Despite the mudslinging in the Virginia Senate race, or perhaps because of it, George Allen actually gained traction against his challenger Jim Webb in the latest Survey USA polling. Real Clear Politics' John McIntyre notes that Allen now leads Webb by five points, 49-44, a slight uptick from two weeks ago (48-45) and two weeks before that. It shows that Virginia voters have more sophistication than the perpetrators of the smear campaign against Allen calculated.

I'll continue to keep an eye on developments in the Allen/Webb campaign, but hopefully this will convince the mudslingers that they're wasting their time.

UPDATE: I managed to miss this Washington Post article when I first posted this, but this seems likely to end the entire N-word mudslinging:

Webb's comments to the Times-Dispatch prompted Allen campaign officials to direct a reporter to Dan Cragg, a former acquaintance of Webb's, who said Webb used the word while describing his own behavior during his freshman year at the University of Southern California in the early 1960s. Webb later transferred to the U.S. Naval Academy.

Cragg, 67, who lives in Fairfax County, said on Wednesday that Webb described taking drives through the black neighborhood of Watts, where he and members of his ROTC unit used racial epithets and pointed fake guns at blacks to scare them.

"They would hop into their cars, and would go down to Watts with these buddies of his," Cragg said Webb told him. "They would take the rifles down there. They would call then [epithets], point the rifles at them, pull the triggers and then drive off laughing. One night, some guys caught them and beat . . . them. And that was the end of that."

Is this relevant? It's as relevant as conversations Allen purportedly had with his football teammates thirty years ago ... which is to say, not relevant at all. It's as relevant as Webb's inclusion of the N-word in his published fiction, which he lists on his CV for political office.

But what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Webb told people yesterday that he never used the N-word as an insult directed at people, and if what Cragg says is true, then Webb lied. Webb refused to answer whether he's ever used the word at all, and since it's in his novel, one can understand his reluctance.

As for me, I'd much rather talk about the issues that face the Senate over the next six years instead of conversations long since dead involving both candidates. Let's stop the mudslinging and debate the real issues.

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» George Allen, Lucky to be 'Jewish'? from It Shines For All
According to Survey USA, Allen now has 49% while Webb has 44% (via Captain's Quarters). So being "Jewish" helps?... [Read More]

Tracked on September 28, 2006 11:11 AM