At present, the Virginia election is a nailbiter, but one in which Allen has retained a lead for some time. There’s now 4.3% of the precincts remaining to be counted, and Allen has a lead of some thirteen thousand votes. That’s almost, but not quite, too much for Webb to overcome given that the missing votes seem to be in Arlington, Craig, and Fairfax counties.
The incredible thing is that the Green candidate (who?) has gotten over 1% of the vote — almost twice the margin now separating Webb and Allen. Shades of Ralph Nader all over again.
In addition, the margin of victory will be well within the margin of theft and voter suppression.
Webb now has the lead
At 1%, I wonder whether these are people who would have ever voted for a Democrat. In a 2-way race, I’m guessing many of them just wouldn’t have voted in that race. So they’re probably not really a loss to either side, and let’s not beat them up as mere “spoilers” for voting their actual preference.
Please do your homework before posting. Gail Parker, the independent Senate candidate in VA is not an official Green Party member. She is not endorsed by the Green Party of Virginia. She set up her own party (like Lieberman) called the “Independent-Greens.”
If someone went out an set up a part called the “Independent Democrats” with no connection with the Virginia Democrats or the DNC you wouldn’t assume Howard Dean would have to take responsibility for that person, so don’t it here.
One reason she is not in the Green Party is that she is more conservative than the Greens, especially on abortion (she is pro-life) so you can’t say for certain that she only took votes from Webb. I mean her website labels her a common-sense conservative, so she probably hurt Allen more than Webb.