Without warning, former Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) announced his presidential run with a blog post Thursday. Webb is the fifth Democrat to announce a presidential run.
In his blog post, he announced his campaign, saying that “our country needs a fresh approach to solving the problems that confront us and too often unnecessarily divide us. We need to shake the hold of these shadow elites on our political process.” He then laid out his campaign platform and his stances on international policy, education, and criminal justice, among others.
The post indicates that Webb plans on attacking Secretary Hillary Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner, on foreign policy, particularly the Benghazi attacks and the Iraq War invasion. Former Senator Lincoln Chafee (D-RI), who is also running for President, has been attacking Clinton on the Iraq War vote. The Iraq War vote also proved to be Clinton’s demise in the 2008 presidential election, when then-Senator Obama used it to bring her down.
Webb has remained low in the polls, hovering around one or two percent. Recent polls have had him ahead of former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley and Chafee. However, Webb remains behind Clinton, Senator Bernie Sanders, and Vice President Biden who has not announced a presidential run.