Taxes Take Center Stage

"I have not talked about going after them," he said.

Webb said he also supports President Bush's plan to reduce taxes on small and middle-sized estates, but he thinks it is all right to tax multimillion-dollar estates. But Webb, who frequently rails against the size of the federal budget deficit, conceded that "more revenues" are needed to finance the war in Iraq and pay down the debt.

"The area I would strongly focus on right now -- and I feel very strongly on this -- is the corporate tax structure," Webb said. "Not to raise rates, per se, but to examine all the loopholes built into the corporate tax code -- and there are a lot of them."

Webb has embraced a populist economic philosophy that includes bridging the gap between the rich and the working class. On Tuesday, he referenced a report by the Citizens for Tax Justice that states 46 of the Fortune 500 companies pay no taxes.

"In terms of how you begin to fix the problems of the tax structure, there are loopholes that exist that will throw billions of dollars of income back in before we have to look at anything else," said Webb, who added that some companies receive tax breaks when they relocate jobs overseas.

Holsworth said Webb has invited some of the Allen attacks by adopting a more populist tone than many of the state's recently successful Democrats. Kaine and former governor Mark R. Warner (D) often talked more about personal responsibility than economic justice.

"On economics, Jim Webb sounds more like [former vice presidential candidate] John Edwards than Mark Warner," Holsworth said.

But like Kaine and Warner, Webb walks a careful line when it comes to taxes. At the news conference, Webb declined to be boxed into a "no-new tax" pledge, saying he isn't ruling anything out if he is elected.

Webb's accusations about Allen in the commercial that aired Tuesday are based on votes Allen took in the past six years in the Senate and on comments he has made in newspaper articles while a public official.

Dan Allen, the senator's spokesman, offered specific rebuttals to Webb's ad: He cited numerous votes Allen made to increase tuition assistance, pass the Pension Protection Act of 2005 and vote for bipartisan tax breaks to encourage production of renewable fuels.

Allen described Webb's ad as a "baseless attack" that will not work with voters. "George Allen has a past record. Everyone knows he helped lower taxes as governor," Allen said. "It's going to fall on deaf ears."