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A new poll, Mason-Dixon/Times-Dispatch, is showing that Democratic Senate challenger Jim Webb has closed the gap with Republican George Allen, no doubt due to the crumbling of Allen’s campaign in the wake of the “macaca” scandal last month.

The poll has 46% for Allen to 42% for Webb, with Webb in the margin of error. Allen has surrendered a 16% lead in this poll as compared to July. The race is now competitive and Democrats stand a good chance of picking up this seat, which would help secure a Democratic majority in the Senate. Even if Allen wins, his disastrous showing against an unknown Democratic opponent may very well doom his presidential aspirations.

Webb is underfunded and in serious need of financial contributions. You can contribute online by going here.

The criticism of George Allen’s “macaca” comments this week has been relentless. Contributing to that in no small measure has been the “YouTube” phenomenon and the increasing ease with which videos get shared. The video documenting Allen’s comments has been viewed almost 200,000 times as of today’s date.

Allen’s nightmarish week has translated into gains for his Democratic opponent Jim Webb. Traffic to Webb’s website has doubled in the last week, and there has been a resurgence of interest in his campaign. Webb, who is an inexperienced campaigner and is underfunded compared to Allen, needs all the help he can get. Now the question is whether Webb can capitalize on the momentum and keep it going.

Democrats need one more seat to gain control of the Senate. Will this one be it?

George Allen is trying hard to control the political damage to his senatorial and presidential ambitions in the wake of repeatedly calling an Indian American, S. R. Sidarth, at a recent rally a “macaca” while welcoming him to the “real world” of America and Virginia.

His “apology” for the comment is disingenuous and insincere.

He says that his comments “have been greatly misunderstood by members of the media.” How arrogant. Anyone watching the video can see plainly what he said, and how he subjected Sidarth to ridicule in front of a tittering audience. Does he think viewers are stupid?

He claims “macaca” was a play on “mohawk,” used to describe Sidarth’s haircut. How you get from “mohawk” to “macaca” is beyond me. The words have nothing to do with each other and do not rhyme.

His apology read, “I do apologize if he’s offended by that. That was no way the point.” In other words, he’s not sorry he made the comments, he’s only sorry Sidarth and the rest of the world were offended by them. In other words, what he’s really sorry about is the big pile of “macaca” he has stepped in that may become a huge thorn in his side for his presidential ambitions. Allen has a long history of racial insensitivity, from keeping a noose around his office to admiring the confederate flag. The “macaca” comment plays neatly into that perception.

His apology is as fake as his half-baked efforts to sponsor symbolic (read useless) anti-lynching legislation in Congress and to sponsor an official apology for slavery in his effort to distance himself from his past. Can’t he just come out and say “I’m sorry for the ‘macaca’ comment, it was insensitive of me to say it?” Why put the blame on others’ perceptions instead of taking ownership of what came out of his own mouth?

Maybe it’s because he’s just another self-entitled politician who thinks he can do no wrong. The damage to his presidential if not senatorial plans will likely inform him otherwise.

Outrage followed in the wake of the blogosphere’s explosion of commentary on Republican Senator Allen repeatedly calling S. R. Sidarth, the only non-white member of a rally, a “macaca” and “welcoming him to America.” Allen issued an apology on Monday night, but the damage was done.

What did Allen mean by “macaca?” The Washington Post speculates:

Depending on how it is spelled, the word macaca could mean either a monkey that inhabits the Eastern Hemisphere or a town in South Africa. In some European cultures, macaca is also considered a racial slur against African immigrants, according to several Web sites that track ethnic slurs.

The fact that Allen’s mother is a Tunisian immigrant makes it highly likely he was aware of the term’s derogatory use as a racial slur.

The slur itself was bad enough, but Allen’s telling the audience to welcome the US-born Sidarth to America and “the real world” was incredibly condescending and makes you wonder what kind of “real world” America George Allen lives in.

What did Virginia Senator George Allen mean when he called a person of Indian descent a “macaca” during a recent rally? (View the video.) That’s what his opponent Jim Webb wants to know.

