Former Virginia senator Jim Webb announced Tuesday afternoon that he would no longer pursue the Democratic presidential nomination.
“More people in this country call themselves political independents than Republicans or Democrats. I happen to agree with them,” Webb told reporters at a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington.
“… I am withdrawing from any consideration of being the Democratic Party’s nominee for the presidency,” he said. He added that he had not yet decided on his next move, but would weigh his options in the coming weeks. His campaign had said Monday he was weighing an independent bid.
The move further narrows a primary field that has been dominated by former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
Webb, who served as the secretary of the Navy under President Reagan, entered the race in July with a heavy focus on foreign policy, highlighting his opposition to the Iraq War while criticizing the Obama administration’s military intervention in Libya and its nuclear negotiations with Iran. He was immediately seen as a long shot candidate but was believed to bring to the race a formative foreign policy voice to challenge Clinton, whose tenure at the State Department has remained at the heart of her White House bid.
But the former one-term senator struggled to raise interest in his candidacy over the three months since he launched his campaign, polling at 1 percent in the most recent Washington Post/ABC News survey and maintaining a scant campaign schedule, with few campaign events in early-voting states. His announcement follows an underwhelming performance at the first Democratic debate last week, where he was challenged for being out of step with the Democratic base on affirmative action and gun control.
“Actually, I believe that I am where the Democratic Party traditionally has been. The Democratic Party, and the reason I’ve decided to run as a Democrat, has been the party that gives people who otherwise have no voice in the corridors of power a voice,” Webb told CNN moderator Anderson Cooper when challenged on his concerns over extending affirmative action to all minorities.
His performance was panned by critics, who said he appeared unprepared for a tough line of questioning; the liberal magazine Mother Jones said he had “misse[d] his moment.” A Saturday Night Live skit that aired days after the debate lampooned Webb’s frequent complaints to Cooper that he was not being given as much time to speak as other candidates – which ironically only further cut into the time he was given.
Webb’s departure from the field removes its only Vietnam veteran, a fact not lost on Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who’d known him even before he ran for Senate.
“I’ve always respected Jim Webb on national security and defense,” said McCain. “He obviously has the credentials for the job, including secretary of the Navy. I’ve been a great admirer of Jim Webb’s, for a lot of reasons, including the Vietnam War.”
According to McCain, Webb’s failure to get traction in the Democratic Party said something about who voted in primaries. “I don’t know if he ever had a base,” said Webb. “Elizabeth Warren — she has a base. Sanders has a base. I’m not sure Jim Webb really had that, unless it was with defense-oriented people, and they’re more in the Republican Party.”
Gary Johnson, a two-term Republican governor of New Mexico, had an even rougher experience in the primaries than Webb. In 2011, he was locked out of all but two televised debates, a marginalization that contributed to his lack of traction. Shortly before the New Hampshire primary, he bolted the GOP for the Libertarian Party, and became the highest vote-getter in its history without making much of an impact on 2012. That experience gave him some pointers for Webb, if he indeed decides to mount a new bid.
“I didn’t go off and run as an independent,” Johnson told the Washington Post. “I ran as a Libertarian where you have organization in place in every single state. I think he’s in for a rude awakening — perhaps he’s already taken this into account, but it may be an $8 million endeavor to get on all the ballots. In half the states, it’s easy to do; in the other half you need to put some real money behind it.”
Johnson, who has joined other third-party veterans in a lawsuit aimed at opening the presidential debates, said an independent campaign by Webb would struggle to get traction.
“I sure get his frustration with having served and not getting any airtime whatsoever,” said Johnson. “Now, the parties are going to ignore him. They’re going to say he doesn’t make any difference whatsoever. That’s what happened with me.”
A Federal Election Commission financial disclosure filed last week also showed the Webb campaign had failed to raise the money necessary to run competitively for the nomination, particularly against Clinton and Sanders, who have already raised tens of millions of dollars.
For his part, Webb raised nearly $700,000 and spent nearly $400,000, according to the filing. He ended the quarter with just $318,000 cash on hand.
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