George Allen's 'hail mary' play since his campaign began to implode has clearly been to suppress Democratic turnout -- throw out enough disinformation to sour Dems on Jim Webb and hopefully get enough of them to stay home on election day to tip the balance in Allen's favor.
This evening, I ran across something which illustrates this quite well, a letter to the editor in the Fairfax County Times:
[more on the flip]
Webb a Democrat in name only
The people of Northern Virginia have had more than enough of Republican officials who have endorsed George Allen (R) for the U.S. Senate. Virginia Democrats must go to the polls in November to spare the commonwealth from a U.S. senator who refuses to set a pull-out date for U.S. troops in Iraq, wants to restrict affirmative action, does not support full equality for women, takes policy positions that promote sexual harassment, backs a Republican plan on tough CIA interrogation methods and has been praised by Ronald Reagan.
Oops. That's actually a description of James Webb, the Democratic candidate for senator, who, according to news reports, endorsed George Allen for the Senate in 2000, served under President Reagan as Secretary of the Navy and has taken all of the policy stances noted above.
This just goes to show that the national Democrats and activists who persuaded Webb to challenge Allen are not really interested in Virginia and will do anything to achieve the Democratic National Committee's goals, including running a stealth-Republican candidate!
I'm not going to do a point-by-point rebuttal -- most of you who read this blog are sophisticated and well-read enough to know why these points are misleading. But who wrote this letter, a Dem for whom Jim Webb just doesn't cut it? Nope. A Bush administration appointee, Tyler S. Posey, who at least until recently was General Counsel of the Peace Corps. As you can see in the 2004 edition of the Plum Book (the list of top federal government jobs), this position is an "excepted service" appointment, which is hired outside the civil service system. Campaign contibutions? Well, that's the obvious next question:
POSEY, TYLER
MCLEAN, VA 22102
HORN, STEVE
VIA STEVE HORN FOR CONGRESS
11/04/2000 250.00 20036651587
POSEY, TYLER
MCLEAN, VA 22102
RETIRED/RETIRED
ALLEN, GEORGE
VIA FRIENDS OF GEORGE ALLEN
05/24/2006 500.00 26020342862
POSEY, TYLER S. MR.
MCLEAN, VA 22102
RETIRED
BUSH, GEORGE W
VIA BUSH-CHENEY 2000 COMPLIANCE COMMITTEE INC.
10/23/2000 1000.00 20990263699
Total Contributions: 1750.00
So, what is this guy doing writing letters to the editor complaining about Jim Webb not being a real Democrat???
C'mon, y'all can do better than that! At least get your LTEs from people who aren't appointees listed in the Bush administration Plum Book, who have donated to both Bush and Allen. Sheesh. How dumb do they think people are?