficulty explaining
past comments about the Confederacy and the Civil War.

Webb repeatedly pointed out that his work as a historian is more complex than the treatment in the press. However, he stood by his statement that war service during the Civil War was motivated more by concerns of states' sovereignty than by the issue of slavery.

 

It's getting to the point where it's pointless to listen to the first thing anybody says.  You have to wait for the "explanation" to know what they really said.