The populist outsider who really could beat Hillary Clinton (clue: it’s not Elizabeth Warren)

 Washington DC

 

Bored American reporters are pining for a Democratic primary challenger to step up against Hillary Clinton in 2016. We don’t like coronations. It’s not just cynical Republicans who cheered at ‘emailgate’ — the crisis Clinton faced after it emerged she had used a private account for her emails as Secretary of State. It makes matters more interesting, and moves the spotlight on to other, less celebrated politicians.

The media is consequently obsessed with the idea that Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat admired by Occupy Wall Street, can take on Hillary. The more logical opponent is Joe Biden, the Vice President. There’s also Bernie Sanders, self-described socialist senator from Vermont. But let us not overlook the most interesting potential challenger: former Virginia senator Jim Webb. He has already declared his interest in exploring a 2016 campaign. Compared with the rest of the Democratic field, his biography reads like Theodore Roosevelt’s. A 1968 graduate of the US Naval Academy, where he was a varsity boxer, Webb fought as a marine in the Vietnam war. He was wounded twice, earning the Navy Cross, the Silver Star, two Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts. Webb went on to collect a law degree from Georgetown, serve as counsel to the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee and be appointed defence secretary and secretary of the navy under Ronald Reagan. Not even the Reagan administration was tough enough on defence for him — Webb quit over potential cuts to the 600-ship navy. (‘I don’t think the navy was sorry to see him go,’ the President wrote in his diary.) After leaving government, he won an Emmy TV award and wrote six bestselling novels. One of them, Fields of Fire, has been frequently listed among the best books about the Vietnam war.