OPINION:
It’s going to be easy — and fun for some — to dismiss the presidential candidacy of former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, if he actually decides to run. Mr. Webb announced last week that he has created a presidential exploratory committee as a first step in positioning himself for a bid for the 2016 Democratic nomination. In revealing his action, Mr. Webb acknowledged that he had no money and no staff and conceded that many commentators see his odds as “nearly impossible.’’
The Washington cognoscenti wasted no time in questioning his seriousness. The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent tweeted that Mr. Webb apparently looked at himself in the mirror “in discussing fantasy White House run.’’ The New Republic’s Jason Zengerle wrote that he doubted Mr. Webb would really run because he is driven by anger and doesn’t have much these days to be angry about.
It’s worth pondering, though, what kind of impact Mr. Webb could have on the forthcoming campaign. It could be substantial.
That’s because Mr. Webb, a former combat Marine in Vietnam and Navy secretary in the Reagan administration, is the kind of politician who doesn’t fuzz up issues or finesse his positions with vote-seeking guile. He is a blunt-spoken man who uses vivid language to lay bare what he thinks is wrong with the country. What he thinks is wrong falls into two broad categories — a promiscuous interventionism in foreign policy that has proved catastrophic in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and elsewhere; and economic policies, perpetuated by both parties, that have favored elites at the expense of ordinary Americans.
Thus, Mr. Webb is just the kind of politician who could give Hillary Rodham Clinton fits. Mrs. Clinton is a military-industrial candidate — surrounded by humanitarian interventionists, aligned with military hawks, increasingly anxious to distance herself from the measured foreign policy thinking of President Obama. In her famous Atlantic interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, she dismissed suggestions that Israel’s recent Gaza campaign had been disproportionate, took a hawkish position on Iran and criticized Mr. Obama for not heeding her suggestion that he should arm rebels seeking to overthrow Syria’s Bashar Assad. Thus, there is no reason to think there will be any serious distinction to be drawn between her views and the neoconservative outlook of most prominent Republicans.
If Mr. Webb runs, he will attack Mrs. Clinton on these kinds of stances. He won’t have her pools of money or nationwide network of supporters and operatives. Still, a question is worth posing: Is there a gap between the foreign policy views of the Democratic electorate and of the Democratic elites? If so, and there is good reason to suspect there is, Mr. Webb will seek to drive a wedge between Mrs. Clinton, tied to the elites, and himself, a self-styled populist.
This political prospect could be even more stark with regard to Mr. Webb’s economic views. Mrs. Clinton, like Mr. Webb if he runs, will wring her hands over the growing disparities in income and wealth between the very rich and the country’s increasingly beleaguered middle class. She will of course blame the Republicans. But Mr. Webb will be better positioned to get to the heart of this matter because he isn’t tied to the country’s financial elites. In fact, he despises them.
Mrs. Clinton won’t blame the big banks, which got such a sweet deal after contributing so mightily to the financial crisis of 2008-09. She certainly won’t go after Goldman Sachs, the epitome of New York financial self-dealing; or Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the elitist organizations that actually spawned the financial crisis; or the New York Fed, with its cozy relationships with New York financial interests. She’s tied in with all those people — as was her husband; as was George W. Bush; as is Mr. Obama.
Thus, while Mrs. Clinton will talk in terms of partisan dispute, Mr. Webb will say, “A pox on both their houses.’’ She will have to finesse these complex matters in ways that won’t really resonate with ordinary voters. Mr. Webb will slash right into the thicket with sharp-edged rhetoric that will leave no doubt about what he really thinks and where he places blame.
Perhaps this isn’t the kind of era in which voters are hospitable to such pugilistic politicians. But don’t bet on it. For years Americans have said, through public opinion surveys and their votes, that they think America is on the wrong track. When George W. Bush’s second term turned out to be a failure, they turned to Mr. Obama. Now his second term is heading toward failure. So where will they turn?
Conventional political thinking — the kind that guides most Washington pols and pundits these days — has it that a really impressive match-up in 2016 would be one between Hillary Clinton and, say, Jeb Bush. But is that really what the American people want at a time when they are in anguish over the state of the world and in high anxiety over the state of the nation?
More likely, 2016 is going to be a year of surprises as voters struggle for answers, options and explanations that aren’t likely to emerge from the people who presided over the current international and domestic crises. It could be a year when significant voter segments take a serious look at entrepreneurial politicians with little political capital but with powerful messages about how the country got into its current mess and how it can get out of it. One possibility: Jim Webb.
• Robert W. Merry is the political editor of The National Interest.
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