Jim Webb in 2016? This is how it works. Republicans paint themselves once again in that dark corner of doubt, acrimony and accusation. In the clear light of day, Ann Romney explains that only St. Mitt can retrieve America. He wins the primary in a walk, as only he can “beat Hillary Clinton.” Then in a simple twist of fate, he faces instead Webb, former senator from Virginia, as the Democrats have made the same observation. Webb would be Hillary’s “worst nightmare.” Webb “takes on his party’s hawks.” Webb is the “anti-Hillary.” Webb can “beat Hillary.” And as the coyote pups begin their autumn chants here in the hills of chilly New Hampshire, Webb arrives tonight to give a little talk at St. Anselm College.
Historians William Strauss and Neil Howe wisely council that time and history come down to one person and one moment. Prediction: That person is not Hillary Clinton or Bill. But certainly the moment which will determine our future draws closer to hand.
{mosads}It appears to be all about Hillary and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), the Ford guys and Chevy guys of political generations past remembering themselves, but it is not. It is about coming to terms with a transitional era here at the end of a vast thing ending in strange and cryptic shadow; a century, a millennium, drawing to a close and the beginning of another still awaiting its light.
After the Civil War, Walt Whitman sensed that we had come to dreams of world conquest and passage even across the universe; to Sirius and Jupiter and beyond. It will be a better time, Whitman promised, for then “the true Son of God shall come, singing his songs” and that is the promise of the millennium rising.
Why Webb? Because for every thing there is a season and our seasons today demand a leader with a stout heart. That could be warrior scholar Jim Webb.
Remembering fierce combat in 1969, which he miraculously survived, he writes in his poignant recollection, I Heard My Country Calling, of receiving a letter from his sister a year to the day of his graduation from Annapolis: “Here on Go Noi Island I was neither old nor young. More to the point, whether I liked it or not, I was no longer like her and John and the others I had left behind, and I never would be again.”
Nor would we be, as American time stalled there along the sandy banks of the Thu Bon River in Vietnam in 1969.
It is interesting that three of the candidates — Hillary (and of course, Bill), Jim Webb and Mitt Romney — are exactly the same age. Jeb (Bush III) can be seen as vindicating agent and proxy for his older brother, George W. Bush, who is as well. Each one of us of that era vividly remembers 1969; Haight-Ashbury was in rapid decline but Woodstock brought climax to a generation. While Webb (“tanned and gaunt from months spent in the heat and deprivations of the Bush”) awaited the Rolling Thunder of B-52s above as they entered the airspace over Vietnam on their way to “hell in a very small place.”
Either way, 1969 was key to the lives of each running for president today and it is still unresolved for them; for everyone.
Prediction: Whoever resolves that moment awakens the age. And that will begin in 2016.
Quigley is a prize-winning writer who has worked more than 35 years as a book and magazine editor, political commentator and reviewer. For 20 years he has been an amateur farmer, raising Tunis sheep and organic vegetables. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and four children. Contact him at quigley1985@gmail.com.