(Oh, happy day) Poll: Allen Tied With Democrat in Va.

[MADem]

Poll shows Va. Democratic senate candidate closed the gap against Sen. George Allen

RICHMOND, Va., Sep. 30, 2006
By BOB LEWIS Associated Press Writer

(AP) U.S. Sen. George Allen's Democratic opponent has closed the gap in the race, reflecting two difficult weeks for the first-term Republican battling claims of racial insensitivity, according to a poll released Friday night.

Allen and Jim Webb each had the support of 43 percent of the respondents, according to the MSNBC/McClatchy Poll conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc....Allen, who was positioning himself for a 2008 presidential race as he sought re-election, led Webb by 16 percentage points in a Mason-Dixon poll two months ago.

Allen saw his support in drop in the polls since he singled out a 20-year-old Webb campaign volunteer of Indian descent at a nearly all-white rally on Aug. 11 and called him "Macaca," a word considered a racial slur in some cultures.

The latest poll was conducted amid new, widely publicized claims by Allen's former University of Virginia football teammates that, in the early 1970s, Allen often used a racial epithet commonly applied to black people.

Allen said in a Friday night interview on the Fox News Network that Webb and his Democratic allies were fanning the issues to confuse voters....Webb campaign strategist Steve Jarding said the poll shows Allen is in a tailspin.

[LibDemAlways]

1. I think the racism is pretty well established now.

Next, some enterprising reporter ought to seek to unseal Allen's divorce records from his first marriage. I have it on good authority from someone who knew George and the first Mrs. Allen that he wasn't the most faithful of husbands and that there's lots of embarrassing stuff in that file. I wonder how many of those who plan to vote for Allen because he's such a "family values" guy have any idea he was married before and that the divorce was quite messy.

There are only a couple of reporters who've really been doing the legwork on this and they're with The New Republic, Salon.com, and, to some extent, Tweety. The corporate whores with the investigative might have, predictably, mostly been steering clear and the rightwingers have been running with the meme that it's all a leftwing conspiracy. That's why this is still a tight race.

[MADem]

5. Naaah, I'd leave that shit alone, completely. TOTALLY!

Webb isn't Mistah Family Values either. He's a serial marrier. He's on, what, #3 or 4? The only thing he does have going for him is that at least one of his ex wives is campaigning for him! So I guess he wasn't abusive or mean--he's mastered the art of the amicable split, I guess (which suggests he wasn't cheap, often as not).

But that's a can of worms on both sides.

[LibDemAlways]

6. Didn't realize Webb had such a complicated marital past.

However, with Allen it's really just more hypocrisy. Trying to pass himself off as Mr. Squeaky Clean Family Values when even his own sister documented his abuse in her book. And it's a safe bet the first Mrs. Allen won't be campaigning for George any time soon.

[MADem]

7. He does--but there's no slapping of wives that we know of, anyway

They all seem OK with him--no tell-alls or angry rumors. So attacking the marriages on either side all by themselves would probably be a wash and a distraction, at least in the context of FAMILY values. However, being shitty to women, spitting on their shoes and so forth, Allen's ex could be mentioned solely in THAT context.

But given that his flapping mouth {between the macaca, the "Me, I'm NOT a Jewboy, you meanie! How DARE you suggest it!" and all of this 'Rhymes with Bigger' business) is the gift that just keeps on giving, it's almost a question of "Why gild that lily?"

He's doing a heckuvajob all on his own!

[LibDemAlways]

8. Allen is piling lie on top of lie.

His credibility is all but shot. Yes, I sprayed graffiti on my high school...but it wasn't racist even though my classmates say it was. How dare you cast aspersions on my mother by insinuating that she's Jewish even though she is...but I'm not...watch me eat this ham sandwich. Every single person who says I used the "n" word or put a deer's head in a black guy's mailbox or said I scrawled racist graffiti is lying, even though they are all respected members of their communities with no obvious axe to grind.

What I despise most about Allen, and what should really be the focus of all this, is he is absolutely, completely unable and unwilling to come even a little bit clean. All the denials just make him look ridiculous and an even bigger ass than he's already proven himself to be.

[MADem]

9. Here's the real evidence of flopsweat desperation

Allen has his media flaks out telephoning every political reporter, begging them to pick up a story that is being shopped by one of HIS CAMPAIGN SUPPORTERS that Webb used to (this is funny, actually) go out into WATTS (during the riot eras) with FAKE weapons to "scare the local negroes as a prank."

Webb's school roommate at the time has vociferously denied the report, said "hell, he'd know" if it were true, and also pointed out that it was a heckuva fine way for a small pasty white boy to end up dead.

Really--can you picture it? No one in their right fucking mind would go skulking around Watts at night during that era or at any other time, with plastic machine guns. Unless they were suicidal. If I were armed in that area and came across some fuck waving a machine gun at me, I'd drop their ass without thinking twice. And be acquitted handily.

