Jim Webb took the last step on his improbable journey from political novice to Virginia Senator Thursday, taking the oath of office in the Senate chamber.
Senior Virginia Republican Sen. John Warner and former Virginia Democratic Sen. Charles Robb joined the decorated Marine officer and former Naval Secretary as he approached the podium of the Senate chamber to give his oath. His wife and newborn daughter watched from the gallery.
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The idea of Webb taking the senator’s oath was unthinkable to most when Webb announced his candidacy last February. He was a long shot to win the Democratic nomination, let alone defeat popular Republican incumbent George Allen.
Webb proved skeptics wrong. He defeated Harris Miller in the primary, and, bolstered by Allen’s spectacular collapse and by his own strong anti-war campaign message, won the general election by fewer than 10,000 votes.
Now Senator Webb is hoping to unite a Virginia that was almost evenly split in the race to elect him. Webb carried cities and their suburbs, while Allen won Virginia’s rural areas.
Webb said he would reach out to the areas Allen found heavy support.
“One of the situations we had in the campaign is I started in February of an election year with zero dollars,” he told reporters after taking the oath. “There was a limitation built into to what we could do and … the number of issues we could get across to people.”
“The areas where we did not do well are areas of a natural constituency of the Democratic party,” he added. “The areas where we did not do particularly well. … I believe will naturally gravitate towards us.”
In his first legislative act, Webb has introduced a bill expanding benefits for military families. The bill, known as the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act, replaces the existing Montgomery GI Bill and makes veterans benefits identical to those soldiers received following World War II.
Democratic leaders have already signaled the bill will be a top priority in the new session.
“With many of our military members serving two or three tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is past time to enact a new veterans’ education program modeled on the World War II era GI bill,” Webb said in a statement.
“This is exactly what our legislation does.”
