Allen vs. Terry: History repeats itself.

Jim Webb
Jim Webb announces his campaign.

Sen. George Allen‘s recent gaffes, Democratic challenger Jim Webb‘s portrayal of him as a Washington insider, Webb’s fundraising troubles and recent rise in the polls…it all seems a little familiar.

If it seems familiar to me, it must seem downright eerie to the Allen campaign. Thirteen years ago this month, the same spectacle played itself out in much the same way. Only that time Allen was where Webb is now. And in Allen’s place was Mary Sue Terry.

* * *

June 1993
Democratic Attorney General Mary Sue Terry is running 18% ahead of Republican challenger George Allen, 49% to 31%. Allen had been nominated at the Republicans’ June 4-5 convention in Richmond, fresh off of losing his House seat post-redistricting. The conservative Richmond Times Dispatch has criticized the Republican ticket as “the most conservative ticket in memory,” with UVa political scientist Larry Sabato saying it was evidence that Virginia Republicans “would rather be right than govern.” Terry has $2.3M in the bank. Allen has nothing.

The Terry campaign decides to play it safe. They would simply ignore Allen, and outspend him clear through the campaign. In order to bait him into wasting money, Terry begins running TV ads, despite it being so early in the campaign season. Allen falls for the trap.

July
Allen takes out a $100,000 loan. Terry has ten times as much cash on hand. Allen can’t raise money without an independent poll showing that he has a shot at winning.

Terry pulls her TV ads in early July and, after the July 15 campaign finance disclosures, starts running them again to again bait Allen. Again, Allen falls for it.

August
The Allen campaign is privately concerned about whether they’ll even be able to pay the bills come October. There is no money.

August is a notoriously slow month in campaigns, and the press focuses on Terry’s utter financial domination of Allen. The Allen campaign pulls their ads on August 18, because they simply don’t have the money to continue.

August 23
Allen’s campaign makes a jaw-dropping gaffe. His campaign treasurer, James C. Wheat III, introduces Allen at a fundraising lunch that included Sen. Bob Dole as the guest of note. In listing the reasons why Allen would do a better job as governor than Terry, he cites the fact that Allen is married with children, whereas Terry is single. Neither Allen nor Wheat are apologetic when confronted by reporters after the luncheon.

The Terry campaign releases a new television ad promoting Terry as the only candidate for governor who “supports the death penalty and a five-day waiting period for the purchase of handguns.” The statement is accurate, but intentionally misleading: Allen supports the death penalty but not the waiting period.

The Allen campaign attacks Terry’s ad. The Terry campaign says nothing about Wheat’s remark.

August 27
Governor Wilder publicly encourages Terry to spend less time raising money and more time shaking hands. Black leaders have felt that Terry was taking black support for granted, and Wilder is clearly agreeing with them. This public rebuke puts Terry in an awkward position, which is where all public interactions with Wilder seem to leave politicians.

August 28
The Richmond Times-Dispatch reinterprets the AFL-CIO’s late-June refusal to endorse Terry. No longer is it a sign that she’s liked among business leaders but, instead, it’s a sign that she lacks support from the base.

August 30
The Fraternal Order of Police, a day after a bizarre closed-door debate, endorses Allen, despite having twice endorsed Terry for Attorney General.

August 31
Mason-Dixon releases a poll showing that Terry is just 6% ahead of Allen, 46%/40%. VCU’s Bob Holsworth describes this as “the battle for the undecided vote,” and says that “it’s going to be very difficult for her to run like an incumbent.”

September
More independent polls indicate that the race is tied, as it remains throughout the month.

The Terry campaign finds itself unable to change course. Modifications to the strategy are interpreted as desperation.

Money starts coming into the Allen campaign.

October
Allen and Terry begin attacking each other via television ads.

Allen paints Terry as an corrupt political insider, part of an establishment giving out no-bid contracts to campaign donors. He presents himself as anti-establishment and an outsider, as he has in every campaign he’s ever run.

Terry portrays Allen as lacking integrity, claiming that he’s making promises he can’t deliver and even accuses the campaign of theft.

Allen pulls ahead in the polls. The Richmond Times-Dispatch puts him at 17% ahead, though most polls agree it’s closer to 7%. Respondents see Allen as trustworthy and an agent of change.

A great deal of money is coming into the Allen campaign.

By late in the month the Terry campaign was working with Democratic Party Chairman Mark Warner to label the Republican ticket as “extreme.”

Pundits say that Terry never really had a chance. Sabato says that Terry may have hit a glass ceiling that prevents women from becoming governor.

November
George Allen wins overwhelmingly: 58% to 41%. The campaign has money left over. Terry wins just six counties and ten cities. She loses her home of Southwest Virginia.

