Good ol’ boy Allen facing new Virginia electorate

Story by Chris Graham

Jim Webb has closed the gap on George Allen – and has even, according to one newspaper poll, surged into the lead in the United States Senate race between the two.

The conventional wisdom attributes the momentum that the Democratic Party nominee has been enjoying in recent weeks to an incident at a rally in Southwest Virginia earlier this month in which the Republican incumbent Allen referred to a Webb campaign volunteer of Indian-American descent by a nickname apparently derived from a word for monkey that is used as a slur for people from North Africa.Christopher Newport University political scientist Quentin Kidd wonders if there might be something else at the heart of Webb’s stunning reversal of fortunes.

“I don’t think this is the same Virginia that Allen has run in successfully and won office for several times in the past,” said Kidd of Allen, who was elected to the U.S. Senate representing Virginia in 2000 and was also elected governor of Virginia in 1993.

“There’s a lot of change going on. For instance, we just saw the headlines about a million new immigrants in Virginia. So I don’t think this is the same Virginia – and I think Mark Warner’s election and Tim Kaine’s election, driven for the most part of the moderate voters of suburban Northern Virginia, might suggest that the good ol’ boy doesn’t play as well as it used to play in Virginia,” Kidd told The Augusta Free Press.

Blogger and Albemarle County Democratic Party activist Waldo Jaquith thinks the much-publicized macaca incident involving Allen might have played a part in illustrating that trend.

“What I think is the most disturbing part of Allen’s remark is what he meant to say – not what there’s any debate about, but what he meant to say. Which is, hundreds of miles from Northern Virginia is quote ‘the real Virginia’ – and the area of Virginia where most Virginians live, that’s ‘the fake Virginia.’ And the people who live there don’t count,” Jaquith told the AFP.

“And so even with what Allen intended to say, the message to voters in Northern Virginia is, You don’t count. And no constituent wants to hear that from their elected officials. Combine that with what he ended up saying, intentionally or not, he’s saying, You don’t belong because you live in the wrong part of Virginia, and because you have some crazy skin color, and you have a name that is just nuts, that I can’t even bother to learn to pronounce. Which just makes it so much worse,” Jaquith said.

“Even ignore the name-calling, you’re still left with a message – which is that the area of Virginia with the tiniest population, that is the farthest removed from the rest of the state, is ‘real.’ That’s just a terribly offensive thing to say,” Jaquith said.

How Allen’s comments to that effect will play in Springfield and Vienna remains to be seen. What we know now is that the senator isn’t just going to have to confront the fallout from his macaca slur – he will also have to confront an electorate very different from the ones that elected him to statewide office twice.

“We missed that – maybe we weren’t paying attention to that. And absent this gaffe, we may not have noticed this sort of changing motor in Virginia. Absent that gaffe, we may not have noticed that those moderated voters in Northern Virginia, who come from various backgrounds, may have become upset at something like this,” Kidd said.

“The fact is, this is a different Virginia than it was 10 years ago, eight years ago, six years ago. The census data suggest that, the elections of Warner and Kaine suggest that. So this may be an event that in and of itself doesn’t cause Webb to win and Allen to lose, but it again suggests that Virginia is changing politically – maybe becoming less red and more purple,” Kidd said.

Can Webb capitalize on Macaca-gate?

The adage in the world of sports has it that it is sometimes better to be lucky than it is to be good.

Jim Webb could argue that the same might be said of life in the world of politics.

The Democratic Party Senate nominee entered the month of August trailing incumbent Republican Sen. George Allen by a double-digit margin – before seeing the race tighten to the three- to five-point range in the wake of the fallout from an incident at a rally in Southwest Virginia in which Allen referred to a Webb campaign volunteer of Indian-American descent by a nickname apparently derived from a word for monkey that is used as a slur for people from North Africa.

“Running a successful election is about a lot of things – it’s about having enough money, it’s about having a competent and professional campaign staff, it’s about having a candidate who can speak to voters. But it’s also about luck, in some ways,” said Quentin Kidd, a political-science professor at Christopher Newport University.

