Race Matters in the Virginia Democratic Senate Primary
The Washington Post’s Richmond Report dropped a minor bombshell in the race between Harris Miller and James Webb for Virginia’s Democratic Senate nomination reporting that “Northern Virginia tech exec Harris Miller received the backing of leading African-American politicians Sen. Henry L. Marsh III (D-Richmond), Sen. Benjamin J. Lambert III (D-Richmond), and Del. Lionell Sr. Spruill (D-Chesapeake)” as well as a number of other black members of Virginia’s General Assembly. These endorsements apparently stem from controversial writings that Mr. Webb composed over the years.
In particular, a 2000 Wall Street Journal article that Webb wrote raised the ire of these seasoned black political veterans. In that piece, Webb said Affirmative Action had "within one generation, brought about a state-sponsored racism that is as odious as the Jim Crow laws it sought to countermand." The reaction among the progressive blogging community – many of whom are Webb supporters – was swift and angry, decrying Miller’s tactics as negative campaigning and coming to Webb’s defense.
Mr. Webb’s campaign responded by saying, “Jim Webb has a long history of assisting African Americans, including fighting to get African Americans represented in the Vietnam War memorial on the National Mall. Jim believes in affirmative action for African Americans. Unfortunately poverty does not discriminate on skin color. There are 37 million Americans of all races living in poverty. Jim will focus on policies which will give all Americans of every race access to opportunity. This is an issue of fairness that de serves a great deal of attention in Virginia and across this country.”
This move by the Miller campaign was not unexpected. Mr. Webb is a prolific author whose personal website serves as a repository for his thoughts, some of which were published by the Wall Street Journal and American Enterprise Institute. In that work, he directly challenges liberal and Democratic orthodoxy on the issues of affirmative action and racial politicking. Now that he is running as a Democrat, his words and actions should be of interest to public leaders and political types throughout the Southeastern US as he will now directly tackle the prickly pear of racial politics and public policy.
In light of these not-so-secret revelations, it will be interesting to see how the Webb campaign manages to reach out to hard-pressed rural and working class whites, while at the same time allaying the fears of the party’s base voters, African Americans, without alienating either group. Early supporters of the Webb campaign drew inspiration from his proposition that “the greatest realignment in modern politics would take place rather quickly if the right national leader found a way to bring the Scots-Irish and African Americans to the same table, and so to redefine a formula that has consciously set them apart for the past two centuries." With nearly half of the Commonwealth’s Legislative Black Caucus on board with his opponent, Mr. Webb may just get the chance to test out his theory...on himself.
In particular, a 2000 Wall Street Journal article that Webb wrote raised the ire of these seasoned black political veterans. In that piece, Webb said Affirmative Action had "within one generation, brought about a state-sponsored racism that is as odious as the Jim Crow laws it sought to countermand." The reaction among the progressive blogging community – many of whom are Webb supporters – was swift and angry, decrying Miller’s tactics as negative campaigning and coming to Webb’s defense.
Mr. Webb’s campaign responded by saying, “Jim Webb has a long history of assisting African Americans, including fighting to get African Americans represented in the Vietnam War memorial on the National Mall. Jim believes in affirmative action for African Americans. Unfortunately poverty does not discriminate on skin color. There are 37 million Americans of all races living in poverty. Jim will focus on policies which will give all Americans of every race access to opportunity. This is an issue of fairness that de serves a great deal of attention in Virginia and across this country.”
This move by the Miller campaign was not unexpected. Mr. Webb is a prolific author whose personal website serves as a repository for his thoughts, some of which were published by the Wall Street Journal and American Enterprise Institute. In that work, he directly challenges liberal and Democratic orthodoxy on the issues of affirmative action and racial politicking. Now that he is running as a Democrat, his words and actions should be of interest to public leaders and political types throughout the Southeastern US as he will now directly tackle the prickly pear of racial politics and public policy.
In light of these not-so-secret revelations, it will be interesting to see how the Webb campaign manages to reach out to hard-pressed rural and working class whites, while at the same time allaying the fears of the party’s base voters, African Americans, without alienating either group. Early supporters of the Webb campaign drew inspiration from his proposition that “the greatest realignment in modern politics would take place rather quickly if the right national leader found a way to bring the Scots-Irish and African Americans to the same table, and so to redefine a formula that has consciously set them apart for the past two centuries." With nearly half of the Commonwealth’s Legislative Black Caucus on board with his opponent, Mr. Webb may just get the chance to test out his theory...on himself.
posted by SouthoftheJames.org @ 5:30 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
I don't believe Webb is a racist. But I do believe it is disengenuous of his campaign manager to claim that Webb's advocacay for inclusion of an African-American soldier in the Vietnam veterans statue group somehow proves he favors affirmative action.
There's a huge difference: An opponent of racism opposes holding people back because of their skin color. A proponent of affirmative action supports helping those people move forward to recover time lost while held back.
Webb's past statements against affirmative action leave in question whether he'd help that forward action.
What really frightens me about Webb is his Scots-Irish twaddle. Good grief, the SIs were not God's gift to America! In the past, for whatever their accomplishments, they were also the majority of the South that supported and expanded slavery, fought to preserve it, and then worked over a century to maintain racial inequality.
Yes, many good Americans were and are of SI ancestry, but so were/are German-Americans, and Italian-Americans, and Chinese-Americans, and all the other sorts of hyphenates. Webb's almost seems to claim some sort of moral superiority for SIs, and that is very frightening indeed.
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