Why Jim Webb poses the biggest threat to a Hillary presidency

Crucially, he appears willing to adopt an overtly antagonistic posture toward Wall Street. “The most important — and unfortunately the least debated — issue in politics today is our society’s steady drift toward a class-based system,” Webb tweeted last month. In that respect, he represents an antidote to the “boardroom liberalism” that has hobbled the Obama administration. And with all her “closed press” corporate appearances, $225,000 speaking gigs at public universities, and “listening tours” in the Hamptons, Clinton is not just a continuation of this mindset, but an unseemly entrenchment of it.

Beyond that, his primary area of interest as a senator was perhaps criminal justice reform, momentum for which has been building in the Democratic activist base for years now — just see last week’s string of successful marijuana legalization initiatives. Webb’s proposed commission to examine mass incarceration was ultimately blocked, but that he pursued it with vigor showed where his priorities lie.

Concerns about police violence and over-militarization also animate legions of young Democratic-leaning activists, among whom memories of the zealous nationwide crackdown on the Occupy movement are still fresh. Then there is Ferguson, which touched a raw nerve among blacks in particular. It will be difficult to balance respect for working class officers and their families with a condemnation of police corruption and overreach, but Webb is far better situated than Clinton to make that case.