Sen. Jim Webb (D)

Democrat Jim Webb, Virginia’s senior senator, was elected to the Senate in 2006. Of Scots-Irish descent, he is the son of an Air Force colonel who enlisted after Pearl Harbor. The family moved at least a dozen times when he was a child. He enrolled in the University of Southern California, then a year later in the U.S. Naval Academy. He was a reader who wanted to become a writer, but he was also a combative young man, and a boxing match in 1967 with future Iran-contra operative Oliver North at Annapolis became the subject of legend (North won). He graduated in 1968, and in 1969 went into combat in Vietnam as a Marine lieutenant. He commanded 170 men and earned the Navy Cross, a Silver Star and two Purple Hearts. He suffered wounds that left him with shrapnel in his body and a limp—and forced him to retire from active duty. He was one of the subjects of Robert Timberg’s moving 1995 book, The Nightingale’s Song. Webb entered Georgetown Law School in 1972 and was appalled by his antiwar schoolmates who he believed had shirked duty and then considered themselves morally superior because of their opposition to the war. He started writing, and his respected novel about Vietnam, Fields of Fire, was published in 1978. He has since written five other novels, a 2004 history-cum-memoir, Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America, and his 2008 memoir-cum-policy-book Time to Fight: Reclaiming a Fair and Just America.

In the years after Fields of Fire, Webb wrote movie scripts (he still has some options out) and many articles. In the process, he made some controversial public statements. He praised Confederate heroes, attacked feminists and Hollywood, academics and the news media. In 1979, he wrote an article for Washingtonian magazine criticizing the new policy on women in the military. “I have never met a woman, including the dozens of female midshipmen I encountered during my recent semester as a professor at the Naval Academy, whom I would trust to provide those men with combat leadership.” Bancroft Hall, he wrote, “which houses 4,000 males and 300 females” was “a horny woman’s dream.” The Navy banned him from speaking at the academy. He helped lead the fights against Maya Lin’s Vietnam War memorial and for an additional sculpture depicting soldiers. Disgusted with President Jimmy Carter’s amnesty for draft law violators, he left the Democratic Party and became a Republican, and in 1980, supported Ronald Reagan for president. In interviews, he said he wouldn’t walk across the street to see antiwar activist Jane Fonda and for 20 years he refused to shake the hand of Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, another Vietnam War hero who criticized the war effort on his return from combat. In 1984, Webb won an Emmy for his coverage for PBS’ NewsHour of the 1983 barracks bombing that killed 241 Marines in Lebanon. In 1987, President Reagan appointed him secretary of the Navy. He issued a directive that performance in combat be given greater weight in promotions, which was criticized by advocates of equality for women in the military. Webb publicly complained about budget cuts imposed by Congress, which angered Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci. Webb resigned in 1988, saying, “It’s no secret that I’m not a person who wears a bridle well.”

Nor did he wear a political label well. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, both major parties tried to recruit him to run for the Senate, but he turned them down. In 1994, he backed Democratic Sen. Charles Robb against his one-time sparring partner North, who lost the contest. In 2000, he backed Republican George Allen against Robb, arguing that Robb had not done enough oversight of his party’s administration. He wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal in 2000 attacking racial quotas and preferences as “a permeating state-sponsored racism that is as odious as the Jim Crow laws it sought to countermand.” Of Democratic President Bill Clinton he said, “Every time I see him salute a Marine, it infuriates me,” and on another occasion, said, “ethical fraudulence … has characterized his entire political career.” Once the Republicans were in power, he began thinking more like a Democrat. His research for Born Fighting convinced him that Scots-Irish people of modest means who willingly served in the military might better be served by the Democrats, and he foresaw a coalition of Scots-Irish and African-Americans. “You measure the health of a society not at its apex, but at its base,” he said. In 2002, Webb opposed military action in Iraq, asserting that it would destabilize the region and mire the United States in a long occupation. His opposition continued even as his son dropped out of Penn State University to join the Marines. In the 2004 presidential contest, despite his feelings about Kerry, Webb supported him over George W. Bush. The “last straw for me” in this political odyssey was the response to Hurricane Katrina, he said, which reminded him how people of little means were treated.

