to have the incumbent at 49% with only 3% undecided is NOT a good place to be. 

You have to hope the model of the election is wrong, and that for example turnout in N VA will be higher than predicted, as it was in the primary, and that there will be some depression of turnout in the rural areas.

And Webb really needs to do some work with women.  He should not be splitting women with Allen.  Those attack ads have had some impact, otherwise the poll might well show Jim ahead.  The attacks were designed to suppress Jim's support among women, and this is being reinforced by having Susan appear in an ad.

Perhaps it is time for Jim to have an ad by the woman who introduced him at his kickoff -- the mother of his children, his ex-wife.  Now, wouldn't it be interesting if he had an ad with her and Hong (now very pregnant) ..  except I doubt Jim would agree to such an ad. 

Let's see if all this scandal keeps repubs home.

If he could spend the entire day on TV.. he would.

I am hoping and betting the Webb Team is going to keep firing back Allen's baseless Ads probably with help from the DSCC's running of another ad I hear??

Go Jim Webb!!!

Ads on marriage amendment to air
Supporters, opponents starting commercials on radio, television

BY PAMELA STALLSMITH AND JEFF E. SCHAPIRO
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITERS Oct 14, 2006

The battle over the proposed constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage has moved to the airwaves.

The Commonwealth Coalition, the group leading the fight against the measure, will start broadcasting its first television ad today statewide on CNN. The initial ad buy cost $200,000, said coalition director Claire Guthrie Gasta?aga, and the group plans to launch another television ad next week.

"We feel that this is the point at which voters are paying attention," Gasta?aga said. "Every informed voter is a 'no' voter."

The 30-second ad, called "Burning," shows a fire consuming an aged document as the announcer says, "The Virginia Bill of Rights, Jefferson's model for the Declaration of Independence. Ballot Question One would destroy it. In the voting booth read all of Ballot Question One closely."

Meantime, U.S. Sen. George Allen, R-Va., has started running a one-minute radio commercial that spotlights his support for the amendment. The Allen ad presumably would have special resonance among religious, social and cultural conservatives usually loyal to the GOP.

The Allen commercial notes that Democratic challenger Jim Webb opposes the amendment and tells voters that "you'll have the opportunity to stand up to the Jim Webbs of this world -- to those people who want to weaken marriage."

The ad closes, "We don't want the Hollywood liberal values of Jim Webb and Hillary Clinton. We're just fine with our solid Virginia values."

I don't think this is a good choice of ads for Allen.  This is a minor issue vis a vis who you'll vote for, for most people. 

Another thing is the whole tax attack -- I saw three ads today featuring Allen's lies about Webb's tax positions.  He's got be hit very hard about this.  The one Webb ad attacking the lies is good, but where are the ads attacking Allen's failure to pass a minimum wage increase, etc.

The Iraq thing should be more prominent, along with Mr. Webb's proposals for what to do about the situation.  A lot of people are complaining that they don't like the present situation, but they think he's not going to do anything different.  For one thing we ought to emphasize how much money has flowed to the no-bid contracts with absolutely zero oversight. 

I'm watching an anti-Steele ad right now. Why don't we have something talking about Allen's support for privatizing social security and signing off on the medicare donut?  Old people vote.  It would suck if we lost this because our ads aren't good enough.

We have to attack that amendment in order to: a) show people that they're being manipulated with this crap; and b) to get them thinking about whether they should be voting for Allen, who has come out in favor of changing our constitution.

Let's hear some talk about who holds those minimum wage jobs:  many are poor women who are just eaking by without any coverage for their children. 

I don't know who's doing the ads, but they're missing a golden opportunity to pick up and run away with the female vote.  The women are going to be the difference in all areas but Northern Virginia in this election.  They're the primary target.  And since Mark Warner, who happens to be very popular with women voters, is suddenly without a hobby, how about he starts aggressively campaigning among Virginia's women for Webb?

But "this sustained and continued coverage was something I had never seen before," he says. He speaks of "the intensity and the speed with which these things get magnified" because of the Internet.

http://www.dailypres...

"Webb is a real curiosity," said Del. Ken. Melvin, D-Portsmouth, who is African-American and said he will vote for Webb but doesn't expect to campaign for him. "He had problems because of what he said about affirmative action, but also because he was a Republican. Look at his first ad. He was with Reagan."

Webb, who was Secretary of the Navy under President Reagan, has talked often about bringing Reagan Democrats back to the party. Some black voters are wondering why he isn't reaching out to those who stayed.

And Delegate Melvin, probably rightfully so, does not speak well of the Democratic City Committees. We need to rebuild the  local Party.

"Clearly the Webb campaign does not have the resources that the Kaine and Warner campaigns had. He does not have the get-out-to-vote (apparatus). That means it falls back on the city committees. We have to get out the vote for him."

Melvin laughs at that strategy.

"If you've got to depend on the city committees to get out the vote, you're in deep trouble," he said

It isn't about macaca or the n-word.  It's about appealing to the things which are important to black voters, among them the war (a lot of minority youth go into the military), the economy, education, and civil liberties.  This last issue should appeal to black voters in particular.  They know what it's like to be targeted by those in power and have an inherent distrust of unaccountable power concentrated in too few hands.  Do they really want the government to have limitless wiretapping capabilities?  Do they want people to be arrested and held for years without hearings or lawyers?  How about torture? 

To:  Whomever's setting up Mr. Webb's schedule -- why send him to more Democratic dinners when there are other competing activities which may get him touch with minority voters?  We already know the Democrats are going to vote for him. Now we need him to reach out to the people who don't know him and see no reason to vote for him.