When Virginia voters go to the polls in November, their choice between incumbent Senator George Allen and former Secretary of the Navy James Webb could send shock waves through Congress and the White House.
For the first time since the Vietnam era, an unpopular conflict is threatening to alter the balance of power in Washington in a midterm election. Rising voter anger fed by opposition to the war in Iraq is prompting political analysts to forecast significant Democratic gains.
Antiwar sentiment has already led Democrats in Connecticut to spurn incumbent Senator Joseph I. Lieberman. And if the winds of change reach gale force by early November, Republicans could lose their majority in Congress.
One of the contests that will be most closely watched, particularly if anti-Republican sentiment grows, is the match between incumbent Republican Senator George Allen of Virginia and Democratic challenger James Webb, who served as Navy secretary under President Ronald Reagan.
The Iraq Issue
The candidates come at the Iraq issue from diametrically opposing stances, and their race is likely to be viewed as a referendum on the war.
Allen, 54, considered by many a top contender for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, is among President George W. Bush's most consistent backers on Iraq. Unlike some Republicans who have distanced themselves from the administration's conduct of the war as the election nears, Allen has strongly defended the President.
Webb, 60, isn't tightly moored to any party. But when it comes to U.S. involvement in Iraq, he's been remarkably consistent, too. "President Bush," he once wrote, "has embarked on his own voyage into the Persian Gulf, that Bermuda Triangle of presidencies." With war drums beating, Webb warned that an offensive strike would "open up a Pandora's box," galvanizing anti-United States sentiment in the Arab world, producing heavy casualties, and fueling terrorism worldwide. The year was 1990, and the war plans were those of George W. Bush's father.
Webb, whose views are well-known to long-time readers of this magazine, returned to that theme in the days immediately after the 9/11 attacks. In remarks to a U.S. Naval Institute symposium (excerpted in the November 2001 Proceedings), Webb revived his earlier admonition about Iraq, words that, as he remarked, got him "into some trouble" around the time of the first Gulf War.
"We are not in a position as a nation, and particularly as a military, to occupy large pieces of territory," he cautioned in that October 2001 address, an otherwise bloodthirsty call for America to "go after" elements in the Muslim world "and eliminate them." Webb said the United States lacked the resources, just as it had in the 1990s, "to occupy Iraq"—raising a prospect that virtually no one, outside the innermost and highly secret councils of the Bush administration, appeared to be considering seriously at the time.
"If you think we have problems in Iraq, try putting a Judeo-Christian military system in the cradle of Muslim culture," Webb concluded, in what was the first of several prescient warnings. "That is not a winnable situation."
The red flag Webb was raising included a warning on the op-ed page of the Washington Post six months before the 2003 invasion, predicting that U.S. troops "would quickly become 50,000 terrorist targets" in Iraq. His outspoken opposition led to a career shift for the one-time U.S. Naval Academy boxer, Vietnam War hero, and best-selling author: he became a candidate for elective office for the first time.
Senator Webb's retelling of events in
the Naval Institute's Americans at War Series
Webb Enters the Race
Egged on by everyone from antiwar activists on the Internet to former Senator Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.), a Medal of Honor recipient, Webb made a late entry into the Virginia Senate primary. A Republican much of his adult life, he switched parties, saying he felt more comfortable with Democratic positions on economic and foreign policy.
Webb won the primary in June, thanks in large part to an unusual decision by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in Washington to abandon its neutrality and side with him. The decision to back the new recruit over a long-time party activist was a practical one. Party strategists figured that Webb's military background gave him their best shot against a conservative Republican incumbent in a state that is changing politically but where moderate-to-conservative voters still have the power to decide elections. (Republican Senator John Warner of Virginia, also a former Navy secretary, has praised Webb but endorsed Allen).
Allen voted for the 2002 resolution authorizing force against Iraq and has been described as a cheerleader for the effort there. After his most recent visit to Iraq, in May, he praised the "good progress" he said was being made.
