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.
