Virginia Democrats will be choosing between Harris Miller, a relatively liberal Northern Virginian, and James Webb, former Navy Secretary under President Reagan, to challenge incumbent Senator George Allen.
In the last few days Miller has attacked Webb’s position on affirmative action, and surrogates for Webb said Miller is engaged in “race-baiting.”
Miller began the dialogue Monday when he held a news conference to blast past Webb writings in which Webb called affirmative action “state-sponsored racism.”
A spokeswoman for Webb said he does not oppose affirmative action but feels it should be applied across the board, to people disadvantaged by economic circumstances regardless of race.
“For Harris Miller to say Jim Webb opposes affirmative action is an outright lie,” Kristian Denny Todd, Webb’s press spokeswoman, said.
Webb’s campaign manager, Jessica Vanden Berg, wrote a memo for Webb supporters, titled “Fighting Against Divisive Politics,” saying affirmative action applied only to blacks is divisive.
“We need real and honest conversations about race and poverty, not more accusations and race baiting,” she wrote.
“Poverty does not discriminate based on skin color,” she wrote. And in the modern era we are divided more along class lines than by race.”
Miller’s campaign has apparently decided that race preferences are popular among Virginia Democrats.
State Sen. Henry L. Marsh III, D-Richmond, one of several black officials supporting Miller, said he finds that allegation “offensive.”
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In a conference call with reporters, Marsh said Webb clearly “opposes affirmative action.”
That is a major difference between Miller and Webb, “James Webb and myself” and between “Webb and the values of the Democratic Party,” he said. Marsh said there are other government programs to help combat poverty, such as Medicaid and the earned-income credit. Affirmative action is specifically designed to overcome centuries of discrimination against blacks, he said.
This will be fun to watch between now and June, but meanwhile congratulations to James Webb. How many prominent Democrats can you name who will say in public (or have a campaign manager say) that affirmative action based on race is “divisive”? [Addendum: Joe Lieberman used to say things like that, and more, until his ill-fated association with Al Gore made him prominent.]
Am I the only citizen of the U S of A who thinks that affirmative action should just be junked?
You don’t improve on a bad idea by refining it.
You get rid of it.
John, I’m tempted to send a small campaign donation. But I’m afraid my contribution might be perceived as out-of-state meddling.
Miller’s making an issue about affirmative action really show what a cynical degenerate he really is
google H-1b Harris Miller
black or white, nobody has done more that Harris to replace Americans with foreign workers, I mean NOBODY
I am a life-long Democrat, white working class male (essentially) who has grown damned sick and tired of his party’s style of social engineering (i.e. affirmative action). I say junk it and three cheers for Jim Webb!