Last night, George Allen's panic manifested itself in the form of an expensive two minute advertisement:
Sen. George Allen, once cruising to re-election with an eye on a White House run in 2008, bought extra television time on Monday in a sign he is fighting for his political life after a series of gaffes.In this ad, Allen claimed that he wanted a campaign on the issues rather than about "baseless allegations."The Virginia Republican decided to go on a local television station for two minutes the week after polls showed his once-formidable lead shrinking to almost nothing.
A McClatchy Newspapers/MSNBC poll on Friday showed Allen in a dead heat with his Democratic opponent, former Republican James Webb.
But, looking at the actions of his own campaign - you'll see this is far from the truth. For example, Allen has ducked a series of debates on the issue proposed by Webb!
On top of that, it's the Allen campaign that has had smear press conferences and ads based on some article Webb wrote 30 years ago. It was Allen's campaign that "directed reporters" to the now discredited allegations of David Cragg and called Webb and his Jewish staffers anti-semetic. In contrast, Webb has consistently said "no comment" regarding the allegations against Allen.
So, words are nice, Senator Allen. But you know that saying about being "all hat and no cattle?"
I guess Allen was only talking about the negative personal attacks against him, not the ones his campaign has lobbed against Jim Webb. When you consider that Webb has not been running attack ads, the hypocricy is even more serious.
Senator Allen claims to want to campaign on the issues, yet within hours he is back wallowing in the mud!