no one - except the “aid” that gave him the note that said “that’s guy’s name is Mr Macaca” — a word that George Allen had never heard or spoken before.
Not exactly.
No one told Allen the guy's name was "Macaca." That was the first story Wadhams tried to spin (and the first of many mistakes in the response).
Allen said the word, but was trying to crack a joke. He did not mean it as a racial slur. I know this for two reasons 1) I've known George Allen for over 20 years and know he's no racist, 2) In spite of the fact that he and his campaign made significant blunders last year, he's not stupid enough to stare into a camera and utter what he knew to be a racial slur.
All that being said, what did happen is that once the sleazoid campaign consultant got the video, he and his minions set about creating an Internet definition of "macaca." You can see that the definition did not appear on Wikipedia until August 16, after the event. Prior to that it was found only in some obscure medical dictionaries. Even The Washington Post, who ran over 300 articles on the word, admitted that no one really knew what it meant.
This was, from the beginning, and well prior to the macaca incident, an orchestrated smear campaign, and Hillary's prints are all over it.
IMHO, the Allen camp made their mistakes because they weren't prepared and were caught off guard. It's a story longer than I care to tell here, but some of his campaign regulars from over the years weren't there last year. Wadhams, as good as he is, knew neither Virginia nor Allen.
All that being said, Allen's coming back. And he'll be back stronger than ever. But it won't be for VP next year.