On Saturday, August 12th, I was called by [Webb for Senate technology director] Kevin Druff and [Webb for Senate research director] Jon Paul Lupo about some tracker video the Webb for Senate campaign expected to receive from tracker S.R. Sidarth. Sidarth had followed the Allen campaign for a week, and it seemed that on the final day of tracking, the Senator called out Sidarth at a campaign function and called him a name.They called me because I have experience with video editing and I had the ability to dub the tape and get it to the campaign almost immediately. Sidarth would be traveling back north that evening and it would be easy for me to meet up with him and take the tapes.
I met Sidarth that night at about 10 PM in the Target parking lot in Roanoke. He gave me 7 DV tapes and advised me to watch tape 6 first. We spoke briefly and he told me, "He called me a name. He pointed at me and said 'Macaca.'" I had never heard that exact word before and asked him to repeat it and he did. Sidarth was clearly bothered that he ha had been called a name like that, moreover that it was a U.S. Senator who was responsible for the name calling. I responded that I was sorry he had to go through that. "I just hope there is something on some of those tapes the campaign can use." he said as he got back in his car and drove off.
I was at the office early the next morning to watch the tape. I went through about 45 of the 60 minute tape and thought perhaps he was mistaken. Then the screen blinked and there was clear change of venue. The Senator was addressing folks under s picnic shelter. He turned, pointed to the camera and said, "This fella over here," and ushered in a new era in American politics.I was stunned. I have to admit it wasn't the name calling as much as Allen's effort to bully and humiliate Sidarth. With that finger pointing to the camera, we saw in our U.S. Senator a character flaw that we had never been on display in such a manner.
I watched the video two or three more times and I called Jessica Van den Berg, the Webb for Senate campaign manager.
"Well, how is it?" she asked.
"It's bad! Very bad."
"Really bad." I said.
"God, it must be bad. If you say its bad then I want to see it! Can you send it to me?"
I told her I'd cut the section out and load it to my personal account on YouTube. I explained that I could make the clip private until we wanted to release it.
I began dubbing the tape and was working on bumpers for the title shots. My phone rang and it was Ben Tribett of the Not Larry Sabato blog. He told me he had heard there was a tape. I laughed and he said "There is, I knew it!"
Ben asked to see the tape and I told him no, that I couldn't. Thus began a day of wrangling back and forth with Ben over the tape. While he continued his negotiations with the campaign, I loaded the video and sent the link to Jessica.
Within a couple of hours, Ben broke the story to the world with out the video.
The campaign asked for a clip they could attach to an email for reporters and I sent them that as well.
We discussed how we would make the tape public, and there was the suggestion we stream the clip from our web site. It was an obvious move, but I suggested we release it from YouTube. Others agreed, we decided to make this someone else's server problem.
Ben continued to update his post as he was able to gather bit after bit of info. The suspense had much of the Virginia blogosphere in a tizzy.
The next day, the campaign sent an email discussing the clip and linking to our WebbCampaign account on YouTube. Within hours, there were some 48,000 hits on the clip, and the rest is history.
I continue to be amazed that no one, including the campaign, ever asked to see the entire tape. No one asked for the context of the meltdown or wanted to see any of the video before or after the incident. To some degree, I think people felt if there was more I would show them, and I would have. While the incident at Breaks Interstate Park was the worst of the tapes, the bigoted outburst helped to put much of the Senator's fear based rhetoric into context.
For a lot more on "macaca," see "Netroots Rising" by Nate Wilcox and yours truly. There are numerous misconceptions about this incident, its importance relative to the Webb-Allen race, whether it came out of the blue or was more of a "forced error," etc. In coming days, I will probably have a few thoughts on all this.