The son of the late head coach of the Washington Redskins and Los Angeles Rams has followed the Republican playbook in his approach to the war, arguing that Iraq is inextricably linked to the war against global terrorism.
"In the real world, we got hit on 9/11. . . . We can't back down, Jim. We need a strategy for success rather than strategic plans for surrender," Allen told Webb in their first debate, in mid-July. Allen warned against "tucking tail and running," which would only embolden "our enemies in Iraq."
Webb Critical of Both Gulf Wars
Allen criticizes Webb's opposition to invading Iraq, in both 1991 and 2003. "Not only would Saddam Hussein still be in his palaces today, Jim was opposed to the military action to get Saddam out of Kuwait," the senator said. "Heck, even the French thought that we ought to get Saddam out of Kuwait in 1991."
Webb says his criticism of the push into Iraq in 2003 reflected the same cautions he voiced about the first Gulf War. "The United States does not belong as an occupying force in that part of the world," he said, adding that the 1991 crisis could have been solved by diplomacy. "All we have to do is see what happened when we did go to Baghdad to see what I was trying to oppose."
The Iraq issue dominated when the candidates appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" in mid-September, another reflection of the war's importance in the Virginia contest. Allen told moderator Tim Russert that "the whole theme" of Webb's campaign is "we should not have gone in."
But Allen tried to blunt the impact of the issue by adding that "there isn't that much of a difference" between the two candidates about the future of Iraq, since neither wants to set a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops.
Webb, reminding voters that Allen did not fight in Vietnam, said he and Allen differ "dramatically" on what happens next. He said the administration should make clear it has "no desire for a long-term presence in Iraq" and should convene an international conference to get other countries in the region to assume responsibility for rebuilding Iraq.
As a newcomer who lacks campaign funds to make himself better known, Webb is vulnerable to being defined in unflattering terms by Allen. The senator is using Webb's career as a novelist and screenwriter to link him to Hollywood liberals, trying to blunt Webb's efforts to use his military background in appealing to the NASCAR voters who are an important swing vote in rural areas.
Webb says he launched himself into electoral politics only after trying and failing to get Allen—whose election he endorsed with fanfare last time—to oppose the war, during a face-to-face meeting in 2002. Now, he attacks Allen as a rubber stamp for President Bush, whose popularity has slumped in Virginia, which he carried easily in 2000 and 2004.
Allen Supports the Administration
Allen has been extremely mild in his criticism of the administration's policy in Iraq. He says elections should have been held sooner and the training of Iraqi security forces should have been handled differently. He says the United States needs "to accomplish the mission" before troops can come home: "I'm not saying that we're going to be in Iraq" indefinitely, but a quick pullout isn't in sight. "In a few years a substantial number (will) still be there," he said in a July interview. Noting that the U.S. military is still in Kuwait, 15 years after the first Gulf War, he said "it is important for us to have a presence in precarious places of the world."
Like other Republicans facing the voters in the midst of an unpopular war, the senator has tried to avoid the subject as much as possible. When it comes up, he submerges Iraq into the wider campaign against Islamic terrorism. "Immediately withdrawing our military from Iraq would be forfeiting to the terrorists," Allen says, in the only reference to Iraq on his campaign Web site.
His TV ads are designed to remind Virginians of his tenure as a popular governor in the 1990s and his work in the Senate. The voter-friendly issues they highlight, such as education and medical research, are those that always test well in polls and focus groups.
At campaign events, Webb is fond of citing an opinion poll conducted earlier this year for the Center for Peace and Global Studies at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York, which found that 70 percent of those surveyed thought the United States should be out of Iraq within a year.
His only son, Jim, 24, an enlisted Marine, deployed to Iraq in September. The candidate father wears his son's desert-sand-colored combat boots on the campaign trail, even when he dons a business suit. The affable Allen, who dips tobacco and liberally sprinkles campaign speeches with "gosh" and "heck," sports cowboy boots; their contrasting footwear gives journalists handy symbols for the race.
