IOP Fellow Makes Senate Bid

Former Institute of Politics (IOP) Fellow James H. Webb announced last Tuesday that he will seek the Virginia Democratic Party nomination to run for U.S. Senate this year. If he lands the nomination, Webb, who served as Secretary of the Navy under President Ronald Reagan, will run against one-term incumbent Senator George Allen, R-Va.

The Harvard community greeted news of Webb’s decision to join the race with interest and enthusiasm.

IOP Director of Communications Esten Perez said that “as a nonpartisan institute, the IOP doesn’t support or oppose specific political candidates. However, we’re always happy to see former participants of the IOP fellows program aiming to serve in public office.”

Webb was a fellow at the Institute in 1992.

Through a representative, Webb declined to comment for this article, saying his campaign was not yet established. “I don’t think there is even a Press Secretary yet,” Lee Diamond of Webb’s campaign office wrote in an e-mail.

“There is definitely a sense of excitement about having a former fellow running for Senate,” Alexander I. Burns ’08, chair of the IOP Student Advisory Committee Fellows Program, wrote in an e-mail.

A more recent IOP fellow, Steve Jarding, will serve as Webb’s campaign manager, sparking excitement among students who interacted with Jarding during his stay at Harvard last spring.

Jarding, who is also an adjunct lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government, successfully managed Virginia Governor Mark Warner’s gubernatorial campaign last year.

Burns, who himself worked with Jarding, spoke fondly of the former fellow. “I know we’re all very happy to see Steve running another major Virginia race,” Burns wrote in an e-mail. “He has a brilliant talent for moving the political debate in a direction that is both serious and beneficial for his candidate, and he practices a brand of politics that makes the IOP proud.”

While at Harvard, Jarding worked with students in various capacities, leading a research project and teaching a class on campaigning at the Kennedy School of Government, according to Eric P. Lesser ’07, president of the Harvard College Democrats.

“While here, he...developed close relationships with several Harvard Dems members,” Lesser wrote in an e-mail.

Many members of the Dems are interested in supporting Webb in his race, and the Dems will have a “close relationship” with the Webb campaign, Lesser added.

Lesser also expressed personal excitement about Webb’s bid for the Democratic nomination and Jarding’s involvement in the campaign.

“It’s fantastic news that James Webb has decided to enter the Virginia Senate race. Nobody knows Virginia politics better than Steve Jarding,” he wrote.