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Revision as of 02:39, 25 August 2006 by WWB (talk | contribs) (→Macaca controversy)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)| George Allen | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Junior Senator, Virginia | |
| In office January 2001–Present | |
| Preceded by | Charles Robb |
| Succeeded by | Incumbent (2007) |
| Personal details | |
| Nationality | american |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse(s) | (1) Anne Patrice Rubel, divorced; (2) Susan Brown |
George Felix Allen (born March 8, 1952 in Whittier, California) is a Republican United States Senator from Virginia. He is running for re-election in 2006 and has been mentioned as a possible candidate for the Republican nomination in the 2008 Presidential election.
Biography
Allen's mother emigrated from French Tunisia, and was "Italian, French and a little Spanish" and according to Allen, was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. He has a sister, Jennifer, and two brothers, Gregory and Bruce. According to Jennifer Allen, their mother "prided herself for being un-American. ... She was ashamed that she had given up her French citizenship to become a citizen of a country she deemed infantile." Allen's father was of Dutch-Irish and Scottish descent.
Allen was formerly married to Anne Patrice Rubel until their divorce in 1983. Allen married Susan Brown in 1986 and the couple now have three children: Tyler, Forrest, and Brooke. Sen. and Mrs. Allen are residents of Mount Vernon, Virginia.
Allen is a member of the Presbyterian Church. He is fond of using football metaphors, a tendency which has been remarked upon by journalists and commentators. Allen has been chewing tobacco since he was introduced to it by his father's football players in high school.
Early years
His father George Herbert Allen was a legendary NFL coach who was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2002. His mother Henrietta Lumbroso was a Jewish immigrant of Tunisian/Italian/French background. The family lived in Southern California until 1957, when they moved to the suburbs of Chicago after George Sr. got a job with the Chicago Bears. The family moved back to Southern California (Palos Verdes) in 1966 after Allen's father was named head coach of the Los Angeles Rams.
Allen's younger sister Jennifer Allen alleges in her memoir Fifth Quarter: The Scrimmage of a Football Coach's Daughter that Allen sadistically attacked his younger siblings during his childhood. Allen has disputed her characterizations of their childhood.
Education
Allen graduated from Palos Verdes High School, where he was a member of the falconry club and the car club. He was also quarterback of the varsity football team. He was once suspended for painting graffiti on school walls. Classmates and a school administrator told The New Republic magazine that the graffitti was racist and was intended to fuel racial animosity toward a rival school.
Allen attended the University of California, Los Angeles before transferring to the University of Virginia, where he received a B.A. degree with distinction in history and then a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Virginia School of Law. A supporter of Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War, he was graduating class president at UVA. In 1976, while a university student, Allen was selected as Chairman of the Young Virginians for Ronald Reagan.
Career
Virginia state delegate
Allen's first race for the Virginia House of Delegates was in 1979, two years after he graduated from law school. He lost, but won two years later in 1981. He was a delegate from 1982 to 1991, representing a district in Albemarle County.
U.S. House of Representatives
On November 5, 1991, Allen won a special election to fill the seat in the U.S. House of Representatives for Virginia's 7th District. Incumbent congressman D. French Slaughter, Jr. had resigned due to a series of strokes. Allen's opponent was Slaughter's cousin, Kay Slaughter. During the campaign, the National Republican Congressional Committee ran a TV ad on Allen's behalf featuring Slaughter's image superimposed over a photograph of an anti-war rally with a banner reading, "Victory to Iraq." Allen won with 63 percent of the vote.
Allen's career in the House was short-lived: in the 1990s round of redistricting, Allen's district, which stretched from the fringes of the Washington suburbs to Charlottesville and included much of the Shenandoah Valley, was eliminated even though Virginia gained a congressional seat as a result of the 1990 Census. This occurred because the Justice Department required Virginia to draw a majority-black district in order to comply with the Voting Rights Act.
Allen's district was split between three neighboring districts. While his home in Earlysville (a suburb of Charlottesville) was placed in the 5th District of Louis F. Payne, Jr., most of his district was placed in the 10th District of Frank Wolf. Allen moved to Mount Vernon and prepared to challenge Wolf in a primary, but Virginia Republican figures made it known that he would have no future in the party by waging such a challenge. Allen was therefore forced to leave the House in January 1993.