Allen's campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, says that if the Virginia campaign is a referendum on Iraq, his candidate will win it. "Webb is certainly making it that," he says. "It has to be a major issue—Iraq and terrorism together."
But Webb, with an eye toward the conservative voters who could swing the election one way or the other, is much less eager to have the race viewed as a showdown over Iraq, even though that issue has driven his candidacy and won him the primary.
In fact, Webb, whose writings celebrate militarism and the warrior culture, does not fit the mold of a classic antiwar Democrat—a label he and his campaign advisers strongly reject. One aide describes him as anti-Iraq, rather than antiwar. "For me, it's national defense, rather than the war," Webb said in an interview.
Webb says the United States cannot leave Iraq "precipitously" but has said since last spring that U.S. forces could be out in two years. He was glad to welcome the active support in the Democratic primary of Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, the 2004 presidential nominee, whose hand Webb had refused to shake for 20 years because of Kerry's criticism of the Vietnam War as a returned veteran in the early 1970s. But he opposed Kerry's call for a U.S. pullout to start by the end of this year and the withdrawal of all combat forces by mid-2007.
Webb has also secured endorsements from high-ranking retired military officers, including war critics General Anthony Zinni and Lieutenant Generals Gregory Newbold and Paul Van Riper—all retired Marines—along with the highest-ranking African-American in Marine Corps history, retired Lieutenant General Frank Petersen.
In some ways, Webb seems as much of a baby boomer as his rebellious '60s-era counterparts on the radical left. His own streak of stubborn combativeness, Webb claims, is in his DNA (he traces it to his Scots-Irish forebears). Since the early '70s, he's been an influential figure in the culture wars within the military and in the wider society. His biographer, Robert Timberg, now editor-in-chief of Proceedings, ably chronicled Webb's exploits in The Nightingale's Song (1995)—as a rifle platoon and company commander in the An Hoa basin (his decorations include the Navy Cross and two Purple Hearts); his work as a congressional staffer in blunting the impact of President Jimmy Carter's Vietnam amnesty plan; his role in the fight to put a statue at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial; his rivalry with Oliver North, a Naval Academy classmate (and unsuccessful Virginia Senate candidate in 1994); and his stormy tenure as Navy secretary, which ended with Webb's resignation after less than 11 months.
The Women Issue
As a candidate, Webb has had to deal with what he calls his two-million-word paper trail, which includes a 1979 Washingtonian magazine polemic, "Women Can't Fight," about the impact of coeducation at the Naval Academy. Retired Marine Colonel Paul E. Roush has said ("A Tangled Webb," August 1997 Proceedings) that Webb's views are rooted in "the politics of resentment," an assault on women, the Academy, and the naval service.
Last spring, retired Lieutenant General Claudia Kennedy, the Army's first female three-star general, publicly endorsed Webb's primary opponent with a broadside against what she described as Webb's "troubling record" of opposing women in the military. Webb has tried to put the controversy behind him, saying he opened more billets to women than any Navy secretary and ordered a crackdown on sexual harassment in the service.
The issue came to the fore again in mid-September, when Allen held a news conference with five women Academy graduates, who denounced Webb for writing the article, now 27 years later.
"Few things in life have come as naturally to me as combat," according to Webb, whose gifts in another field—writing—have made him financially secure (he got a reported $2.5 million in book and screen rights for his 1999 novel, The Emperor's General). His Senate candidacy, however, has been a study in underwhelming force. Privately, Democratic politicians have criticized his lack of aggressiveness in fund-raising and in taking the fight to Allen.
The Washington Post went out of its way to criticize Webb's lack of preparation when it endorsed his primary opponent: "Webb seems to have given scant time and attention to issues ranging from education to tax policy to immigration, as if the cachet of his military past excuses him from having to master the pressing questions of the present." Heading into the final, post-Labor Day phase of the contest, his campaign Web site still offered little evidence that he had developed detailed plans on those issues.