As for the story, the reputable, and even NOT so reputable outlets are refusing to pick it up until Allen's people can point to a single person who can verify the story, who was actually there, and who aren't GOP operatives. One notable exception, and it should be WELL NOTED, is the fucking Washington Post--they BURIED it, but they covered it, with NO second source, and NO credible verification--which tells you how far up the GOP ass they've crawled:

Webb's comments to the Times-Dispatch prompted Allen campaign officials to direct a reporter to Dan Cragg, a former acquaintance of Webb's, who said Webb used the word while describing his own behavior during his freshman year at the University of Southern California in the early 1960s. Webb later transferred to the U.S. Naval Academy.

Cragg, 67, who lives in Fairfax County, said on Wednesday that Webb described taking drives through the black neighborhood of Watts, where he and members of his ROTC unit used racial epithets and pointed fake guns at blacks to scare them.

"They would hop into their cars, and would go down to Watts with these buddies of his," Cragg said Webb told him. "They would take the rifles down there. They would call then , point the rifles at them, pull the triggers and then drive off laughing. One night, some guys caught them and beat . . . them. And that was the end of that."

Cragg said Webb told him the Watts story during a 1983 interview for a Vietnam veterans magazine. Cragg, who described himself as a Republican who would vote for Allen, did not include the story in his article. He provided a transcript of the interview, but the transcript does not contain the ROTC story. He said he still remembers the exchange vividly more than 20 years later....Todd said Webb denied the allegations in a conversation with her.

"He said it's not true. It's not even close to being true," Todd said. She quoted Webb as saying: "In 1963, you couldn't go to Watts and do that kind of thing. You'd get killed. So of course I didn't do it. I would never do that. I would never want to do that."

[LibDemAlways]

10. That sounds like something Allen would have liked to have

done - though he'd never have actually set foot in Watts. When it came to college, Allen chose UCLA on the white side of town. He'd have never gone to USC downtown. Not in a million years. Allen only liked racial provocation from afar. When he decided to stir up racial tension between our school and a black school, he spraypainted our campus. He'd never have gone to Inglewood and spraypainted the predominently black school - way, way out of his comfort zone.

I think his campaign is also planting stories on some blogs with false accounts of the graffiti incident, so in case it starts getting play, they can unearth the falsehoods and cast aspersions on the whole thing. Sounds like something out of Rove's playbook.

Allen's campaign staff must be the lowest slimeballs on the planet.

[MADem]

11. Well, I have to hand it to David Shuster--his report last night could only

be described as bordering on SCORNFUL...he pointed out plainly that Allen's flaks were pushing the story, the only idiot who came forward had just a story, and a transcript that did NOT contain the story, and apparently TAPES of his interview with Webb, but the TAPES didn't contain the story EITHER....AND the guy was an Allen supporter!!!

He pointed out no one else has come forward, that the accuser can't cough up a single name of anyone else allegedly associated with this fiction (yet the story is SEARED in his mind :rofl: ), and that he wasn't going to dignify the accusations with ANY detail (he didn't even describe the basics). Had Shuster started his standup with "The Allen campaign is attempting to toss some weak, watery shit at Webb..." he couldn't have been any plainer.

[LibDemAlways]

12. If that's the best they can come up with in an attempt to smear

Webb, they haven't got anything. I would be willing to bet that scenario is actually one Allen thought about and suggested pinning it on Webb when he found out Webb had spent some time in LA.

[MADem]

13. Yep, the whole thing is coming across as pretty craven--and that is a

nice way of putting it. Most regard it as first, a low blow, and second, a POORLY DONE low blow.

It's like Allen is such a fuckup, he can't even SMEAR someone effectively!! The porky bastard musta slept through the Rove seminars!!!!

[leesa]

2. All of the black marks against him and it's only tied? Republicans

simply have no decency, have they?

[Zynx]

3. Not many have an opinion of Webb yet.

He has big ad money coming in to spend and that should give him a boost.

[spooky3]

14. Today's WaPo reported that Webb has received $3mill since

the primary ended and that a lot of the $ have come in since the Macaca incident & subsequent incidents.

I wonder when Charles Schumer and friends are going to start sending some big $ to VA. What will it take to convince him and his friends that VA is IN PLAY???

[MADem]

17. Why do I have a feeling that a load of that dough came from south Asians

in the NOVA tech sector???

Oh, no doubt they're realizing VA is in play...in fact, Webb was in TX this week raising funds in Georgie's state...heh, heheh!!!

[MADem]

4. He's doing very well...better to be climbing the hill than sitting on

a thin lead.

[Contrary1]

15. MSM needs to report the severed deer's head

being stuffed into a black family's oversized mailbox by Allen...that ought to finish him off.

[MADem]

16. They covered it extensively on Hardball yesterday NT