Jim Webb For President?

Philip Gold writes:

It was, of course, inevitable that the left wing of the Democratic Party and its symbiotic intelligentsia should start murmuring about maybe well sorta kinda "mounting a challenge" to President Obama's renomination. The "One More Chardonnay and Then We March" crowd has a problem, though. Lack of an obvious candidate.

If there is no obvious candidate, it may be because the only major political group in this country more odious than the Tea Party is what's left of American progressivism. Perhaps they're waiting for their Sarah Palin to emerge. Or maybe they're just hoping that a few salutary tsk/tsks and a well-timed pout will render Mr. Obama a bit more to their liking. Or maybe, for all the bombast aborning, they know they ain't got the gefiltes for it.

But maybe there is an obvious candidate to challenge Mr. Obama. Obvious in the sense that he might actually make a first-rate president. Obvious also in the sense that he has spent a lifetime, not as a professional pol, but as the closest thing this country has to a Renaissance Man.

Jim Webb.

At this point, three disclaimers. First – a matter to which we'll return shortly – our paths have crossed a few times over the years, and our exchanges have not always been amicable.

Second: I have not been in contact with Senator Webb's people on this or any other matter.

Third: I doubt very much if Senator Webb would endorse this non-ad. More probably, he would express significant displeasure. In either case, the 2012 election's a long way away and, as the Scottish poet Robert Burns puts it, "There's many a slip/'Twixt the zipper and the zip."

Jim Webb graduated from the Naval Academy in 1968, then went on to become one of the most decorated Marines of the Vietnam war. Retired for wounds, he went to Georgetown Law, then worked on the Hill. Under President Reagan, he served as both assistant secretary of defense for reserve affairs and secretary of the navy, resigning from the latter position in a public protest over cuts. He is also a successful and accomplished author, journalist and screenwriter. His first novel, Fields of Fire, remains a classic.

In 2006, Webb ran for the Senate as a Democrat, defeating incumbent Republican George Allen after a long, arduous and ugly campaign. He got off to a rocky public start by snapping at President Bush when the latter asked him, "How's your boy?" – a reference to Webb's son, who was then serving as an enlisted Marine in Afghanistan. Since then, he has apparently settled into the standard first-term senatorial persona: low profile, learn the trade, take care of the homies, speak carefully and knowledgeably.

Senator Webb is pushing 65, too old to start a long career on the Hill. He's up for re-election in 2012. If he were to challenge President Obama, it would likely be an all-or-nothing affair. His challenge, coming more from the center of the party, might be preferable to whatever the left might come up with.

He might also prove eminently electable in a country that, by 2012, will be thoroughly sick of the Tea Party and their assorted upcoming failures.

Jim Webb has never been go-along-to-get-along or a calculating, amoral opportunist. As he once told me, "I try to figure out what's right and then do it." Coming from anyone else, it would have sounded pompous, callow, hypocritical. From him, it had the ring of truth. He will never will congeniality awards. But the last thing this country needs right now is congeniality. It needs a dose of stern but humane and effective leadership.

My personal attitude toward Senator Webb has always been, to use a good postmodern phrase, conflicted. I deeply admire his accomplishments, and confess to being not a little envious. But I once emailed him something to the effect of, "I keep waiting for something really spectacular from you and it hasn't happened."
Is this it?

Dunno. It certainly sounded ridiculous at the time. But if this is indeed a man who has, perhaps unconsciously, spent a lifetime preparing himself for some great political challenge . . .

The obstacles would be orders-of-magnitude humongous. It would not be very pretty. But as of this moment, he has at least one vote.

But Marcy Kaptur would still be better.