Jim Webb’s recent Wall Street Journal op-ed about ending exclusively race-based affirmative action programs, especially when extended beyond the descendants of slaves to all “people of color,” is not exactly new ground for him. But it does have the Virginia senator sounding more like the independent thinker some hoped for rather than the party-line Democrat he has mostly been. It may not mean anything more significant than that he’d like to be reelected in a state that no longer looks as Democratic as it did in 2006-08, but it could be interesting to watch.
