Ever since George Allen decided to welcome a Virginia resident to America, he has desperately been trying to regain the trust of Virginia's voters. He has done so by trying to convince voters that "they know him" and that despite his comments and past behavior, his record shows he is a person that they can trust. In the past several weeks, however, Allen's record has been further called into question as a result of revelations that he frequently used the n-word in college (which is one can reasonably assume is true since he used to hang a confederate flag and a noose in his office), the anger he displayed in reaction to a reporter who asked about his Jewish background, and just recently, blatanly ignored the League of Women Voters. It is as a result of those actions, and the blatantly false ads he ran against Webb, that George Allen has been forced to continue his search for ways to show Virginians that he can truly be trust.
Since Allen has frequently been associated with President Bush, who's approval rating has been well below 50% for years, the Senator could use the help of being associated with a very popular politician (something that is hard to find in the Republican Party). The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that Allen has found that politician and is now desperately attempting to prove how similar he is to Virginia's moderate Senator, John Warner.
Allen "is associating himself with the most positive symbol in Virginia politics in office today," said political analyst Mark Rozell of George Mason University. "He wants some of the glitter to rub off there."What Allen doesn't take into account, however, is the fact that his record drastically differs from Warner's in several key areas. Upon returning from a recent trip to Iraq, for instance, Senator Warner warned that the US should change its policy in Iraq if the situation doesn't improve during the new few months. Warner also made similar comments last August. George Allen, on the other hand, has decided that he will blindly follow Bush's plan of staying to course no matter what the costs. As the Times-Dispatch mentions, the two Senators have also disagreed on several other important issues - "immigration, stem-cell research and even raising taxes in Virginia" just to name a few.
What is perhaps the most interesting aspect of Allen's decision to closely associate with Warner is the mere fact that he is doing so in order to prove he is an independent lawmaker (which he needs to do in order to distance himself from Bush). Allen's argument, however, utterly fails at accomplishing his goal. Through basing his ads and responses during the recent debate on the similarities he has with Senator Warner, Allen is simply proving that he votes with a fellow Republican a significant portion of the time. Allen's argument therefore results in the conclusion that he is a rubberstamp of the Republican Party.
Allen's argument further backfires when you consider the issues on which he disagrees with Warner. In those instances, Allen is usually voting in support of Bush's side of the argument (As previously mentioned, for instance, Warner believes a reevaluation of our policy in Iraq is needed. Allen, however, appears to join Dick Cheney in the belief that questioning the President's policy is unpatriotic and puts our troops in harms way). Therefore, Allen's record shows that he only associates with Warner if his vote won't cause him to lose the support of President Bush.
The Senator also runs into problems when you consider his campaign's recent behavior towards a leading women's group. According to the Born Fighting blog, Allen's campaign has now publically ignored the Virginia League of Women's Voters, which is an independent organization who sponsored the final debate between the two Virginia candidates for US Senate.
(Charlottesville, VA) - The League of Women Voters of Virginia (LWVVA) today publicly protests the misuse of video from the LWVVA Education Fund-sponsored debate on October 9, 2006 by the Friends of George Allen, Senator Allen's campaign organization. In a 30-second ad that first came to our attention on Saturday, Oct. 14th, Democratic senate candidate Jim Webb is shown and heard speaking at the debate. It is identified as "Debate VA League of Women Voters 10/9/06." The ad is also identified as "authorized by George Allen and paid for by Friends of George Allen."Perhaps the most disturbing part of the inappropriate behavior displayed by Allen's campaign is that he has been campaigning under the argument that he is a family man who Virginians should reelect simply because they know him and his record. At the same time that he was making this claim, George Allen's campaign blatantly disregarded the rules that both candidates agreed upon. When his campaign tried to justify it's actions, Allen's campaign manager claimed that Allen should be able to break the rules because a third party potentially has broken a technicallity in the debate rules (which, in case you're wondering, was later corrected by that organization.)Prior to the debate both Senator Allen and Mr. Webb executed a Letter of Agreement with LWVVA, outlining the terms and conditions of the debate. It said, in part: "THE CANDIDATES AGREE TO NOT USE CLIPS OF THE OPPOSING CANDIDATE FOR CAMPAIGN PURPOSES." Accordingly, we consider Senator Allen's use of the video clip in its ad a violation of the Letter of Agreement terms.
LWVVA contacted the Allen Campaign on Saturday evening, Sunday morning and Monday morning, asking that the campaign either pull the ad or edit out the clip of the debate by the close of business, 6 pm Monday. It is our understanding and observation that this request was not honored, and that the ad continues to air in its original format.
In other words, Allen's campaign tried to gain a political edge because Jim Webb decided to follow the rules. George Allen was already under a great deal of scrutiny, but now a few more questions come to mind. For instance, How can Allen claim to actually be a candidate who is a model citizen and promotes morals? After all, his campaign is now claiming that it's alright for him to break the rules as long as someone else does it first. Is George Allen truly the candidate who will be an advocate of women's rights? Jim Webb fought to expand the opportunities women had in the military. Allen has blatantly disregarded the requests of a leading women's group. Ultimately the most important question is, Is George Allen a candidate that we can trust to be completely straight forward with Virginia's voters?
Despite what George Allen would like you to believe, it is not negative campaigning that his causing his support to drastically fall. It is his own actions and decisions that are doing so. Thankfully, Virginia has the opportunity to replace one of President Bush's most loyal supporters with a man who will actually stand as an independent-minded Senator.
