WASHINGTON — Jim Webb is back to confusing everyone about his politics.
The former Reagan administration official, Republican, and finally one-term Democratic senator dropped his quixotic bid for the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday, saying the Democratic nomination process was stacked against him.
"It’s been very difficult in the Democratic primary process with the dominance of one candidate, not only in her candidacy but in the structure of the Democratic Party, the traditional financing structures, the hierarchies themselves, the DNC," he said at a press conference. "It’s been a very careful process that I’ve put forward here, and, again as I’ve said, I have issues that I care about that maybe aren’t in line with that particular hierarchy.”
Webb, who did little actual campaigning during his primary campaign, said he'd embark on a listening tour to test the waters for an independent bid for the White House. Aides at his event were sporting buttons with a new logo that simply read "Jim Webb 2016" in clean, capital letters. His Democratic primary signs read "Jim Webb '16: Leadership You Can Trust" in a lowercase font with a star for the "i."
Webb railed against what he said was a rising extremism in both parties that left a vast independent middle yearning for a third option. He said that option might be him, considering he's been both a Democrat and Republican.
"I’ve worked with both sides, and I have a lot of respect for many people who are members of both parties. I know how broken our system really is," he said. "This country needs a totally new dynamic that respects and honors our history and our traditions but is not a slave to the power structures that are failing us."
But Webb wasn't ready to leave his current political party yet.
"Do you still consider yourself a Democrat, though?" Dan Merica, a reporter from CNN, asked Webb. "Would you use that term to describe yourself?"
"We'll think about that," Webb said.
Webb touted his connections to organized labor — a union firefighter actually stood up during the press conference, thanked him, and offered the Vietnam vet a challenge coin — and his history of pissing off leadership in both parties as evidence that he can connect with the frustrated white, working-class voter he promised to rally when he embarked on his quest for the Democratic nomination.
He didn't mention the various moments this year when he struggled to embrace the changing Democratic Party. An early and vocal proponent of the criminal justice reform movement driving a large part of progressive social politics at the moment, Webb failed to connect with the left pushing for changes to the prison system and to the "war on drugs" due in large part to questioning the efforts like the Black Lives Matter movement.
Webb criticized efforts to remove the Confederate flag from official state sites across the country, declined an opportunity at the debate to stand with Black Lives Matter, and struggled with a debate question about his past criticism of affirmative action.
Asked by BuzzFeed News if those were the areas where he felt the Democratic Party had become too "extreme," Webb said the party's leadership had become alienating to some.
"I’m not trying to stand here and attack the Democratic Party, but these are areas where I think there were strong differences between the party hierarchy and myself," he said. "The Democratic Party has heavily invested in the notion of interest group politics, and interest group politics if you’re not careful can exclude people who also need a voice in the corridors of power."
Essentially, Webb argues the Democratic Party has gotten carried away with itself.
He repeated his answer about affirmative action from the debate — the program was designed for black students, and they deserve special treatment due to their special history, he said. But the programs should end there.
"Once you expand that into what we call diversity programs for anyone who happens to be a person of color, by definition, what's you're actually doing is you're hurting poor blacks and you're hurting poor whites," he said, adding, "We should be making sure that we're serious when we're talking about having a level playing field and still giving special consideration to the journey of African-Americans. But for everybody else, welcome to America. You have the best shot in the world here at having a great future."
On the Confederate flag, Webb again joined the ranks of critics who feel opponents are trying to erase the Confederacy from history.
"With respect to the issue of the Confederate flag, what I said was that, yes, the Confederate flag should come down but I’m a historian, and that we need to be very careful about examining the fairness of our history," he said. "There are people who do not view, have not viewed the confederate battle flag as a symbol of racism and so let’s take them down from public places but let’s not get carried away here in terms of how our own history played out during the period."