With the Iowa caucuses in just a few hours, it's interesting to think what would have happened if Jim Webb had never come along in 2006. Think back to this time in 2006, when almost everybody assumed that Sen. Allen would cruise to reelection. Remember all the buzz about how Allen was "Reaganesque," how he was building a campaign team to run for president, how he would be spending much of that year -- and 2007 -- in places like Iowa and New Hampshire. Recall the pundits crowning Allen as the front runner for the Republican nomination in 2008. Well, you know what they say about "the best laid plans."
Anyway, there's an opinion piece in today's LA Times (by Dan Schnur, the national communications director for John McCain) that argues, "'Macaca' is forcing the GOP to wrestle with a field of phonies."
The most important word uttered in the Republican presidential primary has not been "terrorism" or "taxes," not "faith" or "family." Rather, it was "macaca."[...]
...when he uttered what many considered to be an ethnic slur against an opponent's staffer, Allen's Senate reelection campaign began a downward spiral from which he never recovered. Instead of touring Iowa and New Hampshire as a conquering hero, he returned to his home state as a private citizen, leaving a vacuum atop the GOP field that fundamentally shaped the race.
[...]
...If Allen had entered the race as the preferred candidate of both the party establishment and religious conservatives -- as George W. Bush did eight years ago -- the nature of the campaign would have been very different.
In other words, by Jim Webb entering the race, pressuring Allen, flushing him out of Iowa and back to Virginia, and possibly getting under his skin sufficiently to help prompt the "macaca" outburst, the entire Republican nominating process has played out differently than it would have. Imagine pre-"macaca" Allen competing with the likes of Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee? I mean, I'm no George Allen fan, but putting on my political analysis "hat," I'd have to say that pre-"macaca" Allen would have kicked those guys' sorry behinds. And that's exactly what Dan Schnur argues:
The temptation for all of these men to remake themselves is understandable: It's been almost half a century since the Republican nominee was not selected by the party leadership. But although the opening that presented itself was alluring, it's a political version of fool's gold. Voters are smart enough to recognize artificiality when they see it, which is one of the primary factors for the comparative lack of enthusiasm among GOP partisans.
No arguments here. All I can say is, thank you Jim Webb, for saving our country from the serious possibility of President George Felix Allen!
(UPDATE: See the comment section for thoughts by "The Grey Havens."}
At the end of 2005, he was Rush Limbaugh's favored candidate to succeed George W. Bush for the presidency. He was waxing poetic about his love for Iowa, and deriding the "slow pace" of the US Senate. And once again, Virginia Democrats, with no compelling challenger, seemed ready to give George Allen a pass.
But a few brave activists saw in Jim Webb the opportunity to slow Allen's ascent to the highest office of the land. In the personage of a war hero, a Reagan appointee, a thinker, a populist, an American hero, they saw a standard bearer of a new form of politics, and a champion with the authenticity to deprive the vast right wing conspiracy their nominee for the post-Bush era.
The LA Times Dan Shnur has this to say about Allen's fall from grace:
Two years ago, conventional Beltway wisdom had Sen. George Allen of Virginia easily winning reelection and becoming the presumptive front-runner for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination. He had been embraced by the Republican business and fundraising establishment, as well as by the social and religious conservative voters who represent the strength of the party's grass roots.But when he uttered what many considered to be an ethnic slur against an opponent's staffer, Allen's Senate reelection campaign began a downward spiral from which he never recovered. Instead of touring Iowa and New Hampshire as a conquering hero, he returned to his home state as a private citizen, leaving a vacuum atop the GOP field that fundamentally shaped the race.
Today is an apt time to remember the import of the "Draft Jim Webb" effort. Readers, volunteers, and activists of this blog stood up to the tyranny of the big Allen lie, and today Republicans are in complete disarray. They have no champion. There is no leader for their coalition of angry white corporatist theocrats.
In many ways, the long hard work of those cold days in 2006, have brought us this wonderful day in 2008, where Iowa Democrats can choose between the strongest of great leaders and Iowa Republicans are left searching for the least pathetic pygmy.
Congratulations Raising Kaine, and enjoy the 2008 primary season. Deprived of their hero, the sad and tired Republican party most certainly will not.
More on the fallout from Allen's fall here.
Can you imagine what he must be thinking tonight? Ha!
Most damaging is the loss to Webb -- he would've ran had he won regardless of "macaca." So, what to do with that? He could've blamed his loss on the "liberal media" hyping a "non-existent controversy" at the last minute. (His hypothetical words, not mine). Say it enough times and the rank and file start to believe it.
Anyway, wasn't there a path still for him? Not as perfect as the "best laid plans," but I wonder if he shouldn't have gone for it anyway.
Obsessed with Reagan and so-called values, caught up by the necessity to pander to evangelicals whose basic world view has pulled the Republican Party so far to the right that the old Center is now castigated as "left," I find it astonishing that no pundit or Democratic politician has zeroed in the very public collapse of the conservatives' whole philosophy which has controlled the agenda and the framing of public discussion for over 30 years.
We may well end up with one of those phony Republican nutcases as our next president unless Democrats begin offering a replacement philosophy and vision of America, different from the tired, stale, disastrous fool's gold Republicans have successfully peddled in the past.
Democrats like the DLC have unfortunately accepted a slightly modified version of the globalization, "yoyo" (you're on your own) policies of Republicans, tacitly acknowledging that megabusiness controls the political agenda. We do not want more Republican Lite, more fool's gold. Democrats must redefine a progressive world view to take the framing of the debate away from the Republicans. Yapping about "Change" per se is not going to do it, either. Change to what?
This election is the time to give the voters a genuine choice of a progressive political, social, and economic philosophy as opposed to that Republican fool's gold.
The difference was that the media no longer controlled the story (although in our area, they tried mightily to slide by with George Allen's lame excuses). Instead, bloggers took over, disseminating the truth and leading the overwhelming dismayed reaction. The www and changing attitudes may finally be the death of Nixon's cynical Southern Strategy, and of the wider Republican message of hate and fear. Thank God Jim Webb and his staffer were there at the right moment, and stood up when it counted.