Mr. Allen’s opponent this year, Tim Kaine, the former governor of Virginia, has steered away from all of that, preferring to argue that Mr. Allen’s economic and policy record make him unfit for a return to the Senate.
But now, a labor group backing Mr. Kaine’s election is trying to raise it all again with a series of small, online advertisements that note each of the most unsavory allegations against Mr. Allen. The ads were created by workersvoice.org, a political arm of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.
One notes that Mr. Allen “kept a noose in his office” and shows a picture of Mr. Allen giving a thumbs up next to a hangman’s noose. Mr. Allen has always claimed the noose was a lasso intended to represent cowboys.
Another banner ad says that Mr. Allen hung a confederate flag in his living room; he said it was a symbol of youthful rebellion. A third ad notes, correctly, that as a member of the Virginia state legislature, he voted against a holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr. (The state celebrated “Lee-Jackson-King” day for 16 years.)
A fourth ad revives the controversy over “macaca” by simply printing that word next to Mr. Allen’s picture.