Could George Allen’s (R-VA) career in politics be over? Let’s hope so. Jim Webb (D) still has a massive uphill battle, but Allen can’t stop hurting himself with his racist mouth. Ryan Lizza of the The New Republic found this article on Allen’s Jewish roots. Interesting stuff.
One of the questions I had about Eve Kessler’s fascinating look at Senator George Allen’s Jewish roots is whether Allen has known about this heritage but played it down, or whether it was news to him.
Bob Gibson, a longtime columnist for the Charlottesville Daily Progress, relays the following anecdote, which seems to clear things up:
It’s funny, but the only time that George Allen ever wanted a correction from me in 27 years of covering his races was when I wrote about his mother’s Jewish family origins. He insisted, through a press secretary, that his mother was raised a Christian.
As I said, this controversy is taking a toll on Allen. A Zogby poll released yesterday has Webb up 1%. Not significant in numbers, but it’s the movement that counts. Even if the spread is 4-5% in reality, this race is tightening and putting enormous pressure on Allen. This is a good thing!
George Allen, the racist Virginia Senator who was caught on camera hurling racial slurs at an opponent’s young staffer has now personally called his victim to apologize.
Senator George Allen of Virginia personally apologized to a volunteer for his opponent’s campaign on Wednesday for a perceived racial insult, addressing a misstep that has complicated his re-election campaign and raised doubts about his potential as a Republican presidential contender in 2008.
A few hours before he appeared with President Bush at a fund-raising event, Mr. Allen telephoned the volunteer, S. R. Sidarth, to say he was sorry for mockingly referring to him as “macaca†at an Aug. 11 campaign event. Mr. Sidarth, a 20-year-old college student, caught the moment on video as part of his job of recording Mr. Allen’s public appearances, and it quickly became a sensation on television and the Internet.
What did Allen say in his apology?
“He apologized for his comments,†said Mr. Sidarth, who is an American of Indian descent, in a telephone interview from the University of Virginia, where he has resumed his classes. “He took the blame for saying them, and he said he didn’t realize how offended I was until he heard my comments from the media.â€
George Allen is not only an empty suit, he’s a bigot and he doesn’t deserve to be a member of the United States Senate. His racist past and this latest debacle have certainly disqualified him from being President or Senator.
The latest polls have shown support for Allen is dropping and the netroots community – particularly DoubleSpeak – has hit him from every angle.
Beating Allen should be a priority for every American. There is no room for ANY racism in America and especially in the United States Senate.
Virginia Republican Senator George Allen is hurting. In fact, a new SurveyUSA poll clearly defines just how much his recent racist remarks have hurt him in hid bid for the Presidency, errr, the U.S. Senate in Virginia.
GOP Allen’s Once Large Lead Evaporates: In an election for the United States Senate in Virginia today, 8/21/06, incumbent Republican George Allen edges Democrat challenger James Webb 48% to 45%, according to an exclusive SurveyUSA poll conducted for W*USA-TV in Washington, DC.
Since an identical SurveyUSA poll released 6/28/06, Allen has lost 8 points and Webb has gained 8 points. Allen’s lead has shrunk from 19 points to 3 points.
Interviewing for this poll began 8/18/06, one week after Allen singled out a Webb campaign worker at an Allen rally. Allen has lost support across all demographic groups, but in particular, among younger voters. He has gone from Plus 23 to Minus 17, a swing of 40 points. In Southeastern VA, Allen has gone from a 2:1 lead to a tie, a 31-point swing.
The polls really started to move in Webb’s favor when DoubleSpeak released it’s first web ad hitting George Allen hard for his bigotry. If you haven’t seen it yet, check it out here.
Well the spinning continues in Macaca-gate. If you’re not familiar with the story you can catch up here but the gist is that Sen. Allen is a bigot and publically harassed a minority staffer from Democratic opponent Jim Webb’s campaign. Well now the Allen campaign has another explanation. From Hotline:
What does Macaca really mean? Three Virginia Republicans confirmed to the Hotline that several Allen campaign aides and advisers are telling allies that the word was a made-up, off-the-cuff neologism that these aides occasionally used to refer to tracker S.R. Sidarth well before last Saturday’s videotaped encounter.
According to two Republicans who heard the word used, “macaca” was a mash-up of “Mohawk,” referring to Sidarth’s distinctive hair, and “caca,” Spanish slang for excrement, or “shit.”
Said one Republican close to the campaign: “In other words, he was a shit-head, an annoyance.” Allen, according to Republicans, heard members of his traveling entourage and Virginia Republicans use the phrase and picked it up. It was the first word that came to his mind when he spied Sidarth at the weekend’s event, according to Republicans who have been briefed on Allen’s version of the event.
Translation: Senator Allen isn’t a bigot, he’s just a huge asshole.
Senator George Allen (R-VA) is a racist. Trust me–I don’t want to use that word. I don’t want to accuse the junior Virginia Senator of being something that he is not.
However, based on my analysis of some recent comments that George Allen made to a 20-year old kid, I can now call a spade a spade, or in this case, a bigot a bigot.