Governor
In November 1993, Allen was elected the 67th Governor of Virginia, serving from 1994 to 1998. As governor, he was recognized for educational reforms such as the implementation of rigorous academic standards and accountability. His tenure also included the overhaul of the juvenile justice system, moves toward the elimination of state welfare programs, and the abolition of parole. Virginia, especially Northern Virginia, boomed during this time period, particularly in the technology area.
African-Americans in Virginia criticized Governor Allen for his policies and his embrace of the Confederate flag, which the NAACP condemned as a symbol of racism and hate. As a lawyer, Allen also had a noose hanging from a ficus tree in his office, a decoration critics have charged was racially insensitive, but which Allen has explained as a symbol of his tough stance on law-and-order issues. Allen also staunchly opposed a state holiday in honor of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
In 1995, 1996, and 1997, Allen proclaimed April as Confederate History and Heritage Month and called the Civil War "a four-year struggle for independence and sovereign rights." The proclamation did not mention slavery, and his successor, Republican Governor James Gilmore, changed the proclamation and wrote a version that denounced slavery.
Allen could not run for re-election because Virginia's constitution does not allow a governor to succeed himself; as of 2006 Virginia is the only state that has such a provision.
Law partner
In February 1998, Allen became a Richmond-based partner at the law firm McGuire Woods Battle & Booth (now McGuireWoods LLP), as head of its business expansion and relocation team. At the time, Allen said "I think it's healthy to get out of government. If you stay in too long, you lose track of reality and the real world." According to a disclosure form Allen filed on May 12, 2000, he was paid $450,000 by the firm between January 1999 and April 2000.
In mid-1998, Allen joined the board of directors of Xybernaut, a company selling mobile, flip-screen computers. The firm never made a profit - it posted 33 consecutive quarterly losses after it went public in 1996. In September 1999, Allen and the rest of the company's board dismissed the company's accounting firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers, which had issued a report with a "going concern" paragraph that questioned the company’s financial health.
In 1998 and 1999, McGuire Woods billed $315,925 to Xybernaut for legal work. Allen remained on the Xybernaut board until December 2000. He was granted 110,000 options of company stock that were worth $1.5 million at their peak, but he never exercised those options, which expired 90 days after he left the board. Allen made almost no money from the stock, according to his communications director, John Reid. He has refused repeated requests to discuss his involvement with the company.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).
McGuire Woods and its employees were, as of July 21, 2006, the top contributor to Allen's 2006 Senatorial campaign.
United States Senate
Allen was elected to the Senate in November 2000, defeating the Democratic incumbent, Chuck Robb, son-in-law of the late President Lyndon B. Johnson. Allen is a member of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, the Foreign Relations Committee and the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Allen was appointed in the last Congress to serve as the chairman of the High Tech Task Force. Allen was unanimously elected as a member of the Senate Republican leadership as Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 2002, and oversaw a net gain of four seats for the Republicans in the 2004 Senate elections. His successor as NRSC chair is Senator Elizabeth Dole.
In June of 2005, Allen co-sponsored a resolution that had the Senate formally apologize for never passing federal legislation despite the lynching of nearly 5,000 people between 1882 and 1968. While spearheading this apology, Allen stood in the Senate and said, "I rise today to offer a formal and heartfelt apology to all the victims of lynching in our history, and for the failure of the United States Senate to take action when action was most needed."
More recently, Allen joined calls for the Senate to consider an apology for slavery. However, in late May of 2006 he began to back away from a slavery apology proposal, explaining that "o far, we haven't seen much of a coalition of support for it".
2006 re-election campaign
Main article: Virginia United States Senate election, 2006Allen's current term in the Senate expires in January 2007. He is seeking re-election in 2006.
Recent polls show Allen's approval rating at 53%. By comparison, fellow Republican Virginia senator John Warner has an approval rating of 57% in the same poll. Former Secretary of the Navy James H. Webb, a supporter of Allen in 2000 , is the Democratic nominee. Gail Parker, a retired USAF officer and retired civilian Pentagon budget analyst, is also on the ballot as the Independent Green Party candidate.
A late July 2006 Rasmussen poll showed Allen leading Webb, with the support of 50% of likely voters supporting and 39% supporting Webb.. Also, a Survey USA poll showed a larger lead for Allen, with 56% supporting Allen and 37% supporting Webb.
He won the Republican nomination on August 11, 2006.
On August 17, 2006, a SurveyUSA poll, sponsored by a local Virginian Television Station (WDBJ-TV Roanoke) was conducted and released. Although Allen holds a 47% approval of respondents, 67% of respondents concede that Allen's "macaca" comments were inappropriate.
