For those still wondering whether former Sen. Jim Webb will join the presidential scrum, you’ll have to wait a little longer:
Former U.S. senator Jim Webb will decide in the next few days whether he is running for president, he said Tuesday at a presidential forum in Baltimore.
Webb, who represented Virginia for a single term in the Senate, told the National Sheriffs’ Association that he expected to be “very busy over the next week” and later clarified to reporters that he would announce his plans “within the next few days.”
Webb must be taking pages from the Mario Cuomo playbook: wait, ponder, wait some more. And then do nothing.
Webb may still find it in himself to mount some sort of presidential foray, but as Rachel Weiner notes, there isn’t a lot of room for Webb in the Democratic field:
He could not easily attack Clinton from the left, as former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley (D) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have, although criminal justice reform provides one such opening. He has also argued that she would not aggressively take on big financial interests.
But Webb ended his appearance by saying that he was “very proud of having worked in the Reagan administration” as secretary of the Navy. He pointed out to reporters that conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer shared his view of the Confederate flag — that it shouldn’t be used as a political symbol but that good people fought on both sides. Democratic primary voters are unlikely to be impressed by those references.
In short, Webb has no schtick. Without it, he’s just a little-known, single term Senator who may get nods from conservatives, but has no hook with Democratic presidential primary voters.
Webb was uniquely fortunate to win a Senate seat in 2006. The combination of an increasingly unpopular war and a self-destructing incumbent are rare things. Webb had both and still only managed to eke out a win.
Fortune is highly unlikely to smile on him so kindly in a race for the Democratic presidential nomination. In Virginia, he’s boxed out by Terry McAuliffe and Tim Kaine, both of whom are on Hillary’s team (and both of whom hope to be on it long after election day). And his own dithering, while it may flatter the Cincinnatus Webb sees reflected in his mirror each morning, doesn’t sell on the national campaign trail. He may have appealing ideas. He may be willing to address issues the other candidates will not.
But with no hook and no decision, he’s just another guy on a book tour.
He will make a play of some sort. But in or out, it will make no difference in the Democratic primary contest.
