Biography
George Allen was a U.S. Senator for Virginia and, earlier, its governor. His 2006 re-election defeat is the case American digital politics keeps returning to.
”Macaca”
At a campaign rally in Breaks, Virginia, near the Kentucky border, on Friday 11 August 2006, Allen pointed out a 20-year-old volunteer for his opponent — S. R. Sidarth, of Indian descent — who was filming him.
He had opened the speech by saying he was “going to run this campaign on positive, constructive ideas.” Then, as reported at the time:
“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.”
And, after a line about his opponent raising money in California: “Let’s give a welcome to macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia.”
Allen apologized on the Monday. By then the footage — recorded by the person he was addressing, on a camera his opponent’s campaign had given that person for exactly this purpose — was circulating.
The Result
The FEC’s official compilation records the Virginia Senate result of 7 November 2006:
| Candidate | Votes | Share |
|---|---|---|
| James H. “Jim” Webb Jr. (D) | 1,175,606 | 49.59% |
| George F. Allen (R), incumbent | 1,166,277 | 49.20% |
| Glenda Gail Parker (IGR) | 26,102 | 1.10% |
The margin was 9,329 votes out of 2,370,445 cast.
Digital Political Impact
- The first widely-agreed instance of an American election in which a video, recorded by a tracker and distributed online rather than broadcast, is treated as having changed the outcome
- The margin makes the counterfactual arguable rather than certain, which is why the case is durable: it is close enough that the claim can be made and not close enough to be proved
- It established the practice of opposition trackers filming everything, which is now standard, and the assumption that any campaign remark is potentially public
What Is Not Established Here
Removed in the citation audit: his birth year; his dates as senator (2001-2007) and as the 67th governor of Virginia (1994-1998); and the framing that the video “preceded a narrowing of the race”, which asserts a causal sequence this page cannot demonstrate. The FEC record gives the result; the contemporaneous report gives the incident; the connection between them is what everyone argues about and is left as such.
Sources
- 01.
Craig, T. & Shear, M. D. (2006). Allen Quip Provokes Outrage, Apology. Contemporaneous report, page A01 of 15 August 2006, read through an Internet Archive capture because washingtonpost.com refuses automated clients. Source for the campaign rally at Breaks, Virginia, near the Kentucky border, on Friday 11 August 2006; for Allen pointing at S. R. Sidarth, a 20-year-old volunteer of Indian descent working for his opponent, and the words quoted — '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' and 'Let's give a welcome to macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia' — spoken moments after Allen said he was 'going to run this campaign on positive, constructive ideas'; and for his apology on Monday 14 August.
- 02.
Federal Election Commission. Federal Elections 2006: Election Results for the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives. (2007). The FEC's official compilation of state-certified results. Virginia U.S. Senate, 7 November 2006: James H. 'Jim' Webb Jr. (D) 1,175,606 votes, 49.59%; incumbent George F. Allen (R) 1,166,277 votes, 49.20%; Glenda Gail Parker (IGR) 26,102, 1.10%; scattered 2,460. Total state votes 2,370,445 — a margin of 9,329 votes.
- 03.
Federal Election Commission. Candidate record for George Allen (S8VA00214). Retrieved through the OpenFEC API. Allen is on record as a Republican Senate candidate in Virginia for the 2000, 2006 and 2012 election years, and as a presidential candidate for 2008 (P80002934).