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The Grassroots Spectator
Too Late for George Allen?
He wants to be senator again — but before he can take on Tim Kaine he’ll need to win back grassroots voters who were going to make him president.
In politics, things change quickly. George Allen began 2006 on top of the world. The son of the great Washington Redskins coach was considered a lock for reelection to his Senate seat from Virginia. One early poll showed him 31 points ahead of his strongest Democratic challenger, former Reagan Navy secretary and Born Fighting author Jim Webb.
Some thought Allen’s Senate campaign would be a mere blip on the road to the White House. The senator — who had also been a governor, congressman, and state legislator — was being seriously discussed as a Republican presidential candidate. At the very least, Allen could have entered the 2008 primaries as a full-spectrum conservative candidate, the role that ended up being shared uneasily by Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson.
It wasn’t to be. After eroding steadily for several months, Allen’s lead evaporated completely once he called a young Webb volunteer — who happened to be filming him — “Macaca.” Allen protested it was all in good fun and he didn’t know he was using a racial slur, but he was nevertheless carried away in the Democratic landslide. In short order, Virginia ceased to look like much of a red state: in less than three years, the commonwealth had two Democratic senators, a Democratic governor, and had voted for its first Democratic presidential candidate since 1964.
Things have changed once again. Republicans retook the governorship in 2009 and made gains across the board in the following year’s midterm elections. Virginia looks unlikely to go for Barack Obama a second time and has instead become ground zero for the constitutional challenge to his signature policy initiative, the national health care reform law. Jim Webb abruptly decided to retire rather than run for a second term. Surveying this more favorable scene, George Allen seeks to return to the Senate — but his biggest obstacle may the kind of grassroots conservatives who were once supposed to make him president.
Ambitious Virginia Republicans haven’t exactly shown Allen much deference. Congressman Rob Wittman, Prince William County Board of Supervisors chairman Corey Stewart, Del. Bob Marshall, and Bishop E. W. Jackson are all publicly weighing bids for the GOP nomination. Stewart, who once described Allen’s Senate record as “mediocre,” said there were two reasons for this. “[Allen] has trouble with some conservatives and Tea Partiers who think he isn’t conservative enough,” Stewart told TAS. “And some mainstay Republicans are concerned about his electability.”
Put Tea Party activist Jamie Radtke, another Republican candidate in the mix for the Senate seat, squarely in the former category. “More than anything you really see people wanting a new generation of conservative leaders,” she told TAS. “The country needs more Rand Pauls, Mike Lees, and Marco Rubios sent to Washington and not somebody who has been a politician for three decades.” Radtke describes Allen’s support among Republican primary voters as “broad but very shallow.” “I think both the primary and the general election are a real toss-up,” she says.
A survey by Public Policy Polling (PPP), a Democratic firm, bears out Radtke’s second point: the group found Allen and former governor Tim Kaine, the Democrats’ strongest possible candidate, tied at 47 percent apiece. But Allen retained a commanding lead among GOP primary voters, taking 67 percent to Marshall’s 7 percent, Radtke’s 4 percent, and Stewart’s 3 percent. Hampton Roads lawyer David McCormick polled another 3 percent. “The threat of a Tea Party challenge to George Allen has been pretty overblown,” Dean Debnam, PPP’s president, said when his outfit’s poll was released. “He’s a lot more immune to that than most establishment Republican politicians are.”
“I don’t like to lose,” Allen told TAS, emphasizing that he had learned from the mistakes of his 2006 campaign. If Debnam is right, the former senator doesn’t have much to worry about. But some observers believe that while Allen starts out in a much stronger position than Republican incumbents Orrin Hatch or Richard Lugar, he could be in trouble if any of his opponents can raise sufficient funds and name recognition. “Neither party has a dominant character who if I were in Vegas I’d put money on,” says Stewart. “George Allen is the best known of the potential candidates but he’s clearly got some baggage. On the Democratic side, they’re clearly in complete disarray.”
Stewart is best known for spearheading Prince William County’s crackdown on illegal immigration. He would run to Allen’s right on a broad range of issues — he would “reduce Medicaid spending substantially,” raise the retirement age, reduce Social Security benefits for future retirees, and “eliminate all federal housing subsidies.” But Stewart argues he would be stronger in November as well. “No Republican statewide candidate has been able to win without winning or coming close to winning Northern Virginia,” he says. “I was on the ballot at the same time as George Allen in 2006. If he had done as well as I did, he would have won the general election.”
Yet Stewart is running for another term as chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors this November. That would delay any decision on the Senate race until either later this year or early next year. Allen, by contrast, declared this January. Stewart maintains that he won’t “be starting from ground zero” if he weighs in that late, but credibly challenging Allen could cost up to $10 million. A late start could put him at a fundraising disadvantage.
Moreover, running to Allen’s right won’t be easy. He’s no Mike Castle or Charlie Crist. Instead he’s the governor who reformed welfare and abolished parole, the senator who voted for tax cuts and promoted conservative judges (including, as he is quick to point out, Henry Hudson, the Virginia jurist who ruled against Obamacare). Allen’s campaign pitch is filled with references to balanced budgets and the line-item veto, and he is particularly sharp on energy policy. George Allen’s sins against conservatism were ones widely committed by George W. Bush-era Republicans.
