Jim Webb for President?

Jim Webb, an eccentric, anti-war, Ronald
Reagan–quoting ex-senator from Virginia, is garnering attention as
a possible
presidential contender on the Democrat side. Because I’m still
desperatley/delusionally clinging to the hope that someone less
contemptible than Hillary Clinton could earn the Democratic
nomination, I enjoyed The Washington Post‘s profile of
Webb, who is seriously considering a
2016 White House bid despite the fact that most experts don’t
think he has a chance. 

Webb’s experience in the Senate is sparse—he served one term
after defeating Republican George Allen in 2006—but he’s also a
Vietnam War vet who served as assistant secretary of defense and
Navy secretary during the Reagan administration and was tossed
about as a vice-presidential pick in 2008. “We want to see if
there’s a support base from people who would support the programs
that we’re interested in pursuing,”
said Webb, 68, announcing potential presidential aspirations at
a National Press Club speech last week.

And what programs would those be? One of the things Webb is most
well-known for is
his anti-war stance, and this may be where he’s “uniquely
positioned as a disruptive force on issues where many Democrats
consider Clinton compromised,” the Post notes. 

“Remember, one of the reasons Obama did so well in Iowa was
because he said he would end the wars,” said Marcos Rubinstein, who
directed antiwar Democrat Dennis Kucinich’s 2008 presidential
campaign in Iowa. “That is why he was able to beat Clinton, and
Iowa remains full of Democrats who are looking for a peaceful
message.”

In his speech last week, Webb attacked the Obama
administration’s Middle East policy, citing it as one of the main
reasons for his return to political life:

“If you go back and look at the remarks I was making from the
time this administration got involved in the Arab Spring, I said it
was an unprecedented use of presidential power—no treaties, no
Americans attacked, no imminent threat of attack, no Americans to
be rescued,” Webb said. “Secretary Clinton and I have worked well
together, but the Arab Spring is a different question. . . . This
administration, collectively, made some very bad decisions, and
they now have to climb out of a deep hole.”

Critiques of presidential power from a Democrat? Be still my
heart! This “redneck
regal” liberal is also an advocate of gun rights and a
supporter of criminal justice reform. In the Senate in 2009, he
introduced
a bill calling for a serious re-evaluation of our nation’s drug
and criminal justice policies. (Irrelevant but interesting: He’s
also a fiction author
and wrote the story for the 2000 film Rules of
Engagement.) 

Webb is still a Democrat, of course—”economic fairness” is among
his causes—but he seems to
actually have principles, too, which is so much more than we
can say for Clinton and, at least anymore, President Obama. If
nothing else, it would be nice to see Webb widening the scope of
primary-season discourse and taking Clinton to task for her
war-hawk ways.