He's baaaaaaaaaaaack:
Former Senator George Allen announced in a video released this afternoon on his website that he will run for the Virginia Senate seat he lost to Democratic Sen. Jim Webb in 2006.
Allen, a Republican, argues in the video that Washington has not been "listening" to Americans and Virginians, saying people are "frustrated, really frustrated that Washington continues to ignore us."
He goes on to call for less spending, a balanced budget amendment, a line item veto, and "to replace and repeal this government mandated health care experiment." Allen has been pushing aggressively for repeal in the runup to his announcement.
Allen, of course, was expected to be a top-tier GOP Presidential contender in 2008, before he was upset in his first Senate reelection bid in 2006 by Democrat Jim Webb.
We know him best, of course, for the incident which led to the term "macaca moment" entering the political lexicon:
Then came what has come to be known as Allen's "macaca moment" - his characterization of a 20-year-old Webb volunteer, who is of Indian descent, as "macaca" during a campaign rally.
"This fellow here, over here with the yellow shirt, macaca, or whatever his name is. He's with my opponent. He's following us around everywhere. And it's just great," Allen said.
This will be quite a competitive race whether the two nominees are George Allen and Jim Webb, or two completely different people.
Allen has obvious advantages. He has fantastic name recognition from his terms as Governor and Senator. He'll raise gobs of money for his bid. And he should, by all rights, be conservative enough to forestall any kind of primary challenge.
However, the tea party doesn't seem inclined to give him a pass, an indicator of just how radicalized the Republican activist base has become:
High profile and influential conservative Erick Erickson who writes and runs the widely read RedState.com has endorsed Jamie Radtke as the Republican candidate to run against incumbent Democrat Jim Webb.
...
According to Erickson, Allen during his one term in the U.S. Senate backed President George W. Bush’s proposals to increase spending, supported No Child Left Behind which was a costly program to create a national education report card, favored a federal program to subsidize the costs of prescription drugs for Medicare beneficiaries and voted to expand the Hate Crimes Prevention Act to include crimes based on sexual orientation.
“There was also the vote for the debt limit, the flip-flop into support of ethanol, gun control issues, the morning after pill controversy, and, perhaps most troublesome to tea party activists, the money he took from Freddie Mac concurrent to his refusing to push for government sponsored enterprise (”GSE”) reform,” continues Erickson.
You've got to hand it to the Tea Party; you're really staking out new territory when George Allen isn't orthodox for you.
Especially considering that Allen might well lose even if he does win the primary. He lost this race once already, after all. And while 2006 was a strong Democratic year, pollster Tom Jensen submits that the 2012 electorate, spiked by Presidential-year turnout, might well be more Democratic in Virginia than the 2006 electorate was.
Allen is likely to be dealing with an electorate that's much more Democratic than the one he lost with in 2006. For the first Allen/Webb contest the exit polls showed that among those who turned out there were 3% more Republicans than Democrats. For the 2008 Presidential election there were 6% more Democrats than Republicans. That's a 9 point shift in the electorate from a midterm to a Presidential year. Since Allen has virtually no appeal to Democrats- only 6% said they'd support him on this poll- that means he'd have to rack up a huge lead with independents to knock off Webb in a Presidential electorate but...
Jensen goes on to note that Webb, at least, is far more popular among Virginia independents than Allen is.
First Red agrees that the makeup of the 2012 electorate could be a big problem for Allen:
But keep this in mind: While rematches are tough in general, a pre-Macaca Allen beat a relatively weak Chuck Robb (D) by just 52%-48% in 2000, a year Al Gore didn’t even compete in Virginia (and lost the state 52%-44%). Of course, the Democrats still have to convince Webb to run for re-election. But if Webb does -- or if Tim Kaine takes his place if he doesn’t -- it could be much more difficult than many are realizing for Allen to win if Obama’s re-election chances are looking strong. Be careful handicapping this race ONLY through the prism of 2006 or 2010; presidential years dramatically alter the Virginia electorate.
Allen is still the strongest Republican candidate currently under consideration, and he'd run a tough, aggressive and competitive race against Jim Webb.
There's a difference, though, between making a race competitive and pulling off the victory. Whether Allen can actually exact revenge for his 2006 defeat and win the seat again remains to be seen.
The challenge for Democrats, of course, is to get Jim Webb to run again or find a good replacement if he doesn't. The most prominent potential candidates right now after Webb are DNC chair and former Gov. Tim Kaine, and former U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello. Neither has yet expressed interest in the seat, unsurprising since it is everybody's preference that Webb seek reelection.