At a campaign rally in southwest Virginia on Friday, Allen repeatedly called a volunteer for Democrat James Webb “macaca.” During the speech in Breaks, near the Kentucky border, Allen began by saying that he was “going to run this campaign on positive, constructive ideas” and then pointed at S.R. Sidarth in the crowd.
“This fellow here, over here with the yellow shirt, macaca, or whatever his name is. He’s with my opponent. He’s following us around everywhere. And it’s just great,” Allen said, as his supporters began to laugh. After saying that Webb was raising money in California with a “bunch of Hollywood movie moguls,” Allen said, “Let’s give a welcome to macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia.” Allen then began talking about the “war on terror.”
Depending on how it is spelled, the word macaca could mean either a monkey that inhabits the Eastern Hemisphere or a town in South Africa. In some European cultures, macaca is also considered a racial slur against African immigrants, according to several Web sites that track ethnic slurs.
Now let’s remember that George Felix Allen’s mother is of Tunisian/Italian/French. So clearly Allen knows the racist connotations inherent in the word as Jeffrey Feldman took the time to document.
Macaca’ or ‘macaque’ is a nasty racial epithet alright. It is often used by American white supremacists to describe black people. In Belgium, it is a racial slur for ‘dirty arab.’ Could this be George Allen’s Mel Gibson moment?
What I hope to show in these results are instances where the word ‘macaca’ or ‘macaque’ are being used as an offensive racial slur on par with other more familiar racial slurs. This research is intended to clarify what exactly happened in the outburst by George Allen using sources commonly available to anyone with a computer.
This is a man who thinks he can be President of the United States???
I know people who work for the GOP and they think Allen is an empty suit. I always knew he was an empty suit, but now I believe he’s a racist. Senator Allen should apologize on his knees to that poor kid. With all of the problem’s America faces, the last thing we need is a bigoted Senator from Virginia.
Vote Jim Webb in November: He might not be an ex-football star, but at least he’s not a racist.
A poll conducted for Democratic Senate nominee Jim Webb in Virginia by the Benenson Strategy Group shows that incumbent empty-suit Senator George Allen (R-VA) is in trouble.
In the Benenson Strategy Group poll, Allen led 46 percent to 39 percent. Fifty-one percent of those surveyed said they thought Allen was doing an excellent or good job as Senator, but 57 percent of respondents said they think the country is on the wrong track. The poll of 601 likely voters was taken June 22-27 and had a 4 percent margin of error.
George Allen will be hard to beat. He is a true Bush replica and he is leading the pack for the GOP nomination in ‘08. However, Jim Webb is a great candidate and I think he will give Allen a real run for his money. If there is a true tide-change in 2006, which we all expect and will be working hard for, I think Sen. George Allen will end up coaching pee-wee football in rural Virginia, while dreaming of what could have been.
Washington, D.C. is one of the most solidly Democratic metropolitan areas in the country. But, if you get in your car and drive about 15 minutes into Virginia, you suddenly find yourself in a very different area. Northern Virginia, or NoVa as it’s known to the locals, has historically been a strong Republican area. But due to shifting population, this is no longer the case.
But Democrats have been chipping away at the Republican majorities in recent elections, and Northern Virginia GOP leaders disagree about what to do next. Squabbles between moderates and anti-tax social conservatives, and between property-rights champions and supporters of growth regulation, are becoming louder in the party. In Prince William, moderates bruised from primary challenges in the past two elections called a meeting last month to discuss how to distance themselves from the party’s right wing. In Loudoun, the local conservative Republican committee expelled members considered disloyal to the prevailing pro-property rights view.
There was a close primary in Virginia yesterday. At the end of the day, Jim Webb, a Vietnam War hero and former Secretary of the Navy under President Ronald Reagan bested Harris Miller to earn the right to take on Sen. George Allen (R-VA) in November’s general election.
Webb, who was outspent 3 to 1, tapped into national anger over the Iraq war and a desire among Democrats to reach out to moderates who have drifted to the Republican Party over social issues and national security. Webb captured almost two-thirds of the vote across the populous suburban counties in Northern Virginia.
“In too many cases, our leaders are not equal to the challenges they face,” Webb said to a screaming crowd at the Crystal City Hilton as he accepted the nomination and promised new leadership in Washington. To Allen, he said: “I wonder, George, what leadership? It’s not leadership to follow this administration blindly 97 percent of the time.”
The springtime squabble between Democrats produced a near-record low turnout that a state election official described as “dismal.” Polling places across Virginia reported being empty for long stretches, even though voting was open to all of the state’s 4.5 million registered voters.
Sen. Allen is not only running for re-election, he’s running for President. The Democratic Party has a great opportunity to take out Allen this year. He is an absent Senator and he’s going to have trouble campaigning at home when he is jet-setting to New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina.
Congratulations to Jim Webb and his family. Work hard and let’s score a huge victory! DoubleSpeak hopes to sit down with Jim Webb in the coming months. Stay tuned.
