Webb would be good VP choice

By The News Virginian Staff

Published: May 31, 2008

It is as bad as this for Barack Obama: hopes of injecting a flagging campaign with new energy and muscle have shifted to his selection of a running mate. This is equivalent to Barry Bonds expecting to slap more baseballs over the fence because of stretching exercises rather than use of the clear and the cream. Strength, not flexibility, produces home runs, and presidential candidates, not their No. 2s, win elections.
Still, if it’s testosterone Obama requires, Virginia Sen. Jim Webb might be the right synthetic for a lilting candidacy. Webb is a war hero, former Reagan aide and Second Amendment advocate. He also is no respecter of presidential persons. Recall his refusal in 2006 to pose for a photograph with President Bush. If Obama wants John Wayne, Webb is the Duke in Democrat blue.
So-called progressives – a group to which Obama claims membership – are disquieted by the prospect of Webb riding sidecar for the party. Webb has offended by censuring affirmative action for aiding blacks but leaving behind poor whites and decrying as “cultural Marxists” liberals critical of Vietnam soldiers. This sounds like ballast for Obama, who lists sharply left.
For a peek at real potential hazards of Webb as running mate, turn to George Allen, the incumbent senator Webb narrowly defeated two years ago. A news release attributed to the Allen campaign described Webb as having displayed a “pattern of demeaning women,” pointing to racy passages in novels penned by the ex-Marine. More concrete evidence of Webb’s gender stances perhaps may be found in nonfiction. He has written in opposition to women in combat and dismissed the Tailhook sexual assault scandal as a “witch hunt.”
Supporters of Hillary Clinton, clutching at denial with presidential hopes slipping from their grasp, blame her pending demise on sexism. The necessity of assuaging that group is greater than ordinarily might be the case.
Clinton picked up roughly half of the Democratic vote in a year marked by high turnout. If she is not the running mate – the guess here is that she will be offered the job on the condition that she decline it – Obama will have to take care not to rile her constituents. If he fails to do so, voting for Republican John McCain, the opposition party’s most moderate candidate since President Ford, is an option less distasteful than in previous elections.
For those who suggest that Webb is McCain in reverse – a Republican seated on the wrong side of the aisle – he offers significant leftist credibility on two points: virulent opposition to the war and a classic liberal’s desire to redistribute wealth. On the former, Webb as a former Defense Department official might offer authentic insight into how to pull troops from the morass, though we are skeptical. He proposes negotiating a withdrawal agreement with major Middle Eastern countries. We wonder whether any can speak for the insurgents.
Nonetheless, Webb offers the most intriguing ideological mix in a field of vice presidential running mates composed largely of traditional party power players, among them John Edwards, Gen. Wesley Clark, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and Clinton. The others offer, principally, electoral expedience.
If filling philosophical gaps is what Obama has in mind, Webb might get a long look. Though he leans far left for our tastes, Webb has demonstrated that he is that rare politician willing to stand pat on principle and against the party flow. Obama’s qualifications in this area are suspect, meaning that Webb could prove something rarer still: a running mate who adds beef to a candidate who sorely lacks it.