It's official.
Former Navy Secretary James Webb formally declared his Democratic candidacy for the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, characterizing incumbent George Allen as a cog in an extremist national Republican Party.
"The Republican Party of George W. Bush is not the Republican Party of Ronald Reagan," Webb said during a news conference in the General Assembly Building. A Secretary of the Navy under Reagan, Webb criticized the GOP for moving to the "extreme" on social issues and espousing a foreign policy that is "an attempt to export our ideology at the point of a gun."
Webb, then a Republican, served as Reagan's Navy secretary in 1987 and 1988. He said he voted for Allen and George W. Bush in 2000.
Webb, 60, said he switched to the Democratic Party several years ago when he was writing a history book and was impressed with the Democratic Party's working-class traditions.
"I was trying to find the answers, and I think the Democratic Party is the place where answers were found," he said.
Webb, a Vietnam War veteran, blamed the current GOP leadership with racking up record deficits and sending the United States to war with Iraq.
"I don't think Ronald Reagan would have ever done that, and I don't think Bush's father would have done it," he said.
The Reagan worship may be a bit ridiculous -- Reagan absolutely did run up the deficit -- but it's probably good politics. Allen is going to get a tougher race than he expected.