Webb needs to follow up with solid punches.  This fight is going the distance. Go Jim !!!

and the race is tightening! What a difference a week makes. We need to keep shaving a point every week and we will be way over the top by +- 3 points.  I feel a Kaine/Kilgore race emerging.  I suppose a big factor will be to get the folks in SW to come out and vote. Very strong Webb country and he is laying much of the groundwork even as we speak.

At the Farmer's Market on Wednesday in Clarendon, Virginia, a elederly man asked me if we would let the "Born Fighting" slogan go.  I  explained to him Jim's book, much as he did on Tuesday of the same week.  The man was enlightened and he may even buy the book now.

Could this be Allen's "Hitler Ad?"  It was the Hitler Ad that started Kilgore's downward spiral throughout September and October.  Could Macaca be that for Allen?

Kilgore's ad came out at a much later point in the Governor's race than where we are now in the Senate race.

Allen has already set the tone for bumbling. He'll be on guard against making another gaffe, but it's almost inevitable that he'll do something else to reveal his mean streak and stupidity between now and November.

We just moved into the top tier with this in a heart beat. This will make the news cycle and have them all link it to Siddarth's encounter. That was fast, this was the poll that called me last night. Fantastic!

The stats  are excellent.

And n for Hispanics is quite small.

Hate to keep beating the same drum, but the poor news coverage in the Southwest is reflected in those numbers.

Remember 44% of the Virginians haven't heard about it yet.  I have a feeling the numbers for Allen will drop further.

erupts tomorrow.  Otherwise the MacacAllen story disappears.

Allen's record in the Senate.  He's consistently FOR corporations, and the wealthy.  He's consistently AGAINST anyone else....veterans, young women, minorities, college students, the middle class, people with dibilitating illnesses, employees, the Corp of Engineers, the environment, the alternative fuel industry, community development, emergency responders, port security, mass transit, low-income citizens, the National Park Service, the Forest Service, the NOAA, the Department of Agriculture, the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, The UN Human Rights Fund (because we found human rights abuses...what a joke), encouraging Mexico to generate economic growth within their own country, birth control and access to women's health care, oversight for government contractor's within Iraq....the list is huge!!!

at Daily Kos...

Hey, there, Georgie Boy,
There's a little racist deep inside,
Spew out all the hate you hide.
And, oh, what a change there'll be,
V-A will see
A new Senator!

I officially can say my foot tastes funky!

With the events of the past week, that I couldn't have predicted lowell..

The only thing I am focused on now until November is electing JIM WEBB TO THE UNITED STATES SENATE!!!!!!!!

yeeehaw!

Yum!

At least my words won't derail my presidential run. =)

I am going to work my arse of for Jim Webb.

Hey, it looks like we are going to close onto that 1K of youth support BEFORE Labor Day.

These kids are GOING crazy over Allen's dumb arse comments.

:)

I will say that this is an incredible poll for the Webb campaign. Keep it in the news for as long as possible without looking like you are dweling on it.

Really, I had no idea by Thursday night this would remain so high in national news. Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post just released an Op Ed for tomorrow:

http://www.washingto...

You know a politician is having a bad week when he spends it trying to convince people he's too unsophisticated to have possibly understood the racial slur he tossed at a man who happened to be armed with a video camera.

Sen. George Allen's mental journey to the imaginary land of Macaca has brought the one-term Virginia Republican -- considered a presidential hopeful for 2008 -- more national attention than ever before. But not in a good way.

A fantastic paragraph, even if it does not include how he may have learned makaka at home:

Okay, I'm willing to believe the senator is ignorant of primate taxonomy and Belgian slang -- he's all about good-ol'-boy bonhomie, not Renaissance-man erudition. I don't buy the rest of his explanation, though -- that he was trying to refer to Sidarth's haircut, which he thought was a mohawk. I also don't buy his claim that he meant no offense.

The tone and manner of the video speaks for itself. At the very least, Allen was angry and trying to be mean.

GREAT op-ed by Robinson.  So strongly worded, and even though it does ignore the "French connection," Robinson nails it overall.

"...maybe the Macaca thing didn't grow out of ignorance at all but out of a sense that there is political advantage to be had from playing on fears and apprehensions about immigration. Maybe he was giving that audience in conservative southwestern Virginia a clear message: I'm with you, I'm one of you, and we all understand that the guy over there with the camera is not one of us, he's just a Macaca whose real name probably has a lot of awkward syllables and isn't worth learning to pronounce."

I hate to play on things like that, but there's a big and growing immigrant community in NOVA.  Jim Webb's campaign needs to make a real effort to meet with them in the next few weeks, while this is still hot and on people's minds, and talk about the "real Virginia," one that is growing, thriving, and tolerant of diversity. 

Message to Allen: Think before speaking

Macaca. Maybe it’s a monkey. Maybe it’s a racial slur.

We don’t know.

U.S. Sen. George Allen says he doesn’t know either, but he used it to describe a college student working for his opponent. Not a particularly shrewd decision for a man with presidential ambitions.

