Sen. John McCain came to Norfolk to garner support for his Republican colleague, George Allen.
POLITICS: SENATE CAMPAIGN -- Maybe somebody should have clued in Sen. John McCain.
First, Sen. George Allen, R-Va., wound up a few dozen veterans with a "we win, they lose, there's no substitute victory" strategy for Iraq, then McCain followed with a joke about a monkey flying an airplane.
McCain, R-Ariz., was in town Wednesday night to lure some votes for his Republican colleague, Allen, who has heard enough monkey jokes lately. Especially since a report was unearthed that he used "macaca" in reference to S.R. Sidarth, a worker of Indian descendent for the campaign of Allen's Democratic opponent, Jim Webb.
Macaca is a genus of monkey.
As he has for days, Allen spent part of the time after the 50-minute rally apologizing for the gaffe. "I was hoping that (Sidarth) would be here tonight," Allen said.
Sidarth, a student at the University of Virginia, spent last week videotaping an Allen swing through the state. Webb campaign spokesman Kristian Denny Todd said that he was not at the Allen function Wednesday night because he had a dental appointment in preparation to returning to school for his senior year.
Allen and McCain sought to talk about anything else - except a possibility that they could appear together on the Republican ticket for president in 2008.
"Do you have another subject?" McCain asked, to laughter, then added, "George has a tough re-election race ... and anybody who takes a race lightly makes a serious mistake."
He added that he hasn't decided to run and hasn't thought about Allen as a running mate. But McCain added that a former House colleague, Mo Udall of Utah, had told him, "If you are a United States Senator, unless you're under indictment or detoxification, you automatically consider yourself a candidate for president."
The evening was billed as a "veterans for Allen" rally, but the hotel's conference room was less than half-filled, even after a phone push for a larger turnout. Veterans came from as far away as Colonial Heights, but their numbers were little greater than the reporters and camera people who were there.
As it was, the rally started 10 minutes late and finished more than 20 minute early, according to a campaign worker's schedule.
No comments:
Post a Comment