Next point. In Virginia, the race for Senator between incumbent George Allen and challenger Jim Webb has become a referendum on Allen's campaign style. Allen has been a member of the State Legislature, a Governor, and a US Senator.
Webb has been running ads saying he is qualified to serve in the US Senate because he is a novelist.
Ok. Fair enough. But when the Allen campaign actually read a couple of Webb's novels, they found some of the language way more than disturbing; they found it outright disgusting.
NOTE: I have posted a link to some of the offending passages on the Secret Decoder Ring page. I am warning you that if you click on that link you may well get upset - but don't get upset with me. I didn't write this stuff. Webb did.
The Allen campaign tried to interest the press corps in these passages but the press decided that, inasmuch as these were novels, Webb was free to write whatever he wanted and voters in Virginia would just have to be sophisticated enough to understand that.
So, the Allen campaign went public with the passages on their own and, guess what? The outcry became so strong last Friday that it appears Webb had to cancel his afternoon events so his campaign could huddle and figure out what to do about it.
If a Republican candidate had written a scene in a novel about a sexual encounter between a father and son how long do you think it would have taken the press corps to tie that candidate to a certain ex-Congressman from Florida?
About a New York minute, is how long.
The press is complaining that the tone and tenor of negative ads being run by Republicans are nastier than those being run by Democrats.
First of all, that's not true. But if it were, it would be because the press is providing all the negative campaigning Democrats could ever ask for.
On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the Rendell misuse of the state plane story and the promised link to the offensive scenes from the Webb novels. Also a Mullfoto of a puzzling Blackberry problem; and an interesting Catchy Caption of the Day.