The Webb campaign, to its credit, Kidd told The Augusta Free Press, “was able to put itself in a position to be able to respond to the lucky break.”

That having been said, though, it is not going to be the case that Webb is going to be able to ride Macaca-gate to victory in November.

“The free publicity and free momentum that he’s had recently is not going to last. Allen has the money and the resources to sustain his ability to overcome this and regain momentum. So I don’t think this is all rosy news for Webb – and I don’t think it’s a death blow for Allen. It could be – it could be that Webb capitalizes on this in a productive way, and it could be that Allen continues to stumble and never quite recovers. But I don’t think those are foregone conclusions,” Kidd said.

The next step for Webb, according to Matt Smyth, an analyst at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, is translating his new place in the polls into a new place in the campaign fund-raising war.

As of June 30, according to data from the Federal Election Commission, Allen had raised $10.1 million for his Senate campaign to Webb’s $1.1 million – and had $6.6 million cash on hand to Webb’s $424,000.

“This might be what national Democratic Party leaders have been waiting for in terms of committing their resources to this race,” Smyth told the AFP.

“There are a lot of Senate races around the country where Democrats are competitive – and because there’s not an unlimited amount of money, they’re going to focus it and try to spend it wisely, so to speak. So if you’ve got a race where a candidate is showing promise and can sustain that, then it’s possible that they’ll infuse that with some cash – and that in itself can keep things competitive,” Smyth said.

“Right now, it seems like Webb has a window of opportunity – he’s got something that puts the incumbent on the defensive, and if they can jump on it, then we might have a competitive race. But Allen is still the favorite, and still has a lot of the advantages,” Smyth said.

As University of Mary Washington political-science professor Stephen Farnsworth notes, one of the key advantages for Allen is his own ability to raise money in large sums.

“Allen is a proven fund-raiser. He’s going to have a lot of money. The challenge for Webb is, how is he going to be competitive with the millions and millions that Allen will be able to bring in? Because when you’re looking at the fund-raising disparities that exist right now, Allen has plenty of money. And if he needs more money, he can get more money,” Farnsworth told the AFP.

“Money in politics goes to the races that are seen as being the most competitive. And the Allen-Webb race, in neither party’s estimation, is not one of the five or six most competitive races in the country. We might rank it at the bottom of the top 10 – but unless it moves up in that ranking, this race is not going to generate the kind of money that Webb needs to be competitive. Because Democrats are going to target their money to those candidates in close races that they think are going to be successful,” Farnsworth said.

Webb campaign spokesperson Kristian Denny Todd said the campaign is seeing some positive movement in terms of its fund-raising efforts – “Our fund raising is going really well. We may not have as much money as George Allen has or will have, but Jim will have enough money to go head to head with him in the fall on TV. We know that – and we’ve always known that,” Denny Todd told the AFP.

More important than the money race, though, is defining Webb and his stance on the issues of the day vis-à-vis Allen, according to Todd.

“We always believed that the more Virginians heard about George Allen, the less they’d like him – and the more they heard about Jim Webb, the more they’d like him,” Denny Todd said.

“I don’t think Allen has been tested. He has run statewide twice – but he’s yet to be really tested. And he goes around saying that Virginia really knows him – but I don’t think people really do know him. So I think this is an opportunity for Virginians to get to know him – and that’s part of the process. The other part is getting voters to know more about Jim Webb. And again, as the polls show, the more they know about him, the more they like him,” Denny Todd said.

Albemarle County blogger and Democratic Party activist Waldo Jaquith thinks Webb is going to have to offer voters more in the way of specifics to be able to continue gaining in the polls.

“It seems pretty clear to me that the next thing that Webb needs to do is something positive – that is, not something that consists of attacking Allen, but something to demonstrate to the public that you’ve seen that Allen isn’t fit to lead, now let me show you by example that I am,” Jaquith told the AFP.