The individual, S. R. Sidarth, was videotaping the rally for the Webb campaign. Allen, who must have gotten annoyed with Sidarth’s presence, pointed out that “macaca over here”, and later “welcome[d him] to America and the real world of Virginia,” said “real world” consisting of an all-white Republican crowd except for Sidarth.

“Macaca” is the genus of macaque monkeys. Did George Allen really intend to call the only person of color at a rally a monkey?

Virginia Senator George Allen is being buffeted by attacks from both the Left and the radical Right for his ownership of stock in Barr Laboratories, the maker of the Plan B “morning after” pill. The attacks center on the hypocrisy of owning stock in a company providing “abortion pills” at the same time Allen professes to be “pro-life.”

Allen defends his investment, saying he admires Barr as a company–a company with a large plant in southern Virginia, an area crucial for him in the November election. By holding the stock, however, he risks angering his social conservative base both in Virginia and on the national scene as he explores a run for president.

I’m personally relishing the controversy. There are few politicians I despise more than George Allen. While sadly he is more likely than not to win re-election to the Senate, I’m hopeful America is in no mood for his bigoted brand of politics come 2008.

In the ongoing debate going over same-sex marriage, the Commonwealth of Virginia is emerging as nothing short of fascist in its zeal to deprive gay people of their liberties–so much so that the curtailment of liberties threatens to spill over to non-gay relationships if a measure is approved in November. The hostile laws are causing many gays, especially couples, to leave Virginia in favor of the District of Columbia or Maryland.

In 2004, Virginia passed a law that not only banned just gay marriage, but even invalidated “civil unions, partnership contracts or other arrangements between persons of the same sex purporting to bestow the privileges or obligations of marriage.” Not even contracts between two gay partners would be honored. So for example if a couple wanted to pass along property by a will to a life-long partner, the will would stand to be invalidated by hostile family members if they chose. A “living will” arrangement where one partner could honor the wishes of the other to not continue life support when one of them is in a vegetative state could also be rejected as unenforceable. A host of other things like hospital visitation rights and even joint property ownership would also be put into question, never mind the possibility of adoption.

The attempted curtailment of so many rights is not just “conservative,” it’s downright draconian. No government would be suffered to inflict that much of an infringement of civil liberties on any other group of people, and I’m fairly certain the provisions are unconstitutional although nobody has as yet stepped up to challenge the law’s legality. The federal Constitution guarantees the right of people to contract with each other:

No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 10

That Virginia would even try to take someone’s right to enter contracts with another person show’s the extent of the Commonwealth’s spite. But that’s not all…as if the law were not enough, the Commonwealth feels that additional punitive measures are required, as now there will be a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot that prohibits “unmarried individuals” from “union, partnership or other legal status similar to marriage.” Of course, gay couples are not the only co-habitating unmarried couples out there, raising a question as to the status of the rights heterosexual unmarried couples may have under common law. If nothing else this ambiguity serves to highlight the sheer stupidity of a backwards state as it stumbles over itself in its haste to enshrine prejudice into its laws and constitution.

Needless to say, gay couples and residents are not taking this lying down. Some are fighting the amendment while others are taking themselves, their creativity and their tax dollars to other places. As one departing resident said for the linked article,

“As an African-American, having grown up during the Civil Rights movement in Birmingham, Ala., I am not willing to have my rights taken away from me by ignorant, religious zealots who don’t respect the constitutional understanding of separation of Church and State when scripting laws. It was apparent to me that things weren’t getting any better, but worse. Why should I continue to pay taxes to support such a hateful government?”

In the end it is Virginia who loses. As Richard Florida argues in his book, “Flight of the Creative Class: the New Global Competition for Talent“ the municipalities that are most successful in creating hubs of technology and creativity so essential in today’s information economy are those that show openness and tolerance for differences, including towards gays. There are a lot of highly educated and highly paid gay people in information technology and related fields who will decline to take jobs in and pay taxes to such a hostile state, letting DC and Maryland reap these gains at Virginia’s expense.

Quite apart from the economics argument, however, is the intuitive notion that you don’t treat people like second-class citizens and expect to be seen as anything other than a backwards state full of hatemongering idiots.