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Jim Webb to drop out of Democratic race, consider independent bid

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Jim Webb, realizing he’s thirty years too late to run for the Democratic nomination on an “affirmative action is bad; the Confederate flag is okay; the Civil War wasn’t really about slavery” platform, will announce later today that he will end his Democratic bid and consider an independent run for president.

According to Fox, “Webb is said to be disillusioned with the Democratic Party — as well as the Republican Party — and how the political parties are being pulled to allegedly extreme positions by the huge amounts of loosely regulated money fueling the campaigns.”

Webb spent the better part of the Democratic debate, and the week that followed, complaining about how little time he was given to speak, saying it was “rigged in terms of who was going to get the time on the floor.” This ignores the fact that Webb was lucky to have been on the stage in the first place. Because despite officially being a “candidate” for president, it’s hard to argue that Webb has in fact been running a “campaign.” He has held practically no events since announcing his bid, and has raised less money than Lawrence Lessig, who, despite going through the motions of being an actual Democratic presidential candidate, was excluded from the debate stage entirely.

This being the case, the fact that it’s Webb and not Lessig abandoning the party to consider an independent campaign is puzzling, to say the least.

In any case, Jim Webb is at least correct in saying that the Democratic Party has left him as much as he has left the Democratic Party. As I wrote in August:

Jim Webb, via DonkeyHotey / Flickr

Jim Webb, via DonkeyHotey / Flickr

It seems that Webb is trying to save a Dixiecrat wing of the Democratic Party that, for all intents and purposes, no longer exists. While he cites his opposition to the Iraq War as the primary justification for his candidacy, that isn’t what distinguishes him from the rest of the field. His horrendous record on climate change and parroting of Republican talking points on racial justice, which is becoming one of the defining issues of the Democratic primary, are what does.

If this were the 1970s, or even the 1990s, Jim Webb’s candidacy would be plausible. An anti-war, pro-domestic industry, pro-safety net Democrat with a military record and a religious background from a Confederate state, who’s all about equality but woah buddy let’s slow down with all this talk about race paints a fairly accurate picture of where the party used to be.

And who knows? There may be an opening for an independent candidate to siphon off some votes from the major parties on a platform like that, tapping into the same white working class populism that has paid massive dividends for Donald Trump. But in order to capitalize on whatever opening he seems to think he has, Jim Webb is going to have to run an actual campaign. As an independent, he won’t have any debate stages on which to complain.

The post Jim Webb to drop out of Democratic race, consider independent bid appeared first on AMERICAblog News.


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