A Rasmussen poll released on August 18, 2006, shows Allen's challenger James H. Webb within 5 percentage points behind the incumbent (Allen 47%, Webb 42%). Many believe the recent poll is a reflection on how voters responded to Allen's recent comments of University of Virginia student S.R. Sidarth.
On August 21, 2006, another Survey USA poll showed that James H. Webb was only three percentage points behind Allen (Allen 48% Webb 45%), confirming the results of the Rasmussen poll.
Actor
Allen played a minor role as a Confederate officer in the 2003 film Gods and Generals, a movie which included many cameos of people of politicians such as Senator Robert Byrd, and former Senator Phil Gramm . His role included singing "Southern Rights Hoorah!" (Video).
2008 Presidential bid
In a survey of 175 Washington insiders conducted by National Journal's "The Hotline" and released April 29, 2005, Allen was the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for the 2008 Presidential election.
In a subsequent insider survey by National Journal in May of 2006, Allen had dropped to second place, and John McCain held a 3-1 lead over Allen.
Allen has traveled frequently to Iowa (the first state with a presidential caucus) and New Hampshire (the first state with a presidential primary) and is widely assumed to be preparing a run for president. While in Iowa, Allen said that he wished he had been born in Iowa.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has accused Allen of changing his positions on key issues to appeal to the Republican Party's conservative base, in preparation for the primaries in 2008. For example, although he had previously supported federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, he modified his stance on August 7, 2005 to confine the funding to research that did not destroy embryos.
Controversies
Charges by Allen's sister Jennifer
Allen's younger sister Jennifer Allen alleges in her memoir Fifth Quarter: The Scrimmage of a Football Coach's Daughter (Random House Publishing, 2000) that Allen attacked his younger siblings during his childhood. She claims that Allen held her by her feet over Niagara Falls; struck her boyfriend in the head with a pool cue; threw his brother Bruce through a glass sliding door; tackled his brother Gregory, breaking his collarbone;; and dragged Jennifer upstairs by her hair. In the book, she wrote, "George hoped someday to become a dentist . . . George said he saw dentistry as a perfect profession--getting paid to make people suffer."
Barr Labs controversy
It was revealed on August 8, 2006 that the Senator, who opposes abortion rights, owned stock in Barr Laboratories Inc., the only American maker of the Plan B "morning after pill", an emergency contraceptive that is supposed to prevent pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of intercourse. The Webb campaign criticized Allen for holding stock in a company that makes a product that many of his supporters oppose. Allen responded by saying that he holds the stock because Barr Labs has created jobs in Virginia, and by pointing to his consistently pro-life voting record. Allen has no plans to sell the stock.
Confederate sympathies
Allen has a long history of interest in the Confederacy although he never lived in the South until he transferred from UCLA to the University of Virginia as a sophomore in college.
The May 8, 2006 and the May 15, 2006 issues of The New Republic reported extensively on Allen's long association with the Confederate flag. The magazine reported that "ccording to his colleagues, classmates, and published reports, Allen has either displayed the flag--on himself, his car, inside his home--or expressed his enthusiastic approval of the emblem from approximately 1967 to 2000." Allen wore a Confederate flag pin for his high school senior class photo. In high school, college, and law school, Allen adorned his vehicle with a Confederate flag. In college he displayed a Confederate flag in his room. He displayed a Confederate flag in his family's living room until 1992. In 1993, Allen's first statewide TV campaign ad for governor included a Confederate flag. In 2000, when a voter told Allen, "Long live the Confederate flag!" Allen replied, "You got it!"
Allen has confirmed that the pin in his high school yearbook was a Confederate flag. Allen has said "it is possible" that he had a Confederate flag on his car in high school. He has not responded to the allegations that he displayed the flag on his pickup truck and in his room in college and law school. In 1993, he confirmed that he had long displayed the Confederate flag in his living room. Greg Stevens, the political consultant who made the 1993 TV ad, confirmed that the ad included a Confederate flag.
Macaca controversy
On Friday, August 11, 2006, Allen twice called S.R. Sidarth, a 20-year-old Webb campaign volunteer, a word that sounds like "macaca" or "macaque". Sidarth is of Indian ancestry, but was born and raised in Fairfax County, Virginia. Sidarth was filming an Allen campaign stop in Breaks, Virginia, near the Kentucky border, as a "tracker" for the opposing Webb campaign.
