James Webb was too well-liked to go after him personally on things like his writing. And how many conservatives were turned on by attacking Webb for saying Tailhook was overblown, or that back in 1979 he opposed women in the military -- didn't most military people come slowly to women in the military?
The stuff about "horny women's dream" was OK, because it showed an ATTITUDE about women that was sexist, but unfortunately most of what we attacked Webb for was BEING A REPUBLICAN IN THE 1980s.
The Allen campaign needed to stay positive, and let outside groups do whatever attacking of Webb was needed. Problem was, once "macaca" happened, Allen lost his veneer of being a "nice guy", because he appeared to go after a kid, and called him a name.
On the other hand, I can only hope that Webb is as good a guy as so many republicans seem to think he was.
One thing this election shows is that you can't buck the american majority simply by using legislative tricks to deny them what they want. You really need to have the DEBATE, and convince them you are right.
I never heard republicans make a good pitch about why the minimum wage shouldn't be increased, instead they actually TRIED to increase it, tying it to two tax items neither of which were really related to it, showing they just wanted to bargain with it. (To his credit, Allen's support was based on changing tax codes to help small business that would be hurt by the increase).
Losing Allen really hurts, and it seems like we could have pulled it out, and we know what happened but you can't go back and change history.
Republicans should have been holding hearings, and doing oversight, for the past 6 years. They were so scared that the democrats would win the talking points that they forgot that the american people really want our government to debate and discuss things.
Ditto to everything you said.
I don't know that this is true. I still don't believe that Novelgate had any effect. When Rasmussen polled on it, 20% said the writings were of concern to them. I believe the NRSC's decision to go after him for his reaction to Tailhook was the real turning point. Webb stood up to the feminazis and the NRSC slammed him for it. How stupid could Elizabeth Dole have been. Tens of thousands of normally Republican military voters throughout the state decided to thank to Webb for standing up to the feminazis who turned a minor incident into an inquisition. That alone could have been the 7,000 vote difference.
And how many conservatives were turned on by attacking Webb for saying Tailhook was overblown, or that back in 1979 he opposed women in the military -- didn't most military people come slowly to women in the military?
Webb never even said women shouldn't be in the military. His piece was about women in combat. As I have said here many times, what kind of conservative attacks a guy for saying that ground combat is no place for a woman.
The problem with the campaign was two-fold: the decision to run Allen as a radical feminist sympathizer, and the relentless attacks of the media. If Webb had used the word macaca, do you think it would have been mentioned in 200 Washington Post articles?