VIRGINIA´S RUMBLING REBELS

A bit past 5 o'clock on a mid-September Wednesday, one month after the miraculous resurrection of his moribund Senate campaign, Jim Webb comes busting out of Call Room One, where Democratic candidates are held captive for hours at a time and forced to plead for cash. Catching the eye of his "body guy," former Marine Corps Times editor Phillip Thompson, Webb barks, "We've got to be in Alexandria, don't we?" The former Navy Secretary's feet, shod in combat boots belonging to his son, Jimmy, who's just gone on active duty in Iraq, never stop churning as he pushes through the heavy front door of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's Washington headquarters and pounds down the narrow walk-up toward his ride--a small SUV, painted in camouflage, with a Jim Webb--Born Fighting sign fixed to the side. Behind the wheel, as always, is "Mac" McGarvey, who lost an arm in Vietnam under Webb's command. When his "best friend" decided last February to challenge Virginia's wildly popular Republican Senator, George Allen, Mac up and left his job running a bar in Nashville, volunteering to spend the next nine months being directed--and misdirected--all over the interstates and backroads of Virginia.

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