A senior Allen staffer explains the win as such:

The candidate [who] controls the terms of the debate will most often win the election. The single most important factor [in a campaign] is controlling the agenda, and we were able to do that. […] We stuck to our message and let many of the attacks [on Allen] go by so we wouldn’t get off track. We did not want to get into a debate about abortion or drunk driving. […] That’s why we responded to [Terry’s] attacks by saying that they were just attempts to distract voters away from the real issues and from her record.

* * *
Sen. Allen
Sen. Allen in his office. By Katherine Ruddy. Used under the Attribution-NonCommercial license.

I have to wonder how conscious that the Allen campaign is of these parallels, and to what extent they’re capable of avoiding repeating Terry’s mistakes. August’s progress would seem to indicate that the campaign is frozen in the headlines of history, perhaps as powerless to change course as Terry was those thirteen years ago.

Credit for this timeline goes to Thomas Carsey’s “Campaign Dynamics: The Race for Governor,” a fine work of political science that is also a remarkable look at the 1993 governor’s race.

Published by Waldo Jaquith

Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Char­lottes­­ville, VA, USA. more »

26 replies on “Allen vs. Terry: History repeats itself.”

  1. George Allen is extremely more popular than Mary Sue Terry ever was, and once he returns to the issues… It’s back to double digit leads…

    James Webb is out of step with VA, and is desparately trying to get his base to even vote for him. George Allen doesn’t have a problem with his base. The NRA will endorse Allen, and the Marriage Amendment is on the ballot. Allen is for the Amendment, Webb is not, so when the evangelical community shows up they pull the lever for Allen too, before they leave the booth. Jim Webb’s “base” yawns…

    Election over, Webb can only hope to get Warner’s seat.

  2. George Allen is extremely more popular than Mary Sue Terry ever was

    By what metric is that so? I’ve spent the past few days reading up on Mary Sue Terry’s political history, and her approval rating was measured at considerably above 50%, unlike Sen. Allen’s current standings. Am I missing something?

  3. Yes, you are missing something, Waldo.
    Spanky’s bias is getting in the way of his judgement. That’s all you missed.

    This was a fascinating post, Waldo. I hope to see more like this.

  4. Attorney Generals are not very well known political figures even though they are elected state wide. I think that is a very fair statement.

    For instance, if you walk up to the avg. VA citizen and ask them who our current AG, I doubt Bob McDonnell will come spilling out of their mouths.

    Jerry Kilgore was on the scene a long time, but not everyone really knew who he was until he ran for Gov.

    Likewise Allen wasn’t really that known in his race against Terry, because he was a Delegate, then a congressman, but those were localized elections in the Charlottesville area.

    My point is that Allen, after having been Delegate, Congressman, but also Gov. and Senator, has name recognition, (and voting record) all over Webb (hasn’t held any office). So I am just trying to add that factor also, to what is a very good post on your part Waldo.

    It is something the Allen Team, might not even have been thinking about.

  5. This is all true, but name recognition is generally pretty high come election day. It’s valuable in earning early support and, more important, money. The fact that Allen’s name recognition is so high and yet he’s tied with Webb in the polls bodes very badly for Sen. Allen. After all, Allen’s as well-known as he’s going to get. If 50% of the people who don’t know Webb’s name yet end up voting for him, that’s going to put him a far sight ahead of Allen on election day.

    Webb was, BTW, still only at 67% name recognition as of July 30. I can’t see that the recent incident with Allen and Siddarth would have done a single thing to increase Webb’s name recognition, so I can’t see that having moved just yet.

  6. George Allen’s name recognition is a double-edged sword. If he was so well-known and so well-liked as Republicans would have us believe, there wouldn’t be such downward momentum for his campaign. The fact is that a very large percentage of Virginians know George Allen–and they don’t particularly like him. It looks at this point like he will have to hope that the ones who do turn out in greater numbers on election day that the ones who don’t; he no longer can hope to drift through this campaign if Webb’s organization can get its legs underneath of it.

  7. Very good post, Waldo. Thanks for refreshing my memory on the race. What I remember the most was that comment made by Allen at the time that the governor’s mansion was a place for a man and his family (or something to that effect), a snide remark about Terry’s marital status.

  8. I like reading your blog because you actually use research and you put effort into your posts- even if I don’t agree with you all the time! About verbal gaffes (Sidarth) – do you think that Allen is a racist or would you say that he just made a stupid comment w/o malice?

  9. do you think that Allen is a racist or would you say that he just made a stupid comment w/o malice?

    Neither, oddly enough.