That’s what makes Radtke’s campaign interesting. She’s not afraid to hit Allen on Medicare Part D, No Child Left Behind, earmarks, or expanding the Hate Crimes Prevention Act. “He added more than $3 trillion to the national debt,” Radtke says, laughing as she claims Republicans are now trying to cut as much spending this year as Allen’s 40,000 earmarks cost during his Senate tenure. The Tea Party’s opposition to Obama has been explicit, but the movement has also been an implicit rejection of Bush. Earlier this year, Radtke said bluntly, “The Tea Party movement would not exist today if the Republicans had not failed under the Bush years.”
Post-Tea Party, grassroots conservatives have been demanding more from their candidates than polish, experience, electability, or even good American Conservative Union ratings. They want candidates who will lead the charge in rolling back the gains of liberalism and limiting the federal government. It’s a sentiment shared throughout the country. “If I get to the Senate and just vote 100 percent correctly,” says Ted Cruz, a conservative running for the GOP senatorial nomination in Texas, “I will consider myself a failure.”
So could the 2006 winner of the Conservative Political Action Conference presidential straw poll now be considered too moderate to nominate for the U.S. Senate? It’s difficult to see that happening, and Allen is working hard to make sure it doesn’t. But in today’s volatile political climate, change is more than an Obama campaign slogan.
About the Author
W. James Antle, III, author of the new book Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped?, is editor of the Daily Caller News Foundation and a senior editor of The American Spectator. You can follow him on Twitter @jimantle.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (24) | Leave a comment
More Articles by W. James Antle, III
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PCPSmoker| 4.7.11 @ 7:45AM
Excellent piece. I would not mind seeing him elected but I would not mind him being primaried either
John Daniel| 4.7.11 @ 8:45AM
He lost his first race for the House of Delegates, and when the Democrats cut him out of a Congressional seat he ran and was elected Governor...a true competitor. And one whose principles are unchanging.
WB| 4.7.11 @ 9:14AM
I'm afraid I don't agree with the gentlemen who have posted here in favor of Allen's candidacy. Allen had his chance last go round and (unfairly or not) he blew it. For this race, we need new blood on the Republican side, not old political baggage.
Shamus| 4.7.11 @ 9:27AM
Who cares? Guys like Paul Ryan are the players these days. Allen is the water boy.
Joe R| 4.7.11 @ 10:08AM
At the very least we've gotten rid of Melon Head Webb, the biggest do-nothing who ever occupied a Senate seat from Virginia. Even Tim Kaine would be better than him.
Occam's Tool| 4.7.11 @ 10:25AM
Dear Joe R,
read "Making the Corps" by Thomas Ricks, some time. You will not believe that the asshat current Senator and the former SecNav under Reagan were the same person.
Michael L. Hauschild| 4.7.11 @ 12:12PM
“A late start could put him at a fundraising disadvantage.”
Just who is going to fund him (Allen)? The RNC who fought and undermined the Tea Party at virtually every turn? Do you think the entrenched beltway elite are going to share when thay are going to be struggling to save their own asses? I will send money to any and all Tea Party Candidates that oppose the old school of “business as usual.” All his experience, all his history, all his persona is doing it the old way and doing it wrong. NO MORE RINO”s. What part of recycling the same old crap don’t you understand?
Sandy| 4.7.11 @ 12:16PM
George Allen's support is deeper and wider than you think. Jamie Radtke's entire campaign so far has been to negative campaign against George Allen which honestly is getting tiring. She apparently has no other record or experience to run on, so she thinks beating up on Allen will propel her to the top. Funny thing about Ms. Radtke, and her fellow Tea Party Patriots, the word has gone out to disparage and denigrate the term Republican as though it is a curse. Why then is Ms. Radtke running as a Republican. When voters go to the polls on election day, they vote for either Democrats or Republicans mostly. Are they so dumb that they can't see what they are doing to the party name they are running within? The Republicans are horrible, but I'm a Republican so vote for me. Duhhh.
PattyMor| 4.7.11 @ 12:32PM
If John Cornyn supports Allen, then I will start funding Radtke. Generally the pols that the establishment wants are NOT Tea Party candidates. Anyone who A votes for Medicare Part D, No Child Left Behind, earmarks, or expanding the Hate Crimes Prevention Act is not conservative. Sorry Mr. Allen, but the world has changed. We are $14 T Dollars in debt and we a renewed committment to cutting the budget; not someone who "plays ball".
Pelligrino| 4.7.11 @ 12:55PM
If George Allen wants Virginians' votes, he'd better do a 180% NOW.
And words are cheap, Georgie.
This is the second Am. Spectator article on Allen (an almost carbon copy of the one that ran 6 weeks ago....why?)
At the GOP convention in Richmond May 2009 the biggest applause line of the entire Saturday (by far) of speakers went to Allen when he talked about....
