In case you're interested, the following is roughly what I said the other night at our "Netroots Rising" reading at Busboys and Poets.
It's hard to believe, but two years ago today, we were in the middle of "macaca" meltdown. It started on August 11, when George Allen pointed his finger at a young, Asian-American "tracker" on the Webb campaign and called him a word we'd never heard before - "macaca." For good measure, Allen also welcomed SR Siddarth to "America and the real world of Virginia." The Webb campaign got it on video, put it up on YouTube, and according to the conventional wisdom pushed by the traditional media, the rest is history.
To put it mildly, I don't agree with that conventional wisdom. Tonight, I just want to take a few minutes to discuss just a FEW of the many misconceptions about the "macaca" incident and its impact on the Webb-Allen race. The single biggest misconception is that Allen just said the word "macaca" and that was the ballgame right there, end of election. As with most conventional wisdom perpetuated by the lazy corporate media, that's a wild oversimplification if not just outright wrong. The real story's actually a lot more complicated and interesting than that.
For starters, why was George Allen even in The Breaks state park to point his finger at SR Siddarth in the first place? Remember, in late 2005 and early 2006, George Allen was assuming an easy reelection to the U.S. Senate and was focused on running for the Republican Presidential nomination. In fact, he was considered by numerous analysts to be one of the frontrunners for that nomination. As such, Allen was hoping to spend 2006 mostly in South Carolina, Iowa and New Hampshire - not Virginia.
Then, a little thing called the "Draft James Webb" movement came along. Basically, what we did was help persuade Webb to throw his hat in the ring. As Webb himself has said, "Seeing the spontaneous enthusiasm of the 'draft' movement was a very strong motivator for me, particularly as one who had never run for office, and would be running as a Democrat after having served in the Reagan Administration." So, the first step on the road to "macaca" was the emergence of Jim Webb as a candidate. Ultimately, that forced Allen back to Virginia where he didn't want to be, probably really pissed him off to boot.
Second, there was the emergence of a large grassroots movement in support of Webb. Without people like Mary Detweiler (one of the great unsung heroines of the Webb campaign), Webb's name never would have even been on the Democratic primary ballot. We needed 10,000 signatures statewide and 400 per congressional district, which wasn't easy, and the Webb campaign didn't have the money to pay people to collect those signatures, as Harris Miller did, so it was an all-volunteer effort.
Third, without the netroots, which Jim Webb called his "ragtag army," Webb almost certainly wouldn't have won the Democratic primary against Miller. In the end, Webb defeated Miller by just 11,000 votes out of 155,000. Webb's victory margin came almost totally from places like Fairfax and Arlington where the netroots was strongest. Webb lost badly in certain parts of the state, like Southside and parts of SWVA, where people were less wired into the Internet and the blogs.
Fourth, it's hard to know what was in Allen's head when he pointed his finger at SR Siddarth (unlike George W. Bush with Vladimir Putin, I don't have the ability to look into people's eye and read their souls), but starting in early 2006, the blogs and the Webb campaign consciously attempted to get under Allen's skin, calling him "Felix" or saying things like "Jim Webb is George Allen's worst nightmare." The hope was that he'd snap, show his true colors and reveal the "real" George Allen. In the end, he did.
Fifth, when "macaca" took place, there was already a large grassroots and netroots movement for Jim Webb, ready to capitalize. On the blogs, Ben Tribbett at NLS built the story into a frenzy even before the video came out, helping the Washington Post to figure out that it was indeed a story (on a side note, this is the same newspaper that just ran a 12-part series on a 7-year-old murder case, Chandra Levy, but couldn't figure out if a sitting U.S. Senator calling a constituent a racist word was "news"). The blogs also relentlessly followed up on the story and kept it going pretty much for the rest of the campaign. For instance, we mocked Allen's campaign when they tried to claim Allen really meant to say "Mohawk" or "caca" or whatever.
Meanwhile, volunteers like Annabel Park and Eric Byler started an entire movement within a movement, called "Real Virginians for Webb," complete with tshirts and videos, playing off of Allen's "Welcome to the real world of Virginia" comment.
Finally, the idea that "macaca" happened and there was immediate movement in the polls is simply not correct. According to Webb's pollster Pete Brodnitz, the Macaca incident:
...did not create the conditions that would enable Webb to win. Between June and mid-September, the ballot closed from a 7-point Allen lead to a 4-point lead.
Brodnitz also says that the blogs "clearly [played] a big role in pushing stories like macaca and if not for the internet fund-raising the race would not have been winnable."
So, those are just a few thoughts on "macaca" and how the traditional media has pushed an oversimplified story line that really doesn't match up with reality. In fact, Webb won because of his own appeal, the Allen campaign's multiple mistakes (NOT just "macaca"), the changing demographics of Virginia, the fact that Allen was voting with an unpopular president 96% of the time at a time when people wanted change, and last but not least the huge netroots "rag-tag army" and its amazing, talented members (several of whom are here tonight). Thanks for everything you guys did in helping to defeat Felix!
Webb lost badly in certain parts of the state, like Southside and parts of SWVA, where people were less wired into the Internet and the blogs.
This was so true at the time, and was one of the inspirations for me to begin blogging from Martinsville, as well as write LTE's etc. to raise people's awareness.
This election cycle has seen the internet play a much more prominent role in the politics of the Southside. We still have a rather large contingent of conservatives (read as "slow and dim-witted") to deal with here.
Here's to Lowell and all the netroots-family! Hoo-rah!
Aren't you being just a little bit of an elitist, Jim?
If you want to see "elitist" in Martinsville, just look for Gilmore, Goode and McCain signs in the yard. There you will see elitist.