During a speech, Allen paused, then began referring to Sidarth:
This fellow here over here with the yellow shirt, Macaca, or whatever his name is. He's with my opponent. He's following us around everywhere. And it's just great. We're going to places all over Virginia, and he's having it on film and it's great to have you here and you show it to your opponent because he's never been there and probably will never come. Let's give a welcome to Macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia.
According to Sidarth, he was the only person of color present among the crowd of 100 or so Republican supporters, some of whom applauded Allen's remarks.
The Webb campaign accused Allen of having insulted Sidarth's race. The word "macaca" is a variation of "macaque", which refers to a type of monkey, and is a French racial slur used for dark skinned peoples of North African descent. However, the word has different meanings in other languages such as Italian and Spanish. In Italian, the word macaca/macaco means fool, clown, simpleton. Allen's mother emigrated from Tunisia. Her family is from Italy and she speaks Italian and French. Allen speaks French and obtained excellent grades in French as an undergraduate. Allen's campaign maintains that the word was used in reference to Sidarth's hairstyle, which they claim to have called a mohawk, while Sidarth calls his haircut a mullet. Both sides have claimed that a now widely disseminated photo of Sidarth, hosted by the Webb campaign, supports their descriptions of his hairstyle. According to an interview of Sidarth conducted on the Young Turks radio program, Sidarth was wearing a baseball cap on the day the incident occurred.
According to the Washington Post, Allen's campaign manager initially dismissed the racial incident with an expletive. Allen later said that he had heard his staff use the term "macaca" in reference to Sidarth, that he did not know what the word meant, and that he did not intend to insult Sidarth's ethnicity when he singled him out to the crowd. "I do apologize if he's offended by that," Allen said, adding that "I would never want to demean him as an individual." On August 20, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported Allen as saying "he made up the word macaca (a different explanation from the campaign's first response)."
On August 15, John Reid, Allen's communications director, told the New York Times that members of Allen's campaign "good-naturedly" nicknamed Sidarth "Mohawk" when speaking among themselves, but could not explain how the word morphed into "macaca." Reid told the Times that Sidarth only received a nickname from Allen campaign staff because he would not give his real name. Interviewed that day on CNN, however, Sidarth recalled shaking Allen's hand earlier in the week and giving his name. "He's very good with names, legendarily. He tries very hard to remember peoples' names when meeting them," Sidarth said. As for the "macaca" remark, "I am disappointed that someone like a Senator of the United States could use something completely offensive."
On August 16, the National Journal reported that two Virginia Republicans who heard the word used by Allen's campaign staff said "macaca" was a neologism created from "Mohawk" and "caca," Spanish slang for excrement. "Said one Republican close to the campaign: 'In other words, was a shit-head, an annoyance.'"
In an interview released on August 16, Sidarth said that "he ha yet to hear from Allen directly with an apology". However, Allen's communications director John Reid stated on the same day that "he Senator ha apologized sincerely and repeatedly over the last two days to the young man and to the public in general."
On August 23, 12 days after the incident, Allen phoned in an apology to Sidarth and apologized for the remarks, saying that the apology was "from his heart." Sidarth declined to comment on whether he considered the apology sincere.
References
- See Road to the White House, C-SPAN, Address to the Greenville County, South Carolina, Republican Party Dinner rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/rwh/rwh071005.rm
- "A Tough Question for George Allen". The Decembrist. 2005-05-13. Retrieved 2006-08-15.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - "Mixing Politics, Pigskins". The Washington Post. February 6, 2006. p. C01.
- Jake Tapper, Dead senator running?, Salon magazine, November 17, 1999.
- "Governor Is Criticized For 'Confederacy Month'". The New York Times. April 11, 1997.
- "GEORGE ALLEN'S FLAG FETISH". The New Republic. May 15, 2006.
- Mark Hilpert,"Ex-Gov. Allen now `rainmaker' for Va. law firm", Washington Business Journal, February 13, 1998
- Garance Franke-Ruta,"Just a Gigolo: In the go-go ’90s, George Allen sat on the board of a Virginia tech company. Now, the company faces several class-action suits and an SEC insiders probe", American Prospect magazine, issue date of September 12, 2006
- [http://sec.edgar-online.com/1998/10/01/08/0000910680-98-000357/Section9.asp Xybernaut October 1, 1999 SB-2 SEC filing
- Ellen McCarthy, "Xybernaut Hid Gathering Storm In Bright Forecasts", Washington Post, April 21, 2005
- Xybernaut SEC filing, Form 8-K, September 19, 1999
- Campaign contributions to Allen's Senatorial campaign, Washington Post
- "Allen undecided on slavery apology, cites little support". Richmond Times-Dispatch. May 26, 2006.
