Well here we are almost a year and a half later, and whaddya know, we are all waiting with breathless anticipation for Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee for the presidency of the United States to announce whom ha has chosen to be his vice-presidential running mate. Before you all start commenting that I think I'm some sort of political genius, I'll beat you to the punch. I'm no political genius nor do I have a crystal ball. All I did was what tens of thousands of other Americans did. They looked at the Democratic field tallied up the pluses and minuses of each candidate and however anti-conventional wisdom it may have been, realized that Obama had the best chance.
I will now undertake to predict Obama's choice for vice-president. And I don't think it's any one of them on his so-called short list. Not Bayh. Not Biden. Not Kaine. If Obama has the level of political savvy that we all think he does, he needs to choose someone who will be the antidote to the toxic McCain campaign who's venom has already begun to seep into the veins of this year's campaign for the presidency. And as far as I am concerned only one person fits the bill. Yes, I know he has categorically stated that "under no circumstances" would he accept the offer to be vice-president. But times change. Circumstances change. Needs change. People change. But he is to borrow McCain's bit of political doggerel always put "country first". So here he is. And I will let excerpts from the Rolling Stone piece make my case for Senator James Webb of Virginia for me.
From an article in Rolling Stone (June, 6, 2007):
Webb's family -- his "blood," he says -- has lived in the hollows of Big Moccasin Gap, as the area is called, for more than 200 years, but Webb grew up on military bases all over the country. When he entered the U.S. Naval Academy in 1964, he listed thirty-three home addresses on his application. His father was an Air Force officer and a veteran of World War II; Webb was a Marine officer in Vietnam; and his son, Jimmy, is a Marine just returned from Iraq, where he fought in Ramadi. Last year Webb campaigned wearing a pair of Jimmy's combat boots to remind himself why he was running: to end the war. He refuses to talk to the public about his son.
When he ran for public office, Webb didn't campaign on his military record, he simply offered himself as a fighter. In Vietnam, Webb became the most highly decorated Marine from his Naval Academy class: two Purple Hearts, two Bronze Stars, the Silver Star and the Navy Cross, second only to the Medal of Honor.
Now when he speaks of the elites he more often means "the military-industrial complex," and "the Cheney factor," the corporate chieftains he describes as the new robber barons. The war and the crimes of class -- sending Americans to Iraq and their jobs to China -- are becoming interwoven in his mind. Iraq has aligned his angers.
For years Webb worked for Republicans, a career that culminated in a stint as Ronald Reagan's Secretary of the Navy. But when his old nemesis Oliver North, a Naval Academy classmate whom he has despised for decades, ran for Senate in 1994, Webb campaigned for Democrat Chuck Robb just to stop him, and he started identifying himself as an independent.
When Webb decided to run, no one but Mudcat Saunders and his friend the writer Tom Wolfe (who insists Webb will be president one day) thought he could wage more than a symbolic fight. Sometimes it seemed he wouldn't even manage that. When Mudcat arranged for a band to play for the campaign, Webb overheard him telling the musicians to learn the Marine Corps hymn. "Jim never screamed at me," Mudcat remembers. "He just takes me outside and he stares at me and he says, 'One thing I want to make very clear to you. In no way, shape or form is the Marine Corps hymn to be used in my campaign. I will never use that song for political gain.' " Yessir, said Mudcat: "I thought, 'Well, fuck, we just gave up our own best ace card.' "
Like I said...the Un-McCain.
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