VA-SEN: And the Telephone Keeps on Screamin!

You’ve probably by now read or heard or seen that yet another witness has emerged to accuse George Allen of using the n-word. And this time it’s not a former football teammate or college roommate or political analyst. It’s a sweet old lady named Patricia Waring, and after watching her recount her harrowing memories of George Allen on Hardball yesterday afternoon, the Midterm Roundup has half a mind to go down to Chesterton, Maryland and console her itself. George Allen made a sweet old lady feel “crestfallen.” Damnit George, now it’s personal.

But seriously… It was an odd scene at Election Central headquarters yesterday. As soon as we heard that Hardball had a new Allen accuser the team of us all huddled around the TV to watch. Literally, we were actually sitting Indian style in a semi-circle on the floor like a bunch of teenage girls watching Sixteen Candles at a slumber party. The only things missing were popcorn and gossip about who has a crush on Ryan Barrett.

So yeah, it was a weird feeling to giddily gather around to watch the unfolding destruction of George Allen live on TV (a mix of glee and guilt), but it was a pretty clear case in point of why Allen is such a story in 2006 – the fact that this story is unfolding over as extended a period of time as it is gives us the rare opportunity to “enjoy it” in real time.

Regardless of what happens on November 7, over the past month and a half Allen’s 2008 presidential chances, just months ago widely considered among the best of any candidate in the country, have been decisively obliterated. Fear of succumbing to the “Orwell Temptation” (Josh Marshall’s name for “the intellectual's tendency or temptation to overthink or overstate the gravity of their moment”) aside, George Allen in ‘06 certainly seems like a story that will go down in political history. Like Dukakis on the tank or the Dean scream. Except instead of a single moment, Allen in ‘06 is a whole series of moments drawn out to allow its implications and weight to sink fully into our collective consciousness – not in retrospect, but as it’s all unfolding. Of course Macaca was one single moment, but instead of it being a bizarre, isolated fluke like the other 2 incidents just mentioned, it has proven to be the spark plug for a whole flood of subsequent moments. And that’s what makes the Allen story so unique. It’s like if Dean had kept screaming into that microphone uninterrupted for 6 straight weeks… and counting.

Again, the “fun” here is in the kind of collective participation – the snowballing of media stories and personal stories and the ability to wake up and think, “what will happen to George Allen today?” Is it groupthink? Of course it is. Should unconfirmed reports about words Allen muttered 20-30 years ago dictate whether or not he deserves to be elected Senator? One could argue no. But the Roundup would argue that the story does matter and it is relevant for the very fact that it is a story. That may sound like circular logic, but allow the Roundup to try to explain. There is no such thing as the media “unfairly ganging up” on a candidate during an election campaign. We all know how the media can blow a story up to ridiculous proportions – the mind-boggling ubiquity of the Dean scream video is perhaps the most egregious case in recent memory. That’s what the media does. That’s how it makes its money and continues to exist freely in this country. But the media does not come together in a big boardroom and arbitrarily decide to destroy a candidate’s campaign, and even if it did, it wouldn’t succeed without some help from the candidate. At the end of the day it’s the candidate’s campaign, not the media’s. It’s up to the candidate to either avoid or effectively neutralize the media’s bloodlust. A strong candidate just doesn’t allow this kind of thing happen. If a candidate shows a chink and a story is given the oxygen to explode into a fireball, well then that in itself is a story – “Breaking News: Candidate Succumbs to Media.” Okay, this is getting a bit meta and confusing now, so the Roundup will conclude by saying: Winning an election has just as much to do with Teflon as it does with actual appeal. George Allen might be a good guy deep down, he might be a jerk, he might be an idiot, or he might be a great senator for the state of Virginia. But one thing he is not is Teflon.

Had enough of Allen? Too bad!

WaPo’s Eugene Robinson offers up an op-ed, Unraveling Allen. Robinson begins his piece, “Boy, talk about stepping in a pile of macaca.” Ho ho! Well played sir!

The Wall Street Journal’s Fred Barnes takes a look at the Allen mess and concludes that, “Mr. Allen's campaign has seemed unprepared for the way that presidential races, with their high visibility, draw out personal information… The perils, I suppose, of a possibly premature coronation.” Barnes goes on to remark at the end though that if Allen can fend off Webb in 2006 his 2008 chances may not be completely ruined: “Should Mr. Allen overcome the media onslaught, effectively counter Mr. Webb's call for a withdrawal from Iraq, finish the campaign without breaking ranks with President Bush, and win a slugfest by a modest margin, he may emerge as a tough-minded survivor. The press won't like him any better, but he might earn the respect of Republican voters around the country.” The Midterm Roundup will join The Plank’s Michael Crowley in not buying this notion for a second.

Apropos of the alleged story of Allen delivering a severed deer’s head into the mailbox of a black family back in college, The Plank also notes the emergence of a new website, Letter Carriers for Truth, devoted to documenting Allen's disdain for the U.S. Postal Service.

That’s nothing. You want comedy? You want true hilarity? Check this out: In the 6 weeks following the Macaca incident George Allen has of course been working furiously to downplay/deny criticisms regarding his by now much-chronicled past preoccupation with the Confederacy and the Confederate flag. In a speech on September 12 Allen offered a broad apology for “failing to grasp how his use of words and symbols, including the Confederate flag, could be offensive to racial minorities,” as reported by the Virginian-Pilot.

