From this newspaperGÇÖs view, George Allen has reason to panic.
Yes Virginia, there's cause for panic
October 21, 2006If the mood in Choppers Ballroom is any guide, the Bush Administration has a real fight on its hands, Michael Gawenda reports from Lynchburg, Virginia.
FITZGERALD Morton is an 83-year-old World War II veteran who fought in France and later helped liberate concentration camps in Germany.He is a black man who loves Virginia GÇö even the rednecks in the south of the state GÇö and he is concerned that some people, given his views, might consider him a communist.
Dressed in a veteran's bomber jacket and wearing the peculiar air force-style cap covered in gold badges worn by many war veterans, Fitzgerald Morton whispers that George Bush misled the country into a war in Iraq that America did not have to fight.
"Those fellas ain't never been to war," he says. "They ain't seen what I seen.
"Jim Webb has been to war. He's the right man for Virginia and for America. The country needs him."
And here is this writerGÇÖs ominous view for AllenGÇÖs chances:
Like Bush, who in the past week has begun to prepare the ground for a shift in policy on Iraq, George Allen has begun to adjust his message on the war, saying that a change in tactics "might be necessary". But this change may have come too late to save his political career. ***A few hours later, in the conference room of a motel near the highway leading into Lynchburg, Allen is the guest of honour at a rally organised by the Virginia Family Foundation, which is running a campaign supporting a state constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage. The proposed amendment has been passed by the state legislature and now needs to be approved by Virginians on November 7.
The conference room is decked out in signs proclaiming "One man, one woman". To one side of the room sit two toddlers, the boy dressed in a nice little tuxedo, the girl in a white wedding dress.
Here are perhaps 150 or so representatives of the "values" voters in Virginia, most of them from the south of the state, who are Allen's base GÇö and for that matter, the base of the Republican Party everywhere.
***
But it is on Iraq that Allen is shifting his position and this shift is a reflection of what Republicans are doing across the country.
"Progress in Iraq has been too slow," he says, and suddenly the conference room is silent. "We must adapt to dealing with the evolving challenges we face. The Iraqi people and the Iraqi Government need to show the spine and backbone and heart to take control of their own destiny. We have helped them and now they need to help themselves."
There is no standing ovation for this stuff. These people had been convinced by Bush and Allen that the war in Iraq was being won. Now Allen was clearly telling them the time was approaching for an exit strategy. And they didn't seem to like it.
Those are the final words of the article. I'd agree--George Allen should start thinking about his new career in lobbying.