I just read a fascinating article at TPM Cafe on James Webb and Harris Miller. It's called, "VA Senate Race: The Maverick vs. The Placeholder." One quote that caught my eye was this:
But James Webb also is the kind of candidate who scares the hell out of certain Beltway Insider [tm] types -- because he's a maverick who isn't afraid to speak his mind.He was one of only a handful of former Republican senior officials who didn't let his (then) affiliation with the Republican party stop him from calling bull---t on President Bush's Iraq misadventure, in a very loud and public way.
I also thought this was very interesting:
Clearly, this is a guy who calls it like he sees it, and has an independent streak a mile wide. And my guess is, when insiders at the DSCC, etc, read his writings, they probably thought he might be a controversial candidate -- a bit of a maverick, and someone who isn't going to be amenable to taking orders from the party leadership....Given that these insiders don't think the Virginia race is winnable, they've taken a page out of the old playbook -- run a 'safe' candidate....
I don't know what's inside their heads, obviously, but that strikes me as the likely reason for the apparent turn toward Harris Miller -- they don't expect to win, and he's a safe candidate who will stick to the script and not make any waves. I think they're wrong, however.
There's more, particularly on Harris Miller's "strong" support for "outsourcing many more Federal Government jobs" as well as for:
...expansion of the H1-B visa program, which is very controversial among tech-sector workers since, by introducing a supply of much cheaper labor into the U.S. labor market, it tends to weaken American programmers' and engineers' bargaining power via-a-vis their employers.
Honestly, I don't know much about the H1-B program or its potential implications for high-tech workers, so I'm not really sure what to make of all this. Is it a bunch of bull? Or is the author onto something here? What do you all think? And what about the core charge, that the Democrats in Virginia have decided to run a "placeholder" against George Allen, not someone with a real chance of winning? Discuss among yourselves! Ha ha.