Energy independence in Virginia and the United States.
Allen must be so full of himself that he wasn't listening.
Yet...as he's been a governor and a senator, he's in the best and most unique of positions to DAILY lambast the White House on off shore drilling, coal mining, refineries, natural gas, nuclear power, ANWAR, etc.
What do we hear from Allen? Silence.
My conclusions: He knows he is presently in a very soft race. No real competition and Tim Kaine (D) is also a retread loser.
So he thinks he's a lock for the job and he's got it on cruise control....
WHEN he could be leading the national discussion -- yes the coast-to-coast national security discussion -- on the mega idiocies of Obama, Reid, the Dept. of the Interior, Dept. of Energy, lack of nuclear power plants, etc.
He could be weekly leading national rallies (from coast to coast) that would galvanize millions. Just this issue alone would bring tens of thousands to live rallies. Think about it, he teams with Louisiana's Bobby Jindhal at a rally in New Orleans to lampoon the Gulf spill handling and ridicule the White House on drilling moratoriums, jobs lost, contracts lost....
A live broadcast from Alaska together with the Palins and various energy companies listing all the facts AND demanding that we go after all available Alaskan resources.
That' ain't hard to do.
But, no. No, no.
Georgie just wants his cushy little Senate seat and "status" back.
He just wants to be back in the 'exclusive' Navy Bean Soup at lunchtime club.
He's not about to break his back (literally) on behalf of you, Virginians, or the nation.
Sorry, Allen. No way. Virginians don't want wimps or you. I don't see you ready to personally bleed for Americans. No, you don't possess that kind of selfless service.
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mames| 4.7.11 @ 2:37PM
Allen another has been RINO.
PolishKnight| 4.7.11 @ 4:03PM
I voted for Allen but he ran a lousy campaign last time and fell for every bad Republican political move including caving into PC pressure and giving the left ammunition by APOLOGIZING for the "macaca" comment. Leftists don't accept apologies from conservatives. They use them as invitations to stick the knife in deeper.
He shouldn't have apologized. The whole outrage over the macaca was a perfect example of the ridiculousness of PC thinking to begin with: How can an obscure slur against blacks be used against Indians? It's like calling an Irishman a slur meant for a German. It also gave him an opportunity to address the left's racist agenda of bashing white males to totally drive away the southern base's votes for Webb. Webb has in the past bashed affirmative action as racist and even reiterated that point in a feeler for a reelection, but the fact is that he has done absolutely nothing to act upon it as he's just rolled over like a bluedog Democrat.
The time is NOW for the Republicans to go on the offensive over white male bashing from the left.
Karl Lucifer Marx| 4.7.11 @ 4:07PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/....._blog.html
GENE HAUBER| 4.7.11 @ 4:59PM
IF THE TEA PARTY KEEPS THEIR EYE ON CANDIDATES, THEY WILL BEHAVE.......IF THEY DON'T RECALL THEM QUICKLY AND DESTROY THEIR POLITICAL FUTURE.
Ken| 4.7.11 @ 6:23PM
George Allen supports the legalization of half of all abortions by favoring no restrictions on abortions for the first eight weeks of human life.
Hopefully commonwealth voters will pick a better man.
Joe W.| 4.7.11 @ 9:01PM
I resent Mark Levin's promotion of George Allen and softball interviews. There's no mention at all of the Senate's go-along with the Bush 43 mistakes. Ditto for Rick Santorum who is mysteriously being tidied up just in time to screw us up big time in 2012. You two guys had your chance to take a stand and you failed. We simply don't trust you. And your audience expects better from you, Mr. Levin.
PolishKnight| 4.7.11 @ 10:50PM
"George Allen supports the legalization of half of all abortions by favoring no restrictions on abortions for the first eight weeks of human life."
So, what?
For starters, the federal government can do nothing to restrict such abortions anyway since the S.C. has found some kind of "privacy clause." And even if a future court removed such a privacy clause, there would be a challenge to pass a federal law that wouldn't get beyond the 10th amendment. (Unless you favor big government...)
In theory, if Roe vs Wade is overturned, each state will pass it's own laws and this will basically split up the map with legalized abortions in blue states. Or even a quick "abortion tourism" run to Mexico or Canada.
It's a Stalingrad issue.
Dee See| 4.8.11 @ 2:36AM
AS the Fukishima fallout cover-up swings
into its third week ---and as we take out insurance
policies for cancer and leukemia ---for our kids!
surely the time to seek repentance under God
and leadership from among ourselves.
EVERYONE on show is -------tainted!
--------------YES! EVERYONE!
Karl Lucifer Marx| 4.8.11 @ 5:05AM
Even though the Washington Post is doing their best to destroy George Allen, polls have him significantly ahead of Kaine.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballo.....ble-digits
Lou Sarah| 4.8.11 @ 8:55PM
Sorry, but I don`t think Obama will lose VA in 2012-- and with him at the top of the ticket, faux good ol` boy (he`s not really a southerner) Macaca George will fall short.
Creative Recreation | 8.10.11 @ 10:37PM
is good