Best-selling authors appear at Webb event (Grisham and King ex-repukes)

[jefferson_dem]

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- About 1,000 supporters of Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Jim Webb filled the Paramount Theater last night to hear readings by Webb and best-selling authors John Grisham and Stephen King.

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Webb is challenging Republican U.S. Sen. George Allen in the Nov. 7 election. Susan Payne, who helped Grisham organize the event, said Webb's campaign raised more than $125,000 from the sold-out crowd that listened as Grisham and King read from soon-to-be-published novels and Webb read a passage about his father from his nonfiction book, "Born Fighting."

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Grisham, King and Webb each said he had been a Republican before switching parties. All three wore combat boots to honor Webb's son, Jimmy, a Marine lance corporal serving in Iraq.

"How fitting that boots have become a symbol of this campaign," said Grisham, an Albemarle County resident. "On one side you have cowboy boots. A lot of these guys come from privileged backgrounds and to convince the public they are tough guys, they wear boots."

"They are not real cowboys," Grisham said. "Willie Nelson said of our president, 'He ain't no cowboy, and he ain't from Texas.' The boots are part of a costume, part of an image. The trouble with political cowboys is they think they're tough, and to prove it they swagger around and they use macho language and they utter such wisdoms as 'Bring it on,' 'Mission accomplished' and here lately, 'Welcome to the real Virginia.'"

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