Jim Webb

“I'm a Democrat, and I have strong reasons for being a Democrat.”

“I left the Democratic Party basically on issues of national security during the end of the Vietnam War.”

“Contrary to assumptions in the law, white America is hardly a monolith.”

“The Senate floor is and always has been the great arena of our democracy. I spent eight years in my younger life as a boxer, and sometimes when I enter the chamber, I think, 'This is the ring. The American people can see us here and listen to our arguments. This is where the fights matter.'”

“Some of my Democratic friends don't like it when I say that, but Ronald Reagan was once a Democrat and still a leader. He brought strong people around him, and he had a vision for where he wanted to take the country.”

“When my father went back into the military in 1947 and was gone for 3-1/2 years, my mother was 24 years old with four kids in a town she didn't know that well with no military services available, no family services available through the military, and that was the norm.”

“I have proudly spent several periods in government, but I'm not a career politician. I come from a family of 'citizen soldiers.'”

“The function of combat is not merely to perpetrate violence, but to perpetrate violence on command, instantaneously and reflexively. The function of the service academies is to prepare men for leadership positions where they may someday exercise that command.”

“If a minister can lead the Senate in prayer every day... what is so wrong with beginning every day of school with an ecumenical prayer?”

“On any given vote, on any given day, a smart senator who has taken a bold or controversial position can reach far more media outlets between the elevator and the Senate chamber than he or she could garner in a full press conference back home.”

“It's hard for me to think about this, but I first went to Southeast Asia as a Marine more than 40 years ago, as a young Marine. I was on Okinawa and then in Vietnam. I've returned in many different hats, which I think has helped me to form my own views about policy out there. I've spent a good bit of time in this region as a journalist.”

“The venerable Robert E. Lee has taken some vicious hits, as dishonest or misinformed advocates among political interest groups and in academia attempt to twist yesterday's America into a fantasy that might better service the political issues of today.”

“I know how to make decisions, and I know how to lead.”

“I was raised with the notion that there is no greater honor than to find a way to serve your country.”

“Your first six months in the Senate, you spend a lot of time wondering how the hell you got here. After that, you look around at your colleagues and wonder how the hell any of them got here.”

“I am not convinced the Clean Air Act was ever intended to regulate or classify as a dangerous pollutant something as basic and ubiquitous in our atmosphere as carbon dioxide.”

“I'm probably more comfortable inside a Marine Corps rifle company than I am anywhere in my life.”

“I walk fast. I have an aversion to wasting time. My sense of constant motion is one of the reasons that my eldest daughter, Amy, nicknamed me 'the Tasmanian Devil' when she was in her teens.”

“I am a junior senator, ninety-fifth on the seniority list, and so by Senate standards, my office in the Russell Senate Office Building is less than splendid.”

“When I left the Senate in January 2013, I decided to take a full year away from all media interviews, editorial articles, and direct political activities.”