- http://www.wusatv9.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=51530
- Gwen Glazer (April 29, 2005). "Signed, Sealed... But Not So Fast. Insiders' Predictions For WH 2008 May Not Match Public's Vision". National Journal.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - "McCain Roars Past Allen In New NJ Insiders Poll". National Journal. May 11, 2006.
- "CNN LATE EDITION WITH WOLF BLITZER". CNN. August 7, 2005.
- Fifth Quarter: The Scrimmage of a Football Coach's Daughter Contains editorial reviews
- Jennifer Allen. Fifth Quarter: The Scrimmage of a Football Coach's Daughter, Random House, 2000. page 34
- Jennifer Allen. Fifth Quarter: The Scrimmage of a Football Coach's Daughter, Random House, 2000. page 178
- Jennifer Allen. Fifth Quarter: The Scrimmage of a Football Coach's Daughter, Random House, 2000. page 22
- Jennifer Allen. Fifth Quarter: The Scrimmage of a Football Coach's Daughter, Random House, 2000. page 22
- "Abortion Foe Allen Faulted for Stock in Morning-After Pill Maker". The Washington Post. August 9, 2006. p. B05.
- "GEORGE ALLEN'S RACE PROBLEM". The New Republic. May 08, 2006.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - "GEORGE ALLEN'S FLAG FETISH". The New Republic. May 15, 2006.
- "Allen's Listening Tour". YouTube. 2006-08-14. Retrieved 2006-08-15.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "Sen. Allen's Remarks Spark Ire". The Washington Post. August 14, 2006.
- "Allen Quip Provokes Outrage, Apology". The Washington Post. August 15, 2006.
- {Collins Sansoni Italian Dictionary:publisher= Sansoni of Florence, Italy {cite news | url=http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/List-of-ethnic-slurs#M | title=Encyclopedia: List of ethnic slurs | publisher=Nationmaster.com}}
- "'Hardball with Chris Matthews' for March 29". MSNBC. March 30, 2006.
- "Senator George Allen addresses Graduates". Longwood University. May 14, 2005.
- "Senator George Allen addresses Graduates". Longwood University. May 14, 2005.
- "S.R. Sidarth at an Allen Campaign Event". Virginia Conservative. August 18, 2006.
- http://www.theyoungturks.com/story/2006/8/16/201332/564
- "Verbal Gaffe From a Senator, Then an Apology". New York Times. August 15, 2005.
- "George Allen's 'Macaca' Remark". CNN News. August 15, 2006.
- "A New Explanation For "Macaca?"". National Journal (Hotline). August 16, 2006.
- http://www.theyoungturks.com/story/2006/8/16/201332/564
- http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2006/08/a_new_explanati.html
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/23/AR2006082301600_2.html
See also
External links
- Official site
- Campaign site
- George Allen for President
- Politics1 - P2008: George Allen
- 2004 campaign finance data
- Sen. George Allen - 2008 Presidential Wire
- George Allen - 2008 Republican Rankings
- George Allen on the Issues
- "The Political Environment Isn't George Allen's Friend" -The Rothenberg Political Report
- Voting record maintained by the Washington Post
- George Allen calling a Webb volunteer a "macaca"
| Preceded byD. French Slaughter, Jr. | United States Representative for the 7th Congressional District of Virginia 1991–1993 |
Succeeded byThomas J. Bliley, Jr. |
| Preceded byDouglas Wilder | Governor of Virginia 1994–1998 |
Succeeded byJim Gilmore |
| Preceded byCharles S. Robb | United States Senator (Class 1) from Virginia 2001– |
Succeeded byIncumbent |
| Virginia's current delegation to the United States Congress | |
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| Senators |
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| Representatives (ordered by district) |
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| Current United States senators | ||
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| President: ▌ Kamala Harris (D) ‧ President pro tempore: ▌ Chuck Grassley (R) | ||
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- 1952 births
- Dominionism
- Governors of Virginia
- Living people
- Members of the United States House of Representatives from Virginia
- Members of the Virginia House of Delegates
- People from the Greater Los Angeles Area
- People from Virginia
- American Presbyterians
- Scots-Irish Americans
- United States Senators from Virginia
- University of Virginia alumni
- Pro-life politicians
- 2006 United States Congressional election candidates