Webb: From political unknown to serious contender
By LARRY O'DELL
Associated Press Writer
October 28 2006
dailypress.com
RICHMOND, Va. -- Despite highly successful careers as a military leader and author, Jim Webb was little known to most Virginians when he entered the U.S. Senate race last February.
That gave the former Republican and Reagan administration Navy secretary a scant nine months to introduce himself to voters and convince Democrats that he really is one of them.
He has gone about it like the hard-charging Marine he once was, beating a longtime Democratic Party loyalist for the nomination in June and campaigning virtually nonstop to turn Republican Sen. George Allen's presumed re-election cakewalk into a too-close-to-call dogfight.
Webb's obstacles have been many: the late start, the incumbent's easygoing campaign style and experience, and an innate aversion to that most essential political exercise--asking for money.
"It's very hard. I won't deny it," Webb said in an interview with Associated Press writers and editors. "I come from a culture where you don't ask for things for yourself. We were outspent 3-to-1 in the primary. Since the primary, we've got a much better apparatus in place."
Perhaps the greatest boon to Webb's fundraising, however, was a monumental gaffe by Allen. At a campaign appearance in southwest Virginia in August, Allen called a young Webb volunteer of Indian descent "macaca"--a genus of monkey and, in some cultures, an obscure racial slur.
The incident exploded into a global news story. Allen's double-digit lead in opinion polls eroded to virtually nothing, and Democrats--sensing a chance for an upset that could put their party back in control of the Senate--began opening their wallets.
Webb, who entered July with less than $500,000 in the bank, had raised about $4.5 million through Sept. 30--still well below Allen's $12.9 million, but enough to flood the airwaves with radio spots and TV commercials.
One of those commercials featured old video footage of Reagan praising Webb--an attempt to reach beyond the Democratic base and pull in voters who still revere the 40th president.
C. Richard Cranwell, chairman of the state Democratic Party, said party die-hards had little trouble warming up to a former Republican who had supported Allen in his first Senate campaign and once called President Clinton's two terms "the most corrupt" in modern history.
"I think everybody in the Democratic Party has seen Democrats become Republicans for so long they were overjoyed to see someone go the other way," said Cranwell, a former state legislator from Roanoke County.
Webb, 60, grew up in a Democratic family, the son of a World War II Air Force veteran. He said he became a Republican primarily because that was the party that best reflected his views on national security.
"That was the number one political concern I had, and the Democratic Party, as a result of Vietnam, became irresponsible, quite frankly, on those issues," Webb said.
"After 1991, after the Soviet Union fell, I was like a lot of people--kind of adrift between two parties. I saw things I liked and things I didn't like in both parties."
Then he began researching and writing "Born Fighting." His 2004 account of the history of the Scots-Irish in America became a journey of self-discovery, particularly when Webb reached the Andrew Jackson era.
"Writing about the Andrew Jackson presidency and what his view of the American system ought to be, I said that's the traditional Democratic Party," Webb said. "You measure the health of a society not by its apex but by its base--by the people who are out there, the farmers, the laborers, the mechanics."
That's a point Webb makes frequently on the campaign trail, arguing that President Bush and a Republican Congress have presided over a massive shift in wealth that has fattened corporate coffers and CEOs' portfolios at the expense of wage-earners.
Perhaps his most compelling campaign issue, however, has been the war in Iraq. Webb was an early and vocal critic of the increasingly unpopular war, which Allen has strongly supported.
Webb's military background gives him a natural air of authority on the issue. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and the Marine Officers' Basic School in Quantico before serving as a rifle platoon and company commander in Vietnam.
Webb was wounded in combat, forcing him to leave the Marines as a captain in 1972. He was awarded the Silver Star, the Navy Cross, two Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts.
Although his Vietnam experience has provided grist for a half-dozen military suspense novels that preceded "Born Fighting," Webb doesn't talk about it much on the hustings.
"We're all the sum of our pasts," said Webb, a square-shouldered former amateur boxer with a full head of red hair and green eyes that can sparkle or pierce, depending on the situation. "I don't know that there's anything specific from that experience that in an overt way affects what I do. ...There's a positive to having served, and there's a price."
He also says little about the fact that his son Jimmy, 24, is a Marine lance corporal serving in Iraq. He does, however, campaign in Jimmy's battered combat boots--a contrast to Allen's shiny cowboy boots.
"I'm pretty cautious about not politicizing what my son is going through," Webb said during a campaign stop at a college football game in Richmond. "I know what it's like to fight in an unpopular war and see your service characterized one way or another. I'm not trying to downplay what my son is doing, but I don't think it should be part of my political posture."
Jimmy is one of the thrice-married Webb's four adult children. He also has a 9-year-old stepdaughter, and he and his Vietnamese-born wife, Hong, are expecting a baby in December. They live in Falls Church, although Webb has roots in southwest Virginia.
After leaving active military service, Webb received a law degree from Georgetown University and became counsel for the House Committee on Veterans Affairs. He was assistant secretary of defense from 1984 until 1987, when he was appointed Navy secretary _ a job he held for less than a year before resigning in protest over budget cuts.
He also flourished as a writer and journalist, winning an Emmy award for his coverage of the Marines in Beirut for PBS in 1983. A Webb-penned story, "Rules of Engagement," became a cinematic hit starring Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson.
However, some of Webb's writings have been used against him in the campaign, including his criticism of affirmative action and a 1979 magazine article in which he branded women unfit to lead men in combat and lamented the admission of females to U.S. service academies.
Webb says his complaint about affirmative action was that it was originally intended to help blacks but has been expanded to cover everyone who is not Caucasian. He also says he is now comfortable with the role of women in the military.
He also seems to be getting more comfortable on the campaign trail, although he is clearly less polished than Allen.
Cranwell said Webb has done well for a neophyte, putting substance over style.
"I've sat down with Jim Webb and he's the real deal," Cranwell said. "There's no question George Allen is a better `politician' _ that's in quotes--than Jim Webb. But I also know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, Jim Webb will be better at the civics part than George Allen."
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