    I think that there were two particular galling elements of his comment. The first was the bullying aspect. He chose a kid out of the audience and deliberately embarrassed him, in order to be strong on him, as Sicilians say. The second was the xenophobia aspect, though I choose that word for lack of a better word. His “real Virginia” statement really galls me. I’d like to see a George Allen map of Virginia, with each municipality labeled so we know which part of Virginia is “real” and which is not real.

    I think the statement on the whole was deliberately malicious. But deliberately racist? I’m not sure. “Welcome to America” clearly shows racist underpinnings, though racism rooted in ignorance rather than malice.

    After the election, when this is all in the past, I look forward to be able to have a discussion about the comment that isn’t freighted with our investments in our candidates. I think it could be pretty interesting.

  10. Waldo – I’m glad someone takes the time to research, be thoughtful and intellectually honest in their blog. Keep up the good work, I’ll definitely be reading you from now on.

  11. Spank,

    If Allen has the extreme name recognition that you cite (and I agree with you about that) then doesn’t that suggest that his favorability ratings are stuck in the mud? Everybody knows exactly who George Allen is. By now, they either like him or they don’t. Apparantly they don’t. If he was at, say, 70 or 80% favorability then I’d say that he could still pull way up by reaching out to some of those people who don’t know much about him yet. Allen just has no room to grow while Webb does.

    George Allen is in a very, very dangerous position. It may even be too late for him to turn this thing around barring some major screw-up by Webb. I wonder whether he and his staff have realized just how close they are to check mate. They need to make major, fundamental changes to this whole campaign and to Allen’s image. Just throwing money at this race is not going to be the solution.

    If I were George Allen, I’d fire Dick Wadhams immediately and bring in a new team. Wadhams is running this thing like it’s 2000 and has totally failed to acknowledge the political and demographic changes that Virginia has undergone in the last 6 years. Wadhams is always a week late and a dollar short on every movement in this race.

  12. “But deliberately racist? I’m not sure.”

    You have to be kidding! “Macaca” is French Algerian slang for “n*****.” Allen speaks fluent French which he learned from his mother, who is French Algerian. Could this BE much clearer?

    “Macaca” is a slur used by the colonialist French to refer to the native Arab muslims.

    The man is a racist bully. This is not news. Talk to UVa alumni who knew him in his Charlottesville days. You’ll get an earful.

  13. “But deliberately racist? I’m not sure.”

    You have to be kidding! “Macaca” is French Algerian slang for “n*****.” Allen speaks fluent French which he learned from his mother, who is French Algerian. Could this BE much clearer?

    ?

    I’m allowing for the possibility that Allen was not aware of the negative implications of the term. Granted, he’s apologized for it, so he’s accepted responsibility for using a racist term. So I guess I’m calling him a liar by saying that it wasn’t deliberately racist.

    Hm.

    The man is a racist bully. This is not news. Talk to UVa alumni who knew him in his Charlottesville days. You’ll get an earful.

    Oh, I have.

  14. “The man is a racist bully. This is not news. Talk to UVa alumni who knew him in his Charlottesville days. You’ll get an earful.”

    Agree 100%. Part of my family lives in Earlysville and there are definitely rumors. Not solid proof but certainly rumors. Like Waldo said, I think after the election people will be more willing to have a candid discussion about this.

    I must admit, however, I don’t see why people are having such a hard time drawing the obvious conclusion on Allen. To me it’s as simple as one plue one equals two….. Except in this case its local and alumni rumors plus a confederate flag fetish without any Southern roots plus a noose hanging in office plus voting against Martin Luther King Day plus voting against the 1991 Civil Rights Act plus defending Trent Lott imediately after the Thurmond controversey plus appointing a CCC, a group denounced by a prominent Reagan official, sympathizer to a commission plus calling a minority in a mostly white crowd a “macaca” which he meant as a monkey or a racial slur in his mother’s native tongue…. What do you get when you add all of that up? Then again maybe my bar is too low.

  15. One of my favorite people lost in that 1993 Virginia tsunami – Bill Dolan who was running for Attorney General and was one of the most qualified to ever run for that office. He told me after the election that the Dem’s internal polls from July on showed there was no way the Dems could win. The national political picture was a HUGH drag. Look at just a few of the things what happened in Clinton’s first year (1993): he won with only 43% of the vote; Hillary’s health care task force was a debacle; the World Trade Center was bombed; Vince Foster committed suicide in July; and the horrendous Black Hawk down incident in Mogadishu occurred in October and was all over TV the rest of the month. Right-wing radio was THE growth media.

    Virginia was the early warning about the national Republican takeover of 1994. Perhaps this year we can be the bellweather for 2007 and 2008.

  16. “Granted, he’s apologized for it, so he’s accepted responsibility for using a racist term.”

    On what planet is “I didn’t do it, but I’m sorry if you think I did” an apology? How can you apologize at the same time you are giving five different stories for why you did it, and your campaign manager is drumming up the base telling everyone that it’s all a democratic frame job?