“I don’t know what that would be – there are any number of policy proposals that he could put forward or areas in his own background that he could choose to highlight or a positive commercial. But he will have to fill that void – because what we’ve seen is Allen falling in the polls, which has benefited Webb, but Webb himself hasn’t done anything to earn his rankings at the moment,” Jaquith said.

Kidd concurs with that point – and offered up one issue that Webb could play up to his benefit.

“The most effective way to capitalize on this is to then turn this discussion toward the criticism of Allen for the war and his support of the war,” Kidd said.

“If he doesn’t do that, or at least use this opportunity to raise some other substantive issue, he misses out on the opportunity to capitalize on the momentum,” Kidd said. “This is the opportunity to really turn the momentum into his favor over the long term – rather than enjoying the headlines but not gaining anything in the long term out of it.

“Bottom line – this comment isn’t going to help Webb win. If Webb is going to win, he has to take Allen on the policies and the issues,” Kidd said.

(Published 08-28-06)

Webb supporter escorted away from Allen event after n-word question

Story by Chris Graham

A man who identified himself as a supporter of Democratic Party Senate candidate Jim Webb was escorted from a George Allen campaign event in Staunton today after interrupting the start of a local press availability with the senator to ask him a series of questions that included a racial slur.

“Have you ever used the word ‘nigger’?” the man asked the Republican incumbent after Allen had finished up speaking to a local chamber of commerce group.

After repeating the question, the man – who was carrying a tape recorder, a notebook and a pen and introduced himself to the senator only as a “law student” – then asked Allen about a Confederate flag and noose that he keeps in his office.

Allen at first requested that the man wait to speak with him until after he had addressed questions from the members of the media who were awaiting the start of the press availability.

Allen campaign aide David Snepp then asked the man to leave after he became combative – and the man was later escorted away by an employee of the Holiday Inn-Staunton where the event was held.

The man left the premises before the end of the senator’s meeting with members of the press – briefly leaving details about his identity and any possible connection that he might have to the Webb campaign a mystery.

A report in The News Virginian in Waynesboro this afternoon identifies the man as Mike Stark, a first-year law student at UVa.

The Augusta Free Press

has not independently confirmed the man’s identity.

Ben Carter, the president and CEO of the Greater Augusta Regional Chamber of Commerce, which hosted Allen’s visit, told the AFP that the man had purchased a ticket to the luncheon that preceded Allen’s remarks to the chamber group.

A Webb campaign volunteer who witnessed the incident told the AFP that the man had introduced himself to him earlier as being a Webb supporter and University of Virginia law student.

The volunteer, who declined a request from the AFP to identify himself, said the man is not affiliated with the Webb campaign. Webb campaign press secretary Jessica Smith reiterated that in an interview with the AFP this afternoon.

“The person who asked Sen. Allen those questions is not affiliated with us. And we’re not sure that we know who he is,” said Smith, who was briefed on the incident by the volunteer who was at the event.

“It certainly sounds like there is somebody who is upset and trying to create a situation there. It’s clear that after the last couple of weeks that there are a number of people who are upset with Sen. Allen because of his remarks. But I have no idea who he is. He’s certainly not on staff with us – that’s for sure,” Smith said.

The reference to “remarks” has to do with the lingering controversy over comments made by Allen to a Webb campaign volunteer earlier this month at a campaign event in Southwest Virginia in which the senator identified the volunteer, who is of Indian-American descent, by a nickname apparently derived from a word for monkey that is used as a slur against North Africans.

Allen shrugged the incident off when asked about it during the press availability that followed it.

“I’m just going to keep advocating what I think is important – which is, protect our freedom, make sure this is a land of opportunity for all, and also to preserve our foundational values,” Allen said in response to a reporter’s question on the incident and its place in the context of what is becoming a negative campaign.

“But my opponent’s campaign, generally speaking, all we ever do get is something negative. But I’m going to try to keep motivating and inspiring people with positive, constructive ideas and visions for our country,” Allen said.

