The early rap on Jim Webb was that he was not enough of a political animal for the rigors of the Hill -- that he would not be attentive enough to the ugly practicalities of Washington to assure his survival. Much of that speculation was sparked by a Senate race that had involved none of the usual cult-of-personality elements so common in today's political campaigns (and where, early on, Webb proved to be an underwhelming fundraiser and poor glad-hander). And when he explains that his most important formative experiences as an adult were commanding marines in battle and enjoying the solitude being a writer, it's not hard to understand why he sometimes seemed to be having so little fun on the campaign.
But out of the celebrity that has come from beating GOP bigwig George Allen, and in his first few months actually serving in the Senate, a more layered Jim Webb has emerged, as one who might present Democrats with an interesting road map going forward. Could it be that this ex-Republican red state senator might serve as an exemplar for Democrats, as they head into 2008 trying to wrest the White House from the GOP while defining themselves as more than just the anti-Bush, anti-war party?
At the National Press Club Thursday, Webb delivered a speech that mapped out a politics that threads carefully, but assuredly, through some important political terrain.
"I believe very strongly that the so-called Reagan Democrats -- you can put any label on them you want -- but the people who once were the backbone of the Democratic Party when the Democratic Party truly was the party of working people in this country need to come back, Webb said. &The Democratic party needs to focus on the issues, I believe, that I was talking about here -- economic fairness, social justice, a strong but reasoned foreign policy, and if they do, you're going to see the people in red state America start gravitating back to the party that takes care of their interests."
He is anti-war, of course, but not someone who forecloses discussion about the difficulties of getting out. He asserts the need for diplomacy to end the war in Iraq, prevent one with Iran, and stabilize the Middle East: "Properly balanced," he said yesterday, "robust diplomacy will enable us to bring greater stability to the region, to remove the American military from Iraq, to increase our ability to defeat the forces of international terrorism and, finally, to focus on the true strategic challenges that face us around the world."
Webb thinks that diplomacy will end the war, and that Democratic pressure is forcing the administration in that direction. But his muted impatience regarding the war is an indication of how difficult getting out is going to be.
The bigger surprises came in what he had to say about matters beyond the war. The senator bragged about walking a picket line during his campaign. Most strikingly, he lamented the country's high incarceration rates, singling out the fact that a black man who does not graduate from high school faces a 60 percent chance of ending up in jail.
"This is not something that fits into political campaigns, but I have long been concerned about the staggering prison incarceration rates in the United States, which are the highest in the world," he declared.
As a reminder, Webb is the junior senator from Virginia.
"We want to keep bad people off our streets. We want to break the backs of gangs, and we want to cut down on violent behavior," he said, "But there is something else going on when we are locking up such a high percentage of our people, marking them at an early age and in many cases eliminating their chances for a productive life as citizens."
He says the high incarceration is a "trajectory" issue. "It will take years of energy to sort it out, but I am committed to working on a solution that is both responsive to our need for law and order, and fairer to those who become entangled in this system."
Needless to say, not a lot of people are talking about the mind-boggling number of black men in jail and what to do about it -- and certainly not a lot of people in the United States Senate.
Webb said that he has sometimes been dismissed as a one-issue candidate: "Well, I probably do spend a little bit too much time on economic fairness," he said with a smirk, "but I don't simply dwell on that issue."
He came armed with a litany of statistics, and if you closed your eyes, you would have thought it was Huey Long talking:
The top one percent now takes in an astounding 16 percent of national income, double what it was in 1980.
Corporate profits at an all time highs, wages and salaries at all time lows.
CEOs making 400 times the average worker, 47 million people without health insurance.
"Almost equally important, many leaders are seemingly indifferent to these trends," he said. "Some even maintain that this growth in income inequality is a form of economic Darwinism, and that it should not be a source of governmental concern." Webb made it clear he's not one of those people.
There was a lot of speculation after the November election that the narrow Democratic wins in the red states would pull the party to the right: Webb was the poster boy for this theory. His speech yesterday should put it to rest once and for all.
"It's simply not healthy for a democracy like ours to have such a wide gulf between the rich, the poor and the vast majority of hard-working, productive people in between," he said. "I am determined to do everything I can to advance a progressive agenda that addresses the issues surrounding economic fairness and social justice. I believe we can work toward solutions that keep the United States economy strong and engaged in the rest of the world, but which also safeguard the right of workers and the environment."
A new political species has emerged: the Virginia populist. But hey, maybe he is a one-termer like the doubters said. There are two presidential elections before this term ends in January 2013 ...