So in 2006, Webb found himself running against Allen, whom he had supported six years before. Allen began the campaign on the list of possible Republican presidential candidates in 2008. He had served in the House, then ran for governor in 1993 and won 58%-41%. In 2000, he challenged Democratic Sen. Robb and won 52%-48%. It was widely assumed that he would win by a bigger margin in 2006. As the year went on, he made trips to Iowa and New Hampshire and on occasion told reporters that the job of senator was boring and that he preferred being an executive. In January 2006, the only visible Democratic candidate was Harris Miller, the head of the Information Technology Association of America. He had serious credentials, some financial backing and some moderate issue positions. But he was universally regarded as the underdog.

Webb was encouraged to run by Kerry and by Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who had already recruited a candidate at odds with the liberal Democratic base, Bob Casey, Jr., in Pennsylvania, and saw in Webb a similar opportunity to cut into the conservative vote. Webb announced his candidacy on March 7, 2006, late in the season for such things. Noting that his son was being deployed to Iraq, he reiterated his opposition to military action there. “The invasion of Iraq was a double strategic blunder. First, it was a diversion from, not a response to, the war against international terrorism. Second, it has tied down our military in a costly occupation, fighting an insurgency that has strengthened not only the Shia population of Iraq, but also Iran itself.” At the same time, he opposed a precipitous withdrawal. On cultural issues, he said, “My belief is that the power of government stops at the front door unless there is a compelling reason for it to come inside.” He supported abortion rights; he said he wanted “to do better on rights for gays” and supported civil unions; and he argued that racial preferences should be limited to African-Americans, because of their unique heritage, and not accorded to women or other ethnic groups. He strongly opposed new gun control laws, noting that his father had given him his first gun when he was eight and that he had done the same with his son. He hired strategists with experience in Democratic campaigns appealing to culturally conservative voters.

They had their work cut for them. In the primary campaign, Miller outspent Webb 3-to-1. Prominent African-Americans, nettled by Webb’s statements on racial preferences, supported Miller, as did women military veterans. Webb was not a natural candidate, reluctant to handshake his way across a room, stiff in his public speeches. “I don’t wake up in the morning wanting to be a U.S. senator. I wake up every morning very concerned about the country.” His prime asset turned out to be support from antiwar activists, especially bloggers, who argued that he was the only candidate who could beat Allen. Turnout was light in the June 13 primary, and Webb won 53%-47%. For a candidate who expressed scorn for Washington elites, he ran best in the Washington D.C. suburbs in Northern Virginia, which he carried 2-to-1. He also ran well in the western part of the state, carrying most counties just east of the Blue Ridge and in the Shenandoah Valley and the valleys to the south. Miller carried the Richmond area and just about everything south of Fredericksburg and east of Lynchburg, running especially strong in cities and counties with high black percentages.

Webb had no money left after the primary; Allen had $7.5 million—and ultimately outspent him 2-to-1. But money was not decisive. On August 11, Allen was speaking in Breaks, Va., in Dickenson County, near the Kentucky border. He pointed at S. R. Siddarth, a 20-year-old student of Indian descent, who had been following him around for the Webb campaign, taping everything he said. “This fellow over here,” Allen said, “with the yellow shirt, Macaca or whatever his name is, he’s with my opponent ... Let’s give a welcome to Macaca here. Welcome to America, and welcome to the real world of Virginia.” In another era, such an incident would have remained unknown. But it became the center of the campaign, thanks to YouTube, which gave anyone with a computer ready access to the footage, and to the Washington Post, which ran several front-page stories on the incident. The subtext was that “macaca” was a racial epithet, evidence that Allen was a bigot. Allen’s strange word choice came against the backdrop of an unflattering profile in the New Republic in 2006, which said Allen had hung a Confederate flag on his wall as a young lawyer and had used the “n-word” while a student. (Webb’s response, when asked if he had ever used the word: “I don’t think that there’s anyone who grew up around the South that hasn’t had the word pass through their lips at one time in their life.”) Former schoolmates of Allen’s countered this barrage of negative publicity by saying they had never heard Allen use such language or show bigotry in any way. At a September debate, Washington area television reporter Peggy Fox, a panelist, noted that “macaca” is a racial slur in Tunisia, where Allen’s mother had grown up. She then asked Allen whether it was true, as had been reported by The Forward, that his mother’s side of the family was Jewish. Allen replied that his religious background, or Webb’s, didn’t matter. Shortly afterward, Allen revealed that his mother had concealed her heritage for many years and only revealed it, tearfully, a month before.

