Anyone care to defend Virginia Sen. George Allen ... or James Webb?

Re: Anyone care to defend Virginia Sen. George Allen?

I'm still pissed at his dad for playing Billy Fuckin' Kilmer instead of a Hall of Famer, Sonny Jurgensen.

Then he went so far as to make sure Sonny wasn't around for the team pic at the Super Bowl ... even tho he started 4 or 5 games.

Then there's Junior's politics ...

STFU George.

 

Re: Anyone care to defend Virginia Sen. George Allen?

I renew my nomination for George Allen to recieve the "Phil Gramm/John Glenn Memorial Trophy" for the presidential candidate who crashes and burns the worst in the primaries. Almost every election is about the last guy who held the office -- we want to fix their weaknesses. Carter seemed weak and depressing, so we picked the toughest and most optimistic bastard we could find. Bush I seemed robotic, so we went for the guy who could relate to the masses and feel our pain. When he was done feeling our breasts as well (yes, that was cribbed from the Onion), we went for the guy who would be upright in his personal life. Bush basically campaigned in 2000 as a compassionate conservative -- a coded message to swing voters: "I'll govern like Clinton AND keep it in my pants." When we get done with him bumbling, stumbling and rumbling through office, the next election will about executive competence. Allen is too much like Bush -- the mile-wide, inch-deep pol who relies on backslapping and towelsnapping -- for even GOP voters' tastes. I think an election based on executive competence favors Guiliani, Romney and Warner...McCain and Hillary are neither helped nor hurt by it. I think it dooms Allen and makes life hard for Edwards.

You can argue that Carter wasn't weak, Bush I wasn't robotic and Bush II isn't stumbling through office and I'll listen and maybe even agree (I don't think anyone will argue that Clinton's personal life was clean). But those are the images that stuck in the voters minds.

 

Re: Anyone care to defend Virginia Sen. George Allen?

Quality work, there, Pope.

Though I will state that I would argue with most of the characterizations, but you're right that they are what ends up sticking with people.

How much of that, I wonder, is the fault of television?

 

Re: Anyone care to defend Virginia Sen. George Allen?

Television plays a role. We see snippets of video -- the juiciest stuff of course -- and make snap judgments. But I think it sometimes gets a bum rap. Everyone cites Dean's scream as an example. With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that TV constantly replaying Howie's yelp was the final nail in the coffin for an already doomed candidate. Dean had squandered a lead, spent all of Iowa squabbling with Gephardt, had proven unable to walk the tightrope of broadening his appeal while keeping his insurgent base happy, spent campaign cash like a student who got a big financial aid check and was not seen as the most electable candidate.

I think it is really cribbed from all kinds of sources. Campaigns now try to define the opponent early so we form an image of the candidate and every piece of news is judged by that paradigm. I think that McCain will be very tough to knock off because most voters already see him as honorable and honest (which is why the temper stuff is his opponents' best bet). Rove and Co. weakened McCain in SC with dirty tricks, but those tricks only helped him in the long run because Bush never really changed the McCain paradigm nationally. Political journalism is very personality based and they help create that paradigm. I've already said that as a voter, issues don't matter as much as the candidate, because a president has a 8-14 month window to enact programs and after that, they are just reacting to how the country and world have changed in those 8-14 months. I'm more concerned about how confident I am in their abilities and instincts to govern those final 36-40 months than the programs they will enact in the first 8-14. So if it is done responsibly, personality political journalism can be quite useful. The only problem is when a few ancedotes (Bush I and the checkout machine, Gore and the internet, etc.) are used to judge a candidate.

I also think these shorthands have been around forever. Eisenhower was the lazy golfer grandpa, when in reality he was much more involved than we saw at first glance. But that image helped elect JFK. Hoover tried to reverse the Great Depression by giving speeches and working behind the scenes, but because he showed little empathy and was unwilling to actively use the government, he was seen as a "let them eat cake" president. Taft was also seen in a similiar light because he was the personality polar opposite of TR. I guess these shorthands are the American way.

 

Re: Anyone care to defend Virginia Sen. George Allen?

http://mediamatters.org/items/200608170001

I'm confused, are they saying George knew damn well what it meant?

 

Re: Anyone care to defend Virginia Sen. George Allen?

Media Matters is a left-wing site -- it deserves about as much credibility as sites like National Review receive from the lefties on this board.

I guess the whole genesis of this thread is a false premise. If someone had posted a thread about Biden after his comments and put a similiar disclaimer at the top, at least there would have been consistency. But nobody did.

It's the same double standard that allows Robert Byrd to use the N-word with no consequences while Trent Lott gets hounded out of a leadership position for trying (feebly, I'll admit) to say nice things about Strom Thurmond on his 100th birthday.

Some comments like this, I think, are harmless. Others (like Mel Gibson's rant) indicate something more sinister. But it seems a federal case is made only when a Republican says it, while Democrats get a free pass. And we're supposed to believe the media is non-partisan.

 

Re: Anyone care to defend Virginia Sen. George Allen?

Yes, Media Matters commits the unpardonable act of actually posting the videos of which it's speaking. Exactly the same thing that NR does. Incorrect.
Cite on Byrd "using the n-word with no consequence." please.
Conservatives ran Lott out of town, at least partly to move into position Bill (Terri Is Singing And Dancing!) Frist.
If the same thing happens to Allen's presidential aspirations over this that happened to Jackson's over "Hymietown," I'll be a happy guy.

 

Re: Anyone care to defend Virginia Sen. George Allen?

Does Media Matters post videos/audio of any lefties/Dems? Didn't think so.

Byrd had been president pro tem of the Senate and now is prez pro-tem emeritus and held in esteem by some as the Senate "historian" and "conscience." So I don't think using the N-word has hurt his career any.

Conservatives didn't lead the charge to dump Lott, but a lot of them (no pun intended) were browbeaten by the howls from Chris Dodd, et al, and the Dem cheerleaders in the media.

"Hymietown" didn't sink Jackson's presidential aspirations. He ran again in 1988 and received even more votes than he did in '84. And it certainly didn't make him a pariah in any other way, as evidenced by his continued presence on the national stage. But i guarantee you, if (pick your GOP aspirant here) had used such a word, he'd be dishing up hot dogs in Tacoma today.

 

Re: Anyone care to defend Virginia Sen. George Allen?

Maybe macaca means "cross-eyed"

 

Re: Anyone care to defend Virginia Sen. George Allen?

I'm sorry. Was George Allen's stupidity paraded around the front page of the Dallas Morning News, and Kansas City Star and New York Times because I must have missed it.

Beyond the insensitive/racist/well-deserved quip by Mr. Allen, there was the question of how fit this guy is to be anything other than a dogcatcher. Here is is playing to a guy filming him looking to catch him in a screwup, which Allen well knows, and he puts it right in his wheelhouse.

Good job, sir.