Allen also addressed the controversy over his use of the word macaca that has made national headlines and is attributed for tightening what had been a double-digit gap in the polls between the senator and the challenger to a three-point margin in one poll released earlier this week.

“I’ve said all I care to say about it – and I’m moving forward,” Allen told the AFP. “I’ve apologized for the insensitive remark – and that’s all I’m going to say about it. There’s nothing more that needs to be said. I’ve said all I need to say – and I’m moving forward. And I think the people of Virginia expect us to discuss – or all I know is I’m going to do this – is discuss issues as I did here today.”

(Published 08-25-06)

Where does Virginia stand on marriage amendment?

A majority of Virginians oppose gay marriage. But does that mean that a majority will vote in November in favor of a constitutional amendment that would prohibit gay marriage?

“We obviously need to make sure that voters get the message that they need to read the whole thing before they vote,” said Claire Guthrie Gastanaga, the campaign manager for the Richmond-based Commonwealth Coalition, which is leading the effort to fight against the passage of the amendment that will be on the ballot in Virginia in the fall, citing poll numbers that indicate that support for the measure declines sharply when voters make themselves aware of the full text of the ballot question.

The poll that she cited, conducted in June by the Alexandria-based firm Fabrizio McLaughlin and Associates for The Commonwealth Coalition, registered support for the amendment among Virginians read the entire text of the amendment by pollsters at 45 percent – with 40 percent opposed to the amendment and 14 percent undecided.

These numbers stand in stark contrast to data from an independent Mason-Dixon poll released in July that pegged support for the amendment at 56 percent of Virginia residents and opposition at 38 percent – with 6 percent undecided.

One possible reason for the discrepancy – Mason-Dixon pollsters read only the first paragraph of the amendment question, which asks voters if the Virginia Constitution should be amended to reflect that “only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage valid in or recognized by this Commonwealth and its political subdivisions.”

Left out was paragraph two – “This Commonwealth and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance, or effects of marriage. Nor shall this Commonwealth or its political subdivisions create or recognize another union, partnership, or other legal status to which is assigned the rights, benefits, obligations, qualities, or effects of marriage.”

“When I saw the Mason-Dixon poll, I was encouraged,” Gastanaga said. “I was encouraged for a lot of reasons – one because the Mason-Dixon poll, which only asked the first sentence, showed a significant increase in opposition to the amendment in the last year from our poll of a year ago, and no increase at all in the support of the overall concept of what the other side is trying to promote this amendment as.

“Mason-Dixon took the most negative way that this issue could be presented, went to the voters, and despite the fact that the other side has been working this for a year, their numbers didn’t go up at all, and might have gone down slightly, if you look at the margin of error – and the no’s went up significantly. So I find the Mason-Dixon poll, even though it used the wrong question, amazingly encouraging,” Gastanaga told The Augusta Free Press.Christopher Newport University political-science professor Quentin Kidd, for his part, was “really surprised” at the numbers provided by Mason-Dixon.

“The reason for what we’re seeing here, I think, is in part due to the way those who oppose the amendment have been waging the campaign against it,” Kidd said. “I think they’ve done a really crafty job of laying down an argument that says, This amendment is going to do more than what it appears that it might do on the surface. It could redefine relationships that go beyond just the marriage relationship between two men or two women.

“I think that’s an effective argument – because it sort of takes the argument away from the realm of discussion that would cause the traditional Virginia social conservatives to kick in,” Kidd said. “If you don’t talk about the issue of do you support gays marrying each other, but you talk about the possibility that you couldn’t take care of your brother’s estate if he became disabled, then I think that causes people to pause and think. And I think this is why the numbers aren’t as high as I would have expected them to be six months ago.

“You’ve really got to chip away at the language of the amendment and avoid a frontal discussion about gay marriage – and I think that’s what they’ve done,” Kidd told the AFP.

