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Former Senator Jim Webb launched an exploratory committee last November in anticipation of a presidential run.

(The Associated Press)

Hillary Clinton is going to face competition for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. (If she decides to run, that is. The party's biggest name hasn't made it official yet.)

The question is whether any of the other aspirants actually has a shot at beating her, as Barack Obama unexpectedly did in 2008.

Bernie Sanders? Doesn't seem possible. Joe Biden? Also difficult to imagine. Martin O'Malley? Who? Elizabeth Warren? She's said time and again she's not running.

Then there's Jim Webb.

Those seeking a real horse race for the Democratic nomination keep coming back to the 68-year-old Virginian. When the former one-term U.S. senator first hinted he might make a White House run, no one thought he really meant it. But he kept hinting, and in November he launched an "exploratory committee." More recently, he hired a communications director.

Webb certainly has the background to seriously challenge Clinton. Clinton's greatest asset -- and arguably her greatest liability -- is her foreign-policy chops. She is, after all a former secretary of state. Webb could put his credentials right up against hers: he's a combat-hardened Vietnam War vet (and winner of the Navy Cross) who went on to serve as secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan.

He is difficult to pin down, however. He's been a reluctant politician, and no one who's reluctant about running for president ever succeeds at it. But he certainly could be a formidable candidate, especially in the general election. Here are 7 fascinating facts about Jim Webb that might help make him a strong candidate.

• He served as a U.S. senator from 2007 to 2013. He didn't run for re-election because he "loathed campaigning." A congressman who came to Virginia to help him campaign in 2006 said, "It would probably help if he'd be willing to shake a couple of hands."

• He's a middle-of-the-road politician who nevertheless has appeal for liberals. Whitt Flora, a former White House correspondent for the Columbus Dispatch, points out that "Webb has voiced forceful opposition to U.S. interventions in Iraq and Libya and has railed against the corruption of Wall Street and the shrinking of the middle class under Obama's presidency."

• He accused President George W. Bush of "recklessly" taking the U.S. into Iraq. He backed up the tough talk by refusing to stand in the receiving line to greet Bush at a White House reception for incoming Congressional members. When Bush caught up to him and asked after his son, who was serving in Iraq, Webb snapped: "That's between me and my boy, Mr. President."

• He was an iconoclastic member of Reagan's administration. "Somewhere in the bitter confusion of the Vietnam era, when the military was being torn apart by vicious criticism, this institution apparently either lost its guts or its esteem," he told cadets after becoming Navy secretary. He assured them that Annapolis would have both guts and esteem under his watch. He proved to be a popular secretary.

• He worked as a journalist in Beirut in 1983; in October of that year terrorists bombed the U.S. Marine compound in the city, killing 241 servicemen. He once said that "the word I got from Marines on the ground was: 'Never get involved in a five-sided argument.'"

• He's written eight books, including the 1978 novel "Fields of Fire," which the Washington Post has called one of the "great American war novels." He wrote the story for the film "Rules of Engagement" and served as a producer on the movie. He's also taught literature at the U.S. Naval Academy. "He's a writer," says his friend, former Senator Bob Kerrey. "That's who he is."

• He has something in common with President Obama. "He's a thinker," said David Saunders, a Virginia Democratic strategist who's advising Webb.