Dr. Cameron Webb, a Stand-Out To Flip a US House Seat in VA

I've paid attention to first-time Democratic candidates in our state and in the two states that flank us, north and south. Several of them won their seats 2 years ago. They, and the new young and not-entirely-young Federal candidates of 2020 elevate my spirit -- a pool of talent that's brimming, not drying up. (For the Talent Pool Census, you should add in all the first-time Democratic candidates for NC House and Senate that I've been nattering about all year long. For Federal office:

North Carolina

    Deborah Ross, in the 2nd CD 

    Kathy Manning, in the 6th CD

    Patricia Timmons-Goodson, in the 8th CD

    Cynthia Wallace, in the 9th CD

    Moe Davis, in the 11th CD

    Cal Cunningham, for US Senate 

South Carolina

Joe Cunningham, in the 1st CD

Adair Boroughs, in the 2nd CD

Moe Brown, in the 5th CD

Jaime Harrison, for US Senate

Virginia

Elaine Luria, in the 2nd CD

Cameron Webb, in the 5th CD

Abigail Spanberger, in the 7th CD

Jennifer Wexton, in the 10th CD

I check in on these folks sporadically, trolling for video usually, as I do appreciate production values. Tickled to find this new introduction to Cameron Webb up in the 5th District of Virginia. Way back in the spring, he shared a headline here after his surprise (and out-sized) primary win in the 5th District of Virginia: "The Wow Factor".

I don't know who produced this, but it's good. Highlights a detail for me that sticks because it illuminates character -- that Webb actually served out the end of his White House Fellowship in the  Trump administration and found a way to stick with it, despite the Trump animus toward a hold-over Obama admin advisor. He says they treated him with suspicion, moved his desk into the hall and then took it away altogether, yet when the White House staff was blind-sided by a presidential tweet promising lower drug prices, and because Cameron Webb was there as a medical doctor with valuable experience (not to mention a law degree), they actually asked his advice, and he was able to ameliorate some early Trump admin moves on health care.

Cook Political Report rates the 5th CD of Virginia as "Lean Republican," R + 6. That's an improvement over their earlier "Safe Republican." R + 6 ain't insurmountable, not in a wave year. The 5th is an open seat, after all, and the Republican blow-hard running for it -- a dude ironically named Bob Good -- decided that of all the issues he needed to run on and needed to win with in 2020, gender identity rose right to the top, like a turd full of fiber. He's kind of a bully, especially the way he trashed the incumbent Republican to win his primary. That same specter of bullying the weak that turned so many suburban Republican women against Trump could mean trouble for Good in the suburban sprawl around Charlottesville.

So, yeah, "lean Republican," like a willow leans.