THE PATH TO THE WHITE HOUSE FOR JIM WEBB.

Voters outside Virginia—as well as many inside the Commonwealth—may not recall very much about former Senator Jim Webb, a Democrat who served a single term after defeating heavily favored George Allen in 2006. During a rally in that election cycle, Allen shockingly referred to a Webb campaign operative as “macaca”, a slur that was captured on camera by the very same operative, who’d been assigned to track Allen as part of best practices employed by many political campaigns. In the ensuing weeks, Allen’s lead dwindled, and the upstart Webb, a decorated Marine Corps officer who served in Vietnam, a former Secretary of the Navy, and a novelist, would eventually triumph by a squeaky margin. We at Blood And Gutstein feel as if Mr. Webb, a very solid character by all accounts, should be given more attention by voters, and at the same time, we feel as if the word “macaca” might play an integral role in the presidential candidate’s aspirations. Below, we have laid out Jim Webb’s path to the White House.

First of all, for Webb to win the Democrat nomination, Hillary Clinton must utter the word “macaca.” It’s unlikely that Hillary would say “macaca” to begin with, but if the scrutiny regarding her time as Secretary of State should continue or deepen, or should the surging Sanders overtake her in the polls, or should Hillary and her campaign sprout additional scandals, she might be vulnerable. The question is, would she say “macaca” publicly or would she say it on a private server? Perhaps she would deem “macaca” classified and therefore reserve it for her private server. Should Hillary never say “macaca” the Webb team could always pursue the mash-up angle, fusing together something like, “I wish those interns would stop mackin’ on Bill”, with “It’s been a while since I went caca.” Given that Jim Webb is polling less than Hillary, Sanders, and (unannounced) Biden, we see the Democrat nomination as the tougher of the two challenges facing the former Senator. He is polling ahead of Lincoln Chafee and Martin O’Malley, however, although pollsters have yet to identify a single Chafee and a single O’Malley supporter.

If Webb should garner the nomination of his party, then he would require Donald Trump to say “macaca” in order to defeat the billionaire mogul for the presidency. Judging from Mr. Trump’s jingoist narrative on illegal immigration, it’s possible that the real estate magnate has spoken the word “macaca” before and might again, perhaps to defy those who might hiss “tsk!” in his direction. Mr. Trump apparently plays many rounds of golf. Perhaps he would shout “macaca” on the golf course. Many former golfing partners of Mr. Trump accuse him of cheating at golf, you know, by kicking his ball free of danger or magically causing his ball to appear very close to the hole. That’s all fine and dandy among his cadre of reality TV stars, et cetera, but he better not demand any “gimme chip-ins” from Putin, or that’ll be World War Three! Trump may want to deport “macaca”, he may want to build a fence to keep “macaca” off the lawn, and he might want to ensure that the offspring of “macaca” cannot run for president in the future. He may want to fire “macaca” as part of his reality TV endeavors. “Macaca”, he would muse, “you’re fired!”