Category Archives: Politics: US: 2006 Election

Senator Allen now has a deer problem.

The story begins a couple of days ago, when a former college teammate, R. Kendall Shelton, now apparently a respected radiologist in North Carolina, told an almost incredible story about how he and Allen and another teammate had gone deer hunting, and,

After the deer was killed, Shelton said, Allen cut off the doe’s head, asked for directions to the home of the nearest black person and shoved the head into that person’s mailbox.

…

“I have no doubt George was a racist in the early 1970s,” said Shelton, who described himself as a former Democrat who is registered as an independent. “I couldn’t care less if George was a Democrat or a Republican. He shouldn’t be in public office.”

Allen immediately denied the entire story — the epithet, the severed head, the mailbox. Unfortunately for Allen, the third member of the hunting party has come forward and corroborated at least the parts about the severed head and the mailbox.

Others who knew Allen in the same era have come to his defense, although most have current ties to him or the GOP. Still others are, apparently, afraid:

Two other former U-Va. athletes also said they recalled Allen using racial epithets frequently in college. They spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they feared the effect of coming forward on their livelihoods and families.

The deer-in-the-mailbox story has radicalized a hitherto apathetic segment of the citizenry: the people most likely to open a mailbox. Allen is now in the sights of Letter Carriers for Truth.

Stick a fork in him?

Via Firedoglake, a pointer to this pitch-perfect ad for Democratic Congressional Candidate Tim Walz, running in Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District.

One for the textbooks. If it makes you want to open your checkbook, here’s the link (warning: slightly slow site). (Bonus Walz video.)

Sen. George Allen‘s racist past is finally coming home to roost.

And challenger Jim Webb has just unveiled a very effective commercial. Not flashy but it plays to Webb’s strengths.

Volley by GOP candidate Michael Steele, with a very cute ad designed to blunt criticism (and to obfuscate his party affiliation).

Smash return by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Nieman Watchdog, The closer the election, the lower the price of gas,

Gil Cranberg says this correlation should galvanize the press. He wants to know, among other things, whether prices are dropping in countries that don’t have upcoming elections.

…

Q. Did George W. Bush’s buddies in the oil industry contrive to lower gasoline prices to help him (and themselves) in the fall elections?

I looked for guidance from three people knowledgeable about oil markets and put this more-neutral question to each: Is there possibly a link between the drop in gas prices in this country and the coming election?

One said flatly no, it’s just due to lower demand now than during the driving season.

Another said he was puzzled by the drop because people he trusts tell him it is not due to, or cannot be explained by, a comparable drop in crude oil prices.

The third had a similar reaction, noting that, in the past, when the price of crude oil dropped, the price of gasoline took much longer to come down. He said that price of gas customarily declines with the end of the driving season, “but not as sharply as it has in the last few weeks and certainly never went down faster than the price of crude, as it has.”

The latter two respondents, independently, referred me to Peter K. Ashton, a long-time consultant on petroleum issues who has testified on gasoline pricing before the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Ashton’s response to the same question:

“As an economist, I cannot speculate on the politics that may be involved, but my recent research suggests that the recent drop cannot be explained by the drop in crude prices or the change in inventories alone. From an economic standpoint, therefore, it certainly raises questions in my mind as to whether the high prices we saw this summer were in any way justified by market fundamentals. I do not believe that they were. To the extent that prices are now declining more than market fundamentals might dictate suggests to me that a decision has been made to reduce prices back to levels that might be considered more in line with the forces of supply and demand. Whether that is a politically motivated decision is up to others to decide, not me! Nevertheless, it is clear to me that the prices we witnessed this summer could not be justified by the market.”

For reasons I can’t articulate in my current jet lagged (and lost-luggage) state, this moveon.org ad trying to blunt the GOP’s Rovian exploitation of 9/11 just doesn’t seem that effective — even though I agree with it:

In contrast, this ad from votevets.org targeting Sen. George Allen seems just about absolutely perfect:

Do you agree? What’s wrong with the first one?