Posted on 11/09/2006 6:54:40 AM PST by RightSideRedux
Here's the deal. George Allen lost this race himself. It really wasn't part of the wave... but that didn't help.
See below:
Details? Not enough votes..........
The Washington Post defeated George Allen by pursuing the Macaca incident.
Exactly. The Macaca incident was way overblown.
Methinks Allen will be back on the stage some day.
What does that mean anyway?
He could try running for Senate again when John Warner retires in 2008, or he could even try running for Governor again--Governors here can serve two terms, but they have to be non-consecutive. Allen was Governor from 1993-1997.
The Senate race in 2008 would be interesting, because that potentially sets up a George Allen-Mark Warner race. And that doesn't set up to Allen's advantage, as much as I like the guy...Mark Warner is popular here (God only knows why) and probably could've gotten elected to a second term as Governor had he been eligible; instead, we got Tim "The Eyebrow" Kaine, Warner's Rat successor.
}:-)4
This is a Macaca:
I fAllen had won as many votes as the Republican congressperson in these Republican districts, he would have won handily.
He really did blow it all by himself (with the WaPo help I guess).
2) When your opponent and his minions accuse your of racial incidents, you get up on a podium and denounce them in the LOUDEST VOICE POSSIBLE for as long as you must. You DEMAND the person making the accusation be brought forward, and you file a suit if you must. Just saying "it didn't happen" won't work.
3) Know your ethnic heritage. Maybe he didn't know his mother was Jewish, but I have doubts. But even if so, you stand up and in the LOUDEST VOICE POSSIBLE for as long as you must you DEMAND the reporter apologize to yourself, to your family and that they explain in great detail why they even asked such a question, and you don't stop until you get that reply.
4) Wonder aloud why slurs against you and your name keep coming from people who support your opponent?
5)Hire a better staff for opponent research. A letter from 1979 was the best "dirt" he could come up with?
6) Talk about the economy, your record. Explain why you voted against a particular bill he's throwing out there. I Voted against it not because of this as he says, but because I didn't want $40 million to be used studying the life history of dung beetles".
7) If you can't do these things, give up.
Thanks
When the full post-mortems on this race are done, I predict that military votes for James Webb were a much bigger factor in this race than anyone realizes.
That chart doesn't really explain the breakdown of votes though. Doesn't show how the independents voted (mostly for Webb I guess); doesn't show what percentage of republicans actually voted; what about military vote?
I'd like to see a breakdown of that compared to his last election.
A big part of this election for anyone was the MSM. This election was more a victory for the power of the MSM in its death throes than for anything else. They used their power by miss-stating issues almost invariably in ways which favord the dims. Repeatedly saying and writing "Stem-cell" instead of "Embryonic stem-cell" is probably the clearest example.
Virginia is changing demographically. When we, Yankees though we be, moved here in 1982 (but we moved from Mississippi, so some of the Yankee had rubbed off already), our area was strongly conservative. Now Albemarle County is thick with liberals. Our precinct went for Goode, Allen, and for the protection of marriage amendment. Our county went strongly against marriage and Republicans. If the Dims can find candidates, they'll be running the Sheriff's and the Commonwealth Attorney's offices next year. Our area used to send conservative Democrats (and the occasionaly Republican) to the state senate, now there'e a tendency in favor of liberal Democrats, the late Emily Couric being a prime example.
I think the shift in demographics is taking time to penetrate the skulls of the over-confident Republicans. I was personally involved in a trial where it was clear the Commonwealth Attorney thought that a charge of assault on a Law Enforcement Chaplain would trump the prevarications of the defense in a he-said/he-said type of case. But for our new population, a white deputy and clergydude is, if anything, less worthy of credit than a black defendant. OBVIUSLY (the the jury) there was a strong possibility that the charge was made out of lingering conservative hatred....
What this means is: "macaca" incidents. Either Allen was REALLY tired from campaigning or whatever, or he was over confident of his appeal, not realizing there was a new crowd to whom he had to make his case. After all, he'd won so may elections with such enthusiastic support from so many of us. It didn't occur to him that the newsies and the newcomers would be waiting eagerly for any crumb of a reason to rip apart somebody with a southern accent, cowboy boots and cowboy hat, and a conservative record.
We older guard folks, folks who know George and who know, understand, and appreciate the irreverence of a Confederate Battleflag (Take THAT, you snivelling liberal Puke!), we'll cut him a break. But the new folks in town, they're still a little repelled by the South and by Southerners. They don't get it. They came here for the scenery and the comparatively lower taxes and land prices.
These are the folks who prompt us to get bumper stickers that say,"I don't CARE how you did it up North!" They think we SHOULD care, that we should know that they have come to save us from our southernness, and we should be grateful.
It's ONLY if you don't know this, don't appreciate it, that you will let words like 'macaca' (whatever the h*ll that might actually mean) come out of your mouth when you are within a furlong of a person of less than lily-white complexion and within a mile of a newsie.
Me, I'm thinking of sending some money to Santorum.
Yeah, retire Warner asap.
I don't buy the idea that he didn't know what it meant either.
His mother was a French colonial in Africa---the words "macaca" and "macaque" were often used by French colonials when reffering to dark skinned Africans. It was their equivalent of the n- word. I am sure he probably heard her say it when he was younger.
His move in saying that to a dark skinned person videotaping his speech was downright idiotic.
I know that Czar Nicholas II used those words to denigrate the Japanese, as well.
At the moment, I don't see ANY republican in our state that would be a clear front-runner for Warner's seat, especially if Mark Warner runs as a democrat.
If John Warner retires, we will likely have TWO democrat senators. And worse, if Tom Davis runs for the seat, we'll probably lose his house seat to the democrats as well.
Sorry for being impatient with you, but I severely doubt that you know what the word macaca means. So when you say that "I doubt you can make up a word that would be an ethnic slur that pretty well describes the guy you're trying to point out," I think you're either parroting the lewinsky press, or you're straining to make a weak argument.
Somebody please tell me how "macaca" is an ethnic slur. To whom? ¿¿¿Francophone colonials in Central Africa's Belgian Congo????? Oh come on. The whole being-shocked thing was fabricated. Caca is one thing, certainly not ethnic, but a child's word - my kids use it all the time - es una palabra fea, pero no mala. And Macaco is not an ethnic slur either. It can be used for all sorts of things. Es un mono, un joven activo y quapo, and so on. In fact, es el nombre de una banda rock no tan secreta. Maybe Allen was thinking about "Buenas noches, América." Maybe he was thinking about quilombos? Probably he was just stringing sounds together, had heard caca so many times, and just kept on going. The "ethnic slur" accusation was a pure invention ignorant reporterettes repeating that it is a slur, someplace to somebody at sometime, without details, is just a bunch of BS to stampede the skittish easily spooked by anything "insensitive."
I have been irritated by this macaca thing from the first, but now I get to rant.
That's "meshuga".
Allen screwed the pooch on this one. He showed disdain when he should have shown grace toward a representative of the opposition (not deference, just grace) . He showed the same arrogance and disregard for courtesy that we accused the dems of having. Yes, the MSM blew it up, but he gave them the detonator. He should have known that any hint of racism would be fodder for them. He gave the GOP and Virginia a black eye with this incident, and it has lost us the Senate. Time for him to retire.
also note the disparity betweeen number of voters in 2004 vs 2006 - not enough total and not enough direct either.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.