Mike Webb is running for Congress in Virginia's 8th CD.
Mike Webb, 49, is running for Congress in Virginia's 8th Congressional District. It is one of the most diverse districts in the entire Commonwealth. With an average annual income of around $98,000, the district's population comes from every possible representation (51% women; 49% millennial; 19% Hispanic; 15% African American; 11% Asian; 29%; 9% disabled, ), includes a large number of government workers, as well as Active Duty military personnel and veterans, but is highly stratified economically with 10% of households earning less than $25,000 per year, and 4% earning less than $10,000 per year. Almost half of the residents were born in different states and over one quarter were born in foreign countries. With 1.3% of its residents identifying themselves as a member of the LGBT community, Arlington, ranks among the top 100 cities that are homes to LGBT households, and nearby DC with 1.5% is in the nation's top 50. The average age is thirty five, and many have suggested that the 8th District is ripe ground for a candidate that symbolically reflects the rich diverse interests of the district.
Mike Webb is a retired field grade Army Officer, who began his career as an enlisted person in the Infantry on the outbreak of Desert Shield, and who later served in the elite Ranger Regiment. He knows the sacrifice of soldiers and their families and the harshness of military life, and, despite recognizing the interests of our nation and the importance of the principles for which it stands, will never support any measure to unnecessarily overburden this vital resource.
Mike Webb is not just an African American whose grandfather was shot by members of the Ku Klux Klan for appearing in the vicinity of a polling place on Election Day in segregated North Carolina, but who also is the great grandson of a German Jew, who fled persecution in Germany, only to face an equal oppression in segregated South Carolina when he chose a "negress" as his wife. Mike Webb has zero tolerance for intolerance of any person on the basis of race, gender, heritage, creed, color, ethnicity, country of origin, sex, sexual orientation, or any other discriminating factor.
Mike Webb boasts a proud conservative tradition. drawing back to his first reading of Barry Goldwater's Conscience of a Conservative while in the 4th grade, promotes a balanced and deliberate approach, seasoned with compassion, to resolving the problems facing this nation, and, like his father and generations before him is a member of the Party of Lincoln.
Mike Webb makes no distinction between pauper or king, and will cross a busy street to shake the hand of a homeless man he calls his friend. He was the beneficiary of his father's associations with former U.S. Presidents, cabinet secretaries, and even the former Vicar of Manhattan. He attended the elite and genteel Washington and Lee University in Lexington. He has worked in the private sector in money center banks and prominent law firms and in the government sector with federal agencies. He even interned on Capitol Hill for one of the most liberal Democrats that ever graced the halls of Congress, while never once attempting to hide his own political and ideological affiliation.
But he has also worked with impoverished families, delivering food and clothing from his father's church. He has provided assistance and support to homeless veterans through his board memberships and volunteer activities. He has advocated diversity and challenge issues as a soon to be designated member of two county commissions dealing with human rights and access for persons with disabilities.
Mostly, however, Mike Webb, after a long faith journey that was born in the Baptist Church where he was mentored to succeed his father as pastor, but led to disaffection and defection that brought him to openly profess agnosticism, and later atheism, now embraces with both hands the faith of his fathers.