Tuesday, August 15, 2006

The staging of a controversy -- a sign of life for the Webb campaign

Lost in the absurd charges of racism was a good sign for the Webb camp -- his campaign staff does seem to have the ability to function as a campaign, at least once in a while.

The way they made a non-event into a real media win for their candidate was positively a thing to behold. And any time you can force your opponent to apologize on your terms, you've scored some points.

It is clear that the "outrage" over Allen's remarks were entirely a fiction written and produced by the Webb camp. Allen made his comments at a public event on Friday, attended by reporters. At the event, the Webb staffer is reported to have been smiling, and seemed to enjoy the spotlight. Nobody at the even reported any discussion by attendees, the staffer, or reporters about anything untoward.

In fact, after the event, the Webb camp sent no press release pointing out a problem. The staffer did not go find a reporter and point out his being "attacked". No reporter perceived Allen's exchange with the videocamera as anything out of the ordinary to be reported. It was a complete non-event.

Nor did the staffer seem to realise what he had. He didn't get the Webb camp to put out a release that night, or Saturday morning, or Saturday night. He didn't get the Webb camp to inform democrats appearing on Sunday morning talk shows either, or put it out on any friendly web sites or blogs. Every piece of evidence we have indicates that the staffer did not see the exchange as something to make a big deal out of.

So how did we go from a non-story on Sunday to a major blog event on Monday? It seems clear to me. Webb has this guy taking videos for a reason. There is obviously a person or a team which reviews every second of videotape looking for any offhand comment Allen might make to a supporter, or some slip of the tongue, or ANYTHING they can use against Allen. This is why I presume Webb worked so hard to get rid of the Allen stalker who was taping him, because it is hard to be perfect all the time.

So, presuming the tape was delivered back to the campaign HQ over the weekend, someone must have reviewed it then, and discovered the exchange. Noticing that the name Allen used was NOT the guy's real name, they did a google search. And the rest is history.

BTW, they may have already decided to focus on the exchange for another reason. It seeems possible that the Webb campaign chose a person of color for this job on purpose. Throughout this non-event, one charge the Webb camp has leveled was that Allen singled out the guy because he was the only non-white at the event. We all know Allen singled him out because he was a Webb videographer, but by putting a non-white person in that position, Webb's campaign KNEW that eventually Allen would interact with him and they could drag out the "singled out for his race" card. This wouldn't be a criticism of Webb, but in fact would show again that his campaign has some political savvy.

As to the charge that "macaca" was "macaque", and meant as a horrible slur of black people, I find it amazing then that democrats have posted blogs saying "we are all macaca", and have offered shirts with the word "macaca" on them as fund-raising items.

I even have half a mind to BUY one of the shirts, and wear it to Webb campaign functions in my area (assuming Webb will eventually come back and have Virginia events again). I could walk up to people, and if they asked about the shirt I would say "I've been told that the word "macaca" is just like the "n-word" in french, and that it is very offensive to black people. The democrats sold me this shirt as a fund-raising tool.".

Because I think it's funny that the democrats would raise money by selling a shirt with a vile racist remark on it. Except of course that the democrats obviously don't BELIEVE their own hype about the word. I have yet to see a single democrat say "the m-word". Instead they seem quite comfortable with saying the word over and over and over again, all the while claiming the use of the word offends their black constituents.

While I know democrats do some stupid things, I just don't believe they are purposely offending their base -- it seems much more likely that they don't find the word offensive, except when it suits them.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You're just digging the hole deeper. The fact that it took time for the meaning of the strange word to come to light HURTS Allen, because it makes it ever more obvious that it was not just some random nonsense word or a mispronounciation of mohawk, but ties directly back to his very specific cultural upbringing (i.e rich, west coast, and french).

Charles said...

Except that the word he used was NOT the "french racial slur", but rather was the proper name of a genus of monkey.

In other words, Allen would not have heard "macaca" as part of his cultural upbringing. He might possibly have heard "macaque" although there is no evidence he had, but since he didn't SAY that word it really makes no difference.

BDM said...

Good analysis. If this came out over the weekend, it would have been more damaging. I amglad to see that Republicans and firing back with evidence and showing how manufatuered this is.