Cut to: On Thursday a group called the Sons of Confederate Veterans criticized Allen for this apology speech, which it deemed an affront to its heritage. “The denunciation of the flag to score political points is anathema to our organization,” said Brag Bowling, immediate past state commander of the SCV. The Sons of Confederate Veterans is an organization of male descendants of soldiers who served the Confederacy during the Civil War. While the group is mainly something of a historical society, it has received criticism for its alleged transformation in recent years into a political organization and its possible association with neo-confederate causes.

So, just to sum up: George Allen faces criticism for his alleged Confederate sympathies, so he apologizes and acknowledges the potential offensiveness of the Confederate flag, and then receives criticism for not being a Confederate sympathizer. What’s a guy to do?

Also just BTW, maybe the Midterm Roundup is misreading things here but it appears ABC and CBS screwed up their presentation of this story. Both sites are running the sub-header: “Group turns on George Allen, says he's slow to grasp pain that Confederate flag causes Blacks.” Um, no… actually Allen was the one who said he was slow to grasp the pain that the Confederate flag causes blacks and the group has turned on him because he said this.

Update: WaPo picks up on the SCV story with Now, Even Allen's Apologies Are Getting Him in Trouble. Another choice quote from B. Frank Earnest Sr., the Virginia commander of the group: “He’s apologizing to others, certainly he should apologize to us as well.”

Okay now, just to be fair let’s share some of the spotlight here with Mr. Jim Webb. Thursday’s WaPo piece, Webb Denies Ever Using Word as Epithet, includes an account from Dan Cragg, a former acquaintance of Webb’s, who said Webb used the n-word while describing his own behavior during his freshman year at the University of Southern California in the early 1960s. Cragg told WaPo 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.

Cragg said Webb told him the Watts story during a 1983 interview for a Vietnam veterans magazine, although a transcript of the interview Cragg provided does not contain the ROTC story. Webb spokeswoman Kristian Denny Todd 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.” Funny, but that one response is more effective than anything George Allen has said for the past 6 weeks.

And there are plenty of conservative critiques out there of how the media has handled this whole thing…

NRO’s Media Blog remarks, “The rules that normally apply to stories based on pure hearsay have evidently been suspended when it comes to rumors that George Allen used the n-word.”

NewsBusters reacts to the media’s coverage with WashPost Buries Anti-Webb 'Nigger' Allegation on Page B-2, N.Y. Times Skips It, and later, Hardball: 27 Minutes For Allegations Against Allen, 0 For Those Against Webb.

And Power Line has a back and forth with Larry Sabato over the nature of his allegations against Allen: Sabato's sabotage and Sabato's sabotage, take 2.

Meanwhile Redstate has a mock speech for Allen that it feels would put a stop to the pandemonium once and for all.

Just one other story demanding attention this Friday morning…

NJ-SEN: What the Hell is Going On in this State?

Right, so it seems like Tom Kean, Jr. might be onto something with this whole Bob Menendez corruption thing after all…

Menendez dumps a close adviser caught on tape seeking 'favors'

The Newark Star-Ledger reports: “U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez's closest political adviser was secretly recorded seven years ago boasting of political power and urging a Hudson County contractor to hire someone as a favor to Menendez, according to a transcript obtained by The Star-Ledger.”

Tapes could be trouble for Menendez

The Bergen Record reports: “The psychiatrist at the center of recent Hudson County corruption cases recorded U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez's close ally invoking the powerful Democrat's name while pressuring the doctor to divvy up county contracts, he and several others said Wednesday.”

Tape adds to Menendez ethics debate

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports: “For nearly two years, Oscar Sandoval worked as an FBI informant in a criminal probe resulting in convictions of a half-dozen North Jersey politicians and government vendors, shaking the state's political establishment. But fallout from his role in Hudson County government may not be over, as new ethical questions are raised in a highly charged U.S. Senate race in which Sen. Robert Menendez's activities in county politics and patronage have come under scrutiny.”

Menendez's Firing of Staffer Buoys New Jersey GOP Hopes

The Washington Post reports: “Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) severed ties with a longtime campaign associate who was taped seeking a political favor on his behalf, the latest of several ethics-related incidents to shadow Menendez as he seeks a full Senate term in November.”

GOP Tries to Tie Menendez to Scandals of Campaigns Past

CQ reports: “Republican officials have been exerting themselves to brand Democratic Sen. Robert E. Menendez as corrupt — and on Thursday held a conference call with reporters to raise the specter that ethics questions might force Democrats to pull the appointed incumbent from his re-election bid at the 11th hour and replace him with a new candidate.

“Menendez, though, has refuted the GOP’s allegations of ethical misconduct, and his campaign has repeatedly denied the withdrawal rumors as “a Republican fantasy.” And an unexpected source — state Sen. Tom Kean Jr., his Republican challenger — seemed to agree that the Menendez dropout scenario was far-fetched.”

Senate Democrats to keep Menendez on N.J. ballot

The Washington Times reports: “Senate Democrats said they won't try to replace Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, despite new accusations of corruption that surfaced yesterday in the Democratic incumbent's already tough re-election race.”

And last but not least, The Plank’s Jason Zengerle has a modest proposal: “We should root for Bob Menendez's defeat in the New Jersey Senate race so that it might serve as a wake-up call to the New Jersey Democratic party that it really needs to clean up its act.”