One issue there is that amendment foes run the risk of avoiding the issue to the point of making themselves irrelevant as far as the larger discussion is concerned. Roanoke Democrat Sam Garrison thought The Commonwealth Coalition was straddling the line of irrelevancy a bit too long into the debate for his liking.

“I thought The Commonwealth Coalition was making a mistake by dwelling too much on the really remote possibilities of what might happen if this amendment were to pass – but I think they’ve moderated their stand since then,” said Garrison, a member of the Virginia Partisans Gay and Lesbian Democratic Club executive board who was instrumental in getting the Virginia Democratic Party to pass a resolution opposing the marriage amendment earlier this summer.

“I do think that for a long time The Commonwealth Coalition belabored the uncertainties that are created by this ambiguous language in terms of what impact the amendment might have on unmarried people owning property jointly and leaving property to someone in a will or deeding it in a real-estate deed and joint bank accounts and powers of attorney and things like that,” Garrison said.

“I’ve always been of the view that there’s really no evidence at all that the General Assembly intended by this amendment to prevent unmarried people from engaging in the same documents and instruments that unmarried people of any gender have for hundreds of years been able to make. It’s not really an incident of marriage for two people of the same sex or the opposite sex who happen to be siblings to own property jointly. It’s not an incident of marriage, per se, for someone to leave property to a person to whom they’re not married. I mean, it’s really quite common. It’s not really an incident of marriage for people to have joint bank accounts,” Garrison said.

“But even though I personally believe that the General Assembly did not intend to invalidate those traditional instruments and documents, and even though I do not think that our courts in Virginia are homophobic in the sense that they will be straining to find that the amendment does actually invalidate those traditional documents, the way that the legislature worded that second paragraph is sloppy enough and confusing enough that I think it is absolutely fair for The Commonwealth Coalition to say that one cannot be certain looking at this sloppy language that courts will not interpret it to invalidate instruments that unmarried people have for hundreds of years been able to enter into,” Garrison told the AFP.

That the sloppy language comes in the second paragraph of the amendment means that there is no guarantee that people will even ask themselves that question.

“And if I were advising those who support the amendment, I would go strong and hard on the frontal issue that we know Virginians wouldn’t support in massive numbers – and that is gay marriage,” Kidd said. “I would run ads on TV showing two men or two women getting married, I would link it to Massachusetts – all those emotional cues and emotional triggers that would cause the normal Virginian who is slightly conservative, slightly right-of-center, to react very negatively to.

“That’s how you would hit this issue – you just avoid having a technical debate about the language and how the courts might interpret this amendment in years to come. Avoid that discussion altogether and hit hard on the emotional issues and hit hard on the images that would cause Virginians to back up,” Kidd said.
And guess what supporters of the amendment plan to do?

“Our entire focus is on the issue that is actually on the ballot – and that is how we’re going to define marriage for future generations,” said Chris Freund, the policy director of the Richmond-based Family Foundation of Virginia, which is spearheading the Virginia 4 Marriage effort to pass the amendment.

“Opponents of the amendment don’t want to talk about that issue. They can’t talk about that issue – because they know that a majority of Virginians don’t support same-sex marriage. So they have to try to divert attention. They’ve done the same thing in other states that have passed the amendment – regardless of the language that’s on the ballot. And so really our response to that in general is that this is just deception, it isn’t true – and if people need to find more information about what the amendment is really going to do, they can simply read the Commonwealth of Virginia’s own explanation, supplied by the State Board of Elections, that says none of the things that are opponents basically are saying are true,” Freund told the AFP.

One rule of politics – that simplicity is an easier sell – could give amendment advocates the advantage in the end.

“We’re not really running a campaign of persuasion. We’re running a campaign of motivation. Because really, we don’t have to persuade people that marriage should be between one man and one woman – they already believe that,” Freund said.

“We really believe that people intuitively support this amendment – and once all the dust settles, that as long as those folks turn out to vote, we’ll be fine,” Freund said.

(Published 08-01-06)