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Why
not vote for Jim Webb? Other than the fact
that I'd be stripped of my Republican offices,
why shouldn't I?
Because
voting for Webb would be like that last, extra
piece of Sunday fried chicken: Emotional,
instant gratification for a moment, producing
painful, long-lasting heartburn. It’s just
not worth it.
Yet
the idea deserves a longing ponder. I'm
willing to take a friendly look at James Webb
because he was a Republican official in the
Reagan administration. It’s not like he has
Carter-Clinton cooties. Furthermore, I read
his books about Vietnam. As a retired Infantry
officer I connected, even though the Vietnam
War was cancelled due to lack of interest
during my Winter Ranger school. I devoured his
book, “Born Fighting”, weaving the tale of
the Scot-Irish and his findings with his
family story. I’d read the “Social History
of the Scot-Irish” and drew my similar
conclusions separately. Then, I identified
with his family history, including his WW II
Dad serving as a career officer, and Webb’s
four grueling years in a pre-girl compatible
Service Academy. Webb graduated from the Naval
Academy four years before I graduated from
West Point. I think, or imagine, I know Webb
in my guts.
My
intestinal pull is what Sen. George Allen
needs to worry about. He needn't fret about
losing my vote, but the votes of others who
will feel the same connection without my
attendant caution.
Jim
Webb will fight. It maybe the wrong fight or a
losing fight, but he will fight. This isn’t
the fight talk of fat, pasty-faced politicians
who hire deep voices to intone their views in
political commercials. This is the passion to
go hammer and nail, tooth and claw, no holds
barred when Webb gets his Irish up.
I
don’t hear that in Allen’s stump speech.
The red meat line is about judges. Allen says
things about judges that few Presidential
candidates dare. But, if the judges are so out
of control and un-Constitutional, then how
many has Allen brought up on articles of
impeachment? If Webb thought what Allen says
and had the power, he would impeach the
judicial tyrants.
...Except,
Webb went to the dark side of the force with
the Democrats. Jim Webb is proudly
pro-abortion and pro-homosexual. Which means
he goes against the evangelical grain of his
people, the Scot-Irish, and by inclusion in
his cultural thesis - all the Red State South,
Plains and Mountain West. You can’t stay
true to your clan if you lose the
Bible-believing, living relationship with
Jesus. Webb lost his moral authority.
Sen.
Allen isn’t an evangelical. But he can keep
those crucial votes across NoVa suburbs and
the majority across rural Virginia. After 30
years of Virginia politics Allen needs to
listen to his gut, not whispers of men
desperate to tune his rhetoric to
"moderate" for the Presidential
race. And, not in the manner of the clumsy,
failed ’05 Kilgore campaign, but part of an
issues-driven race that defines Jim Webb as he
is, not as others wish he was.
Jim
Webb is a loose cannon. He is a Sen. John
McCainesque threat to principled liberty if he
plops on the wrong side of the issue. And, you
can never tell where he will be on issues. He
goes off half-cocked like a hot-head.
Scot-Irish and hot head. Imagine that!
Sen.
Allen learned life lessons in sports. College
athlete is an achievement. He learned tough
lessons, too, in politics. But, like Sen.
Hillary Clinton, Sen. Allen has been advancing
his career in the public square from a life of
wealth and position. It isn’t selfless
service.
I’ve
seen Allen tolerate insipid questions from
drooling morons (and I’m not just talking
about the media) with charm, grace and wit.
That is painful, but not selfless duty. The
issue goes back to the guts.
Issue
by issue -- what is Webb’s stand on illegal
aliens? -- Sen. Allen wins over 50 per cent of
Virginia. If George Allen shows the passion of
his principles, like digging deeper in a tough
game, he can be a Man of the People. But he
needs to see the overt racism of his own
Indian bill, the triumph of Jamestown 400, the
folly of the Voting Rights Reconstruction and
Multi-culturalism, the non-fatal failures of
Rumsfeld, and the arrogance of Virginia’s
tax-and-spend Republican Senate majority for
what they are – just as he came to
understand that making homosexuals "a
protected class of persons" is a step
towards criminalizing Christian free speech.
If
Allen fights as fiercely as Webb, mimicking
Andrew Jackson, then voters won’t wonder who
is born fighting for them or not.
--
June 26, 2006
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