Allen, R-Virginia, applied the possibly pejorative term to 20-year-old S.R. Sidarth – a Northern Virginia native of Asian Indian ancestry – at a campaign rally in far Southwest Virginia. It’s a safe bet Sidarth was the only racial minority in the crowd at the Breaks Interstate Park. He must have felt uncomfortable. That might have been Allen’s aim.

Sidarth had shadowed Allen on the campaign trail for days and filmed his remarks. This isn’t an uncommon practice in the political arena. It doesn’t justify Allen’s behavior.

Allen twice used the word "macaca." He also welcomed Sidarth to America – pretty silly since the college senior hails from Fairfax County. This smacks of a cheap attempt to stir anti-immigrant sentiments among the party faithful.

The senator has a mixed record on racial matters – keeping a collection of Confederate flags in his cabin in 1993, wearing a Confederate flag pin in a high school photo (youthful indiscretion?) and issuing a Confederate history month proclamation without mentioning slavery while governor. He has explanations for all; just as he had an explanation for this incident.

Allen has apologized. That’s a start.

But as a senator with presidential ambitions, Allen must do better. Ridiculing an opponent’s young campaign worker is unbecoming behavior, even if the senator didn’t mean the remark as a racial slur.

http://www.tricities...

Way to go Bristol!!

It's starting to carry statewide.  Not just in "liberal" Northern Virginia.  Smaller towns, more conservative cities, etc.  People are catching on.  And are realizing that even if they aren't sure what the heck a "macaca" is, the attitude that Allen displayed was hardly senatorial. 

I don't know how to start a thread here - sad I know - but would love to have a thread that features links to every negative editorial written about Allen.  I'm just thinking editorials by newspaper ed boards, though I guess we could also include opinion columnists too.  I think that'd be a great resource, and would be useful in conveying how wrong EVERYONE thinks Allen is on this.

Click on "new diary" under menu on the upper left side of the page.  Type your text, hit "preview," then "save."  You can always edit it...

If you want to start a new line of comments within a diary, just click on "post a comment" above.

Any questions, contact me at lowell@raisingkaine.com

Thanks.

For a "non-story" it sure does seem to be getting a lot of traction.

Welcome to the real Virginia. 

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....

for this US Senator of our great State of Virginia wants to be re-elected for the Senate and wants to be President of the USA.  Those are two good reasons right there that it made it into National Headlines.  So much for it won't even make it out of NOVA, as you stated Tuesday I believe. (You sound like a Dick Wadham's recording).

When I saw the video, my blood boiled and well, that told me right there something was wrong with what he was saying to this person.  These video folks are everywhere, Allen has them at Webb's events, I see them all the time.  Do I talk to them, nope.  I know they are there for one reason only, to video a gaffe in one's campaign.

Allen knew that too but, hey he wanted to let him have it right between the eyes, but couldn't hit him, couldn't clip him, couldn't even drag him by his hair up the stairs or throw him through a sliding glass door.

So he used what he could use, the bullypulpit.  The one problem, the tape kept running.  Did he forget that part? Obviously he did.

ALL IS WELL! ALL IS WELL!

If the reactionary Brookings recognizes Allen fucked up, there's hope for us all. I have to say I am astounded at the reach this story is getting. If nothing else, it is beating Felix's presidential aspirations more severely about the head and face with each passing day. And for that, I could not be more thankful. Thanks for being a pig on videotape, George!

the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star

Roanoke TV just did a piece on the Survey USA Poll. They did a quick basics then highlighted one stat- 67% of Virginians think Allen's comments were innapropriate.

Non story! No Legs! No cartoons to see here, no editorials...

oops

Those cheetos must be a bitter pill today I.ShouldbeservinginIraq.

It took a while for the Kilgore death penalty ads to sink in to the conciousness of Virginians but when they did, voters didn't like the angry tone and extreme position.
I believe the same will happen with George Allen. It's not just this one incident, it's the cumulative effect. Everyone knows the Republican party is basically racist, but some people try to ignore it. But when it's shoved in their face again with a story like this people who often lean Republican pull away. People who don't follow politics have heard about this incident and they don't like it.
This is just another in the nasty tone of Republican politics that people find offensive. Even someone I work with who thought Trent Lott's racist remarks that got him demoted from Majority Leader in the Senate weren't that bad thought this was incredibly insensitive. It makes George look like the spoiled, petulant bully he is, and it's not pretty. Voters don't have time to understand every issue a politician stands for, but they can pick up the general tone of a campaign and they will use that information when they vote, agianst George Allen.

The Lott comment was bizarre but it was not directed at an individual--especially a 20 year-old.  On an emotional level I think a number of people are able to identify strongly with what happened to Sidarth.  He could have been a son or brother--it could have been them in his position. 

Reading some of the LTEs particularly from Sidarth's grandparents--really got to me.  Once people start seeing this event through the eyes of a grandparent, parent, or sibling the Allen slur takes on an entirely different tone.  Definitely not Senatorial behavior.  If people have a positive alternative they will likely take it (and fortunately they do!)