  17. One, anyone who relies on “rumors” to conclude Allen is a racist needs to take a deep breath. I’ve heard more “rumors” about political candidates and figures I’ve worked with than I can shake a stick at; 99.99% of them are simply enormous embellishments or outright falsehoods. The man ran for Governor and U.S. Senate, if there was some kind of skeleton in his closet it would already be out; the Washington Post wouldn’t sit on such a story in 1993 or 2000.

    Second, things aren’t as rosy for Jim Webb as his supporters claim and things aren’t as good for Allen as his supporters claim. Webb is in a great position, he can husband his resources inorder to buy some nice commercials to “introduce” him to the Virginia electorate, especially come September or early October. The problem is he probably won’t have the money to maintain the push. His grassroots operation is simply horrible, so whether he can get the base to come out to vote (including African-Americans) is a dubious proposition.

    Allen is in a precarious position for the fall; its simply a horrible year to run as a Republican. Prior to Webb’s nomination I stated that whoever the Dems put up will get between 45 to 46% of the vote in Virginia; the electorate is simply tired of the GOP being in power. Prior to the incident at the Breaks, I felt that Allen was going to win at most by 7 or 8 points, despite the polls that had him up by 16 points; now Allen will probably win by 3 or 5 points at the best; whether that ends his 2008 aspirations, I don’t know. TO the outside world he can make the claim that he had a “tough” re-election fight against a former Navy Secretary in a state that is trending blue. (In reality, a 4 or 5 point victory by a former Governor and Senator with a 6 to 1 fundraising advantage are not the credentials for a presidential run).

    I simply don’t feel that the 1993 comparison works; Allen is a known commodity, Terry was not (Attorney Generals are not very public figures). Two, Jim Webb is a highly undisciplined candidate who, quite frankly, is not very likeable. Webb comes across as dour, too serious and a bit aloof; the man can’t work a room to save his life. Allen, for all of his faults, is one of the best retail politicians I’ve ever seen.

    All in all, Allen will win 52-48, that’s my call.

    J

  18. I simply don’t feel that the 1993 comparison works; Allen is a known commodity, Terry was not (Attorney Generals are not very public figures).

    On the contrary, AGs are very public figures. It’s a much better launching point to run for statewide office than LG, because the AG’s office has lots of reason to interact with the public. Terry had served two terms by the time she ran, giving her an extraordinary amount of name recognition. As Thomas Carsey writes in “Campaign Dynamics”:

    Terry entered the race in the eyes of many as the de facto incumbent. She had twice won the attorney general’s office and in 1989 received more than one million votes–the first candidate for statewide office to ever do so in Virginia. She was well known, well liked, and well financed. She had strong ties in the business community, having developed a reputation as fiscally conservative and support of economic development. Finally, she faced no opposition within her party for the gubernatorial nomination. Early polls had her well ahead of any GOP competitor, and some commentators were calling the race over before it started.

    Sound familiar? :)

  19. “AGs are very public figures”

    To whom? If there was a poll done asking Virginians to name their Attorney General I can guarantee you less than 1 in 4 could name Bob McDonnell. Attorney Generals are public figures only to political junkies and party loyalists. The bottom line for both LG and AGs is they have a hard time creating earned media. I agree with you that Attorney Generals have the ability to generate media coverage easier than Lt. Governors; for one, most attorneys know who the AG of their state is, given the increasing amount of regulatory control being initiated by state government and two, they have an easier ability to initiate policy initiatives that generate real news (i.e., proposing legislation to increase the penalties for sex crime offenders, or increased protection for battered women). The only AG in the country that is highly visible, in my opinion, is Spitzer in New York, and that’s because of his high profile cases against big business.

    To say that Mary Sue Terry was the highly visible figure to the voters of Virginia in 1993, comparable to a former Governor and U.S. Senator is a stretch. Allen has been at the top of the ticket twice coming into the 2006 election; Terry had never been at the top of the ticket in 1993.

    Each election has their own factors and quirks, and I simply don’t think its accurate to say 2006 = 1993 all over again; if anything, this is an election for Senate and not Governor. Thus, federal issues (Iraq, unpopularity of Bush and the GOP Congress) are the main issues in 2006, not state government issues.

  20. I wish I could remember the name recognition polls done early on in the Kaine/Kilgore race. Kilgore had something like twice the name recognition of Kaine, but damned if I can remember where either of them ranked.

    Even if Terry’s name recognition was low compared to Allen’s, the metaphor still holds nicely. I expect that Webb’s name recognition in relation to Allen’s at the outset was roughly proportional to Allen’s name recognition to Terry’s at the outset of that campaign.

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