GOP Nominee
Former Candidates
Confirming what everybody already knew, outgoing Virginia Sen. George Allen this weekend announced that running for President in 2008 is now out of consideration. While he did not rule out running for elected office again some time in the future, his loss to Democratic challenger Jim Webb in November effectively ended his presumed White House ambitions.
It was a long, exciting, and interesting nascent campaign to follow these past couple of years, but it has now officially come to a close. Recently ousted politicians never make very good presidential candidates anyways (Tom Daschle had enough sense to drop out on the Democratic side a couple of weeks ago as well). The Allen “campaign” was an amazing story. One that took an underdog, unheard-of young Senator to becoming the Insider’s frontrunner for the Republican nomination. And a story that brought him down with a single slip of the tongue. Allen can be both an inspiration and a warning to other candidates. May we wish him well in whatever he chooses to do after January 2007.
December 13th, 2006 at 6:20 pm
All the best to Senator Allen in all of his future endeavors.
December 14th, 2006 at 10:09 am
“As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.” - Publius Vergilius Maro
George has been a bully all his life, and it was this very characteristic that ultimately did him in. The “Macaca Moment” was not born out of racism, as so many people form Larry Sabotage to some on this very site assumed. Rather, the motivating ethos of George’s actions toward the young Webb staffer was his own bullying nature.
Despite the misapprehension of a nation obsessed with race, I must conclude that George ultimately got what he deserved. That said, it is nevertheless sobering indeed to see a personal character flaw come to the fore at just the right/wrong moment and have such momumental consequences as to shift political control of the United States Senate in a time of war.