I admit that I haven’t followed the Virginia Senate race between George Allen and Jim Webb very closely. I knew Webb was a former Republican and Reagan Administration official who opposed the Iraq war, but I assumed that meant he was some kind of centrist Republican. Turns out, though, that he’s got a long history of what might best be described as right-wing populism: railing against leftist cultural elites, corrupt politicians, fat cat CEOs, and “chickenhawk” war planners who never wore a uniform.

Andrew Ferguson wonders how a blood-and-soil conservative who named his son after Robert E. Lee became the darling of Virginia’s Democratic party elite. Ross Douthat speculates that Webb could become the standard bearer of populism against the elite policy consensus of Hillary Clinton and John McCain in 2008.