Allen and his experienced campaign managers, Dick Wadhams and Chris LaCivita, had expected to run a campaign based on taxes and support of the military. Now they were on the defensive. Webb was running closely behind or even with Allen in the polls by September. At the end of the month, Allen ran an ad with quotes from Webb’s 1979 Washingtonian article on women in the military and showing three female academy graduates criticizing Webb. He responded with an ad showing testimonials from military women. An Allen ad claimed that Webb wanted to raise taxes on married couples and families, costing the average Virginia family $2,000. Webb rebutted with an ad saying that Allen wanted to raise taxes on retirement savings, make college more expensive and give billions in tax cuts to oil companies. To charges that he was bigoted, Allen pointed to his pilgrimages to civil rights sites and to the work he had done to aid historically black colleges and universities. And Allen’s campaign attacked Webb for the sexually racy passages in some of his novels.

This was one of the two closest Senate races in the nation, and the one which, when the result became clear two days after the election, gave the Senate majority to the Democrats. Webb won by 9,000 votes, 49.6%-49.2%. His victory was almost entirely due to Northern Virginia. Webb carried Hampton Roads 52%-46%, almost the same as Robb’s 52%-48% there two years before. In the half of the state outside the two big metro areas, Allen won 55%-44%, down just slightly from his 56%-44% in 2000. Northern Virginia was a different story. Webb carried it 57%-42%. Robb’s popular vote margin in the area had been 21,000. Webb’s was 110,000, five times larger. The exit poll showed Webb with 42% of whites and 85% of blacks, the latter a bit low for a Democrat.

Webb’s victory produced exultation among Democrats—and some curiosity as to what kind of Democratic senator he would be. Addressing the concerns, Webb said, “There are going to be times when I’ve got some strong ideas, but I’m not looking to simply be a renegade. I think people in the Democratic Party leadership have already begun to understand that I know how to work inside a structure.” His attitude toward Bush was not friendly. When he attended a reception at the White House a few days after the election, Bush approached Webb and asked about his son in Iraq. “How’s your boy?” Webb responded, “I’d like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President.” “That’s not what I asked you,” said the president. “How’s your boy?” “That’s between me and my boy, Mr. President,” Webb starchily replied.

Webb was chosen by Democratic leaders to give the rebuttal to Bush’s State of the Union speech in January 2007, and he gave a speech opposing Bush on Iraq and pointing to what he said was a widening difference between the rich and the poor. In January 2007, he introduced his new GI Bill of Rights, paying for four years of college tuition for veterans with three years of service. A modified version passed the Senate a little over a year later, then passed in the House and was signed into law in June 2008 as part of a military spending bill, a considerable achievement for a second-year senator.

Webb continued to speak out strongly against the Iraq war. In January 2007, he called Bush “a failed president.” In April of that year, he sharply criticized Pentagon plans to extend troop tours in Iraq from 12 months to 15 months. With support from fellow Virginia Sen. John Warner, a Republican, Webb won passage of an amendment creating an independent commission to investigate wartime contracting in Iraq, and was angry when Bush refused to abide by it, saying it threatened executive authority.

Webb weighed in on other issues. Again with Warner, he co-sponsored bills giving technological grants to historically black colleges and universities and providing schools with many foreign students a one-year grace period for meeting the requirements of the 2001 No Child Left Behind act, which tied federal funding to student performance on tests. His amendment to the Senate’s immigration bill to reduce the number of illegal immigrants eligible for eventual citizenship from 12 million to 4 million was opposed by the bill’s sponsors and defeated 79-18. None of that got as much attention as a bizarre incident in March 2007, when Webb’s top aide was arrested for attempting to carry a loaded handgun into a Senate office building. A month later, the charges were dropped. Webb later acknowledged that the gun was his and said that he often carried a gun to protect himself and his family.

Webb caused a minor stir in political circles when he gave the keynote speech at the October 2007 Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner in New Hampshire, an indication he may have aspirations that reach beyond the Senate.