Terry Mitchell

Cut the Macaca about George Allen



Posted: Wednesday, September 13, 2006

by Terry Mitchell
http://commenterry.blogs.com

Virginia Senator George Allen is being challenged for his Senate seat this fall by Democratic nominee, former Navy secretary James Webb. When Allen referred to a Webb campaign worker this summer as "macaca", it set off a media feeding frenzy that Allen has not been able to live down. That's not too surprising, as members of the media live for this kind of thing. They love it when some politician makes a misstep that they can viciously malign. What is surprising is that it actually seems to be costing Allen votes, according to some recent surveys.

I can understand someone being against Allen for a variety of reasons, including his lock-step support of the White House on the War in Iraq. But I wonder about voters who would otherwise vote for Allen, but have decided to vote against him because of this one indiscretion. Are they really that shallow and petty? Or perhaps a bit feeble-minded? To paraphrase the TV character Fred Sanford, maybe they should stick their heads in a freezer and make some "silly pops."

Some people will argue that Allen has said similar things in the past. Okay, but if that's true, why weren't these people already against him. Why does this one remark make such a big difference to them? Yes, it was a stupid and insensitive thing to say, but should it disqualify him from being re-elected?

It's no wonder we have difficulty finding good people to run for elective office. They know that their every word and move will be parsed by the media and then, when they make the slightest slip-up, it will be blown out of proportion and judged too harshly by voters. That's why we get so many cautious politicians who always have an eye on opinion polls and focus groups and are afraid to veer from prevailing thought on any issue.




Terry Mitchell is a software engineer, freelance writer, amateur political analyst, and blogger from Virginia, USA. He posts a least one article a day to his blog - http://commenterry.blogs.com - on subjects such as current events, politics, technology, society and culture, religion, health and well-being, self improvement, personal finance, trivia, and sports. He is also the owner of a new privacy-enhanced search engine - http://www.SearchMost.com.

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