Allen's Shot across Webb's Bow
A lackluster campaigner, Webb nonetheless stood his ground with the more experienced Allen in their first debate of the general election campaign (and Webb's first ever as a candidate) in midsummer. But Allen, in a shot across the challenger's bow, managed to expose Webb's lack of detailed knowledge of the state. Webb drew a blank when Allen asked him about Craney Island, a dumping ground for dredged spoil in Portsmouth harbor that state and federal officials hope to build into a new cargo terminal. Webb, after admitting he'd never heard of Craney Island, dismissed the exchange as a cheap "gotcha."
Both sides see the state's military families, estimated at one million active-duty and retired, as a key target in the fall campaign. Allen never served in the military, but the exchange over Craney Island could become grist for an Allen attack aimed at discrediting Webb in the Hampton Roads area, one of the top battlegrounds in the campaign and home to the largest U.S. naval station in the world.
Webb, a northern Virginia resident, has some family ties to the hills of southwestern Virginia, where he is aiming to win votes from the culturally conservative independent voters. An outdoorsman, he opposes further restrictions on gun ownership, an issue that often hurts Democratic candidates. But Allen has the support of the National Rifle Association.
Webb's past criticism of affirmative action and his background as a Reagan appointee could dampen enthusiasm among African-American voters. But he is hoping to win the support of the state's Vietnamese-American community. Webb speaks Vietnamese and has been active in efforts to win veterans benefits for former members of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, who fought with U.S. forces but have been abandoned by the current government in Vietnam. His third wife, Hong Le Webb, describes herself as "an original boat person" (her family fled the country just after Saigon fell and was picked up by a Navy ship).
Re-election campaigns are always, to a degree, a referendum on the incumbent, and Allen has been working to remind voters of his work over the past 25 years as a state legislator, congressman, governor, and senator.
Allen's message is simple: "You know me." He's showcasing support from Republicans popular with swing voters, such as Arizona Senator John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Meantime, President Bush, who has raised money for Allen, has avoided public appearances in the state.
After a quarter-century in state politics, Allen, whose personal appeal has been compared to Reagan's, radiates back-slapping, good-ol'-boy charm. Webb, by contrast, is stiff and standoffish at campaign events, and unusually quiet for a politician. He shows little enthusiasm for the basics of politicking, such as shaking hands and introducing himself around a room.
Macaca
But in mid-August, it was the more experienced candidate who sustained a serious, self-inflicted wound. At a campaign stop in southwest Virginia, Allen used an obscure racial slur, "macaca," to mock a Webb volunteer of Indian descent. The blunder, caught on videotape and amplified by more than a week of negative press coverage, reinforced questions about Allen's youthful embrace of Confederate symbols and his sensitivity on matters of race.
Despite Allen's apologies, the incident "cracked the veneer of invincibility" around his campaign and "changed the countours of the race," said Stuart Rothenberg, a leading independent analyst of congressional elections.
Allen remains the clear favorite in the contest. He is counting on a reservoir of good will from Virginians to protect him from rising voter anger against President Bush and the war. He can count on the support of Virginia's social conservatives, who may be drawn to the polls in larger than normal numbers by a proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot that would ban same-sex marriage. Allen supports it; Webb is opposed.
Meantime, Webb, vastly under-armed on a battlefield in which dollars count most, admits that if he can't raise the cash he needs, "we will be defenseless." At the same time, he says he won't surrender his soul in the money chase. "I don't need to be in the Senate at this time of my life, just to be in the Senate," he says. "The only way to do this is for the right reasons, as I see them, and other people may see them differently. That's the constant dance."
Longtime Democratic strategist (and Marine Corps veteran) James Carville, who met with Webb during the campaign, thinks the candidate still comes off as an infantry captain, the leadership role he played more than 35 years ago in southeast Asia. "He's a Marine, a pretty straightforward guy. The phrase 'not a typical politican, not a typical Democrat,' fits him," Carville said. "If people are looking for somebody different, he might have a chance."
Mr. West is the Baltimore Sun's Washington bureau chief and national political correspondent.