RSSObama/Webb 2008
Now that Obama seems to have made short work of the Clinton machine it will soon be time to focus on a national campaign against John McCain.
Obama may not need my advice. He is a phenomenon the likes of which we have not seen since Reagan. My guess is that McCain’s often nasty personality and gruff style will make for poor comparison during a national election.
Further, Republicans will find it hard to land a solid punch on America’s first credible black presidential candidate. PC has done much to silence political debate. Republicans will not want to face the accusation of America’s last heresy- racism.
Still, Obama has some drawbacks. He is, after all, our first black presidential candidate and that will raise questions for some. Beyond questions of race, the man is named Barak Hussein Obama. A name the invokes the memory of America’s most hated enemies of the 21st Century. For much of middle America, the silver tongued phenomenon will still “feel” foreign.
Substantively he has no record. It was not long ago that he was an Illinois State Senator. He won his US Senate Seat by beating up on Alan Keyes. Unless Keyes miraculously receives the Republican nomination for President, something that will NEVER happen, Obama will be encountering his first real opposition. Republicans will not pull their punches as they try to paint Obama as a radical, rootless, left wing ideologue who will cannot or will not protect us from our Muslim enemies. This is the right’s only hope to stop him.
Here is my advice. Once the nomination is wrapped up and Obama no longer has to worry about his left, he must prove that he is a man of prudence and moderation by picking a vice president with conservative street cred’ and real foreign policy experience. My pick is Virginia Senator Jim Webb. Jim Webb is a red blood conservative and a true American patriot. He served as Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of the Navy. He is the author of the very interesting Born Fighting which chronicles the history of his people… the Scots-Irish… in America. He is a deeply rooted, blood and soil, traditionalist conservative… far to the right of George Allen, the Republican who he defeated in the 2006 Senate race. Webb, who became a Democrat and ran for the Senate mostly because of his opposition to the Iraq War is a pick that would make the case for Obama’s moderation and willingness to govern on the basis of prudence.
Obama/Webb in 2008? Even I could be tempted.
pilgrim
February 21st, 2008 at 12:16 am
While I do think that Webb would be an excellent choice for Obama, he is probably best termed a moderate. He is conservative on the gun issue, perhaps somewhat conservative on immigration but moderate on most others and is pro abortion and pro embryonic stem cell research. The following site rates him a “moderate liberal populist.” http://www.ontheissues.org/Senate/James_Webb.htm
Allen may not have been 100% conservative, but overall I would say he is certainly to the right of Webb, even if you count opposition to the Patriot Act as a right wing issue, which the site I linked apparently does not.
W.H. Chellis
February 21st, 2008 at 10:02 am
Fair enough pilgrim. I admit that I had forgotten or did not know that Webb was pro-abortion/pro-gay. Neither am I surprised. He represents a strong American tradition of libertarian social views not unknown within the ranks of the old right.
Let me soften my stance on his conservatism. It really depends what we mean by this almost useless word. Webb is stands in the tradition of the Jacksonian Democrats. There is a lot of Jackson in his proud Scots-Irish blood. Was Jackson as conservative or a liberal? By the standards of the civilized, cultivated federalist party of John Quincy Adams he was not. Yet, Adam’s conservatism was a regional conservatism and on individual issues was opposed to the regional conservatism of Calhoun. Both were conservative and yet would see in each other only innovation. What was conservative in Boston would be innovation in Charleston. Conservatism is sentiment not ideology.
Webb is right on the war and wrong on abortion. When he is write or when he is wrong, I have a strong sense that he is carrying on a rich tradition of which his family and his region are deeply rooted.
The truth is that I would not vote for an Obama/Webb ticket. I may well stay home. The present Republican/conservative consensus needs to be beaten at the polls, discredited politically, and sent into the wildness to rediscover its first principles and to thoughtfully consider their application within a 21st century context. In the mean time I dare to hope that an Obama/Webb administration might reasonably restrain the forces of whirl and flux.