DOUBLE HEADER

GEORGE FELIX ALLEN JR.

I've got a rare two-fer from Felix as he's been kind of busy the past few days making nice with "non-white" people and then attacking his opponent on what can only be called a trifling issue. The latter's up first:

George Felix Allen Jr., still pissed off that anyone other than he would dare to lay claim to the imagined legacy of Ronald Reagan continued his attack on his opponent, Democratic Senate nominee and former Reagan appointee Jim Webb. Felix is choosing to attack Webb by implying that Webb served in the Reagan administration for less than a year and that Webb certainly has no right to bring up the fact that Reagan actually said complementary things about Webb back in the '80s.
Just to remind everyone, this is the offensive statement by Reagan that Webb dares to use in a campaign ad: "One man who sat where you do now is another member of our administration, Assistant Secretary of Defense James Webb, the most decorated member of his class. James' gallantry as a Marine officer in Vietnam won him the Navy Cross and other decorations."
Webb refused to pull that ad when Felix and Nancy Reagan (no doubt at Felix's urging) demanded he do so and now Allen is claiming that Webb is disrespecting Mrs. Reagan and all but urinating on Reagan's very grave. The new ad out of Felix's camp is terribly misleading and is designed to imply that Webb barely had a cup of coffee while serving in the administration and thus has no right to herald anything positive that Reagan might have said about him.
It's amazing how this one issue is dominating Felix's campaign. If this is all that he has (and that would appear to be the case given a look at the front page of his website), then I think that it speaks volumes about the sorry state of his candidacy.
(Quick note: Webb served two positions in the Reagan administration, first serving as Assistant Secretary of Defense from 1984 to 1987 and then 10 months as Secretary of the Navy.)

Part two of Felix's double header is his attempts to dig himself out of his Macaca hole he put himself in a few weeks ago. To recap, he called a dark-skinned worker of his opponent "macaca" which is apparently something of an offensive racial slur in some parts of the world. Instead of manning up and apologizing, we were treated to two weeks of denial, half-hearted explanations and obfuscation before offering a qualified apology to the offended party. The gaffe cost Felix much support and turned a double-digit lead into a competitive race in which Webb has actually led in some polls. Anyway, in an effort to improve his image among colored folk, Felix held an 'ethnic rally' where he invited potential non-white supporters for a quick meet-and-greet. As Josh Marshall notes over at TPM, "I guess 'ethnic rally was better than 'brown people outreach' and that probably would have been better than 'macaca day'." According to reports, the event was sparsely attended and perhaps a dozen African Americans bothered to show up.
Then on Wednesday, in a move highlighted on his campaign website that just completely smacks of "some of my best friends are black", Felix trumpets that a BLACK Democratic state lawmaker will be supporting him in the upcoming election. See, that's important because he's a Democrat and has nothing to do with the fact that he's BLACK. It's totally coincidental that Felix put a picture of the face of the BLACK Democratic lawmaker on his website, and the link to an article from Felix's website is to a Washington Post article, who's headline reads "Black Democrat Says He Will Back Allen, Not Webb". Some of my best friends, indeed.

To sum up, Felix's campaign currently consists of attacking Webb for using Reagan in a political ad and then cozying up to blacks as he yells from the hills, "See, I'm not racist!! Look at all of my colored friends!!!" With a political operation like this, could someone please explain to me how he got elected in the first place?