DURING campaign season, politicians trek all over their district, state and even country to drum up support. It makes sense, then, for this year's Virginia Senate race to be characterized by footwear. And in a time of war, Southerners know when to trust the candidate in combat boots.
In a recent New York Times article covering the Sept. 17 "Meet the Press" debate between Sen. George Allen, R-Va., and his Democratic challenger James Webb, a photograph of the duo's shoes was included that provides great insight into the two candidates and their respective levels of competency in handling the Iraq quagmire.
George Allen, a reluctant California native, has spent his entire adult life cultivating a personal image displaying everything backward and anachronistic of Southern culture. As everyone undoubtedly knows by now, several of Allen's former teammates and colleagues have come out of the woodwork claiming to have heard the ersatz Virginian use racial slurs. These allegations are not hard to believe, given that Allen called a University student "macaca" while the student was holding a video camera. Edward Sabournie, a former football player, told The Cavalier Daily in an interview that Allen commonly used the "n" word in reference to blacks as well as the term "wetbacks" to refer to Latinos. Another fellow University student and teammate of Allen told The Cavalier Daily in an interview that this good ole boy-turned-senator used to strut around Newcomb Hall spitting tobacco juice on the floors and walls. Understandable -- Allen probably didn't have a Dixie cup. But what reveals most about his character is that pair of ebony cowboy boots, shiny and spotless, black as tobacco juice.
Contrast these shoes with Jim Webb's camel brown, broken-in combat boots. Jim Webb fought as a rifle platoon and company commander in Vietnam. Later he went on to serve as secretary of Navy in the Reagan administration. It is clear that Webb, with experience in both policy and combat, would be the senator to handle our foreign policy complexities.
Of course, the electorate should care about more issues than war and judge candidates holistically based on their policy platforms. However, in this single-issue environment, Democrats shrewdly chose Jim Webb to carry the party banner. Webb opposed the Iraq war from the beginning. As Webb said in a speech in August, reassuring the Iraqi people of America's intent to remove troops from their country in the near future will take the "moral high-ground away from the insurgency in the eyes of the Muslim world, and it will diffuse the concerns of some Iraqis that we plan to stay for good." Of course Iraqi insurgents will only continue to multiply when it looks like the country is being colonized indefinitely. Webb seems to be sympathetic to this reality and has promised to help develop a policy with clearer objectives, as opposed to "build a democracy."
Webb also wants actively and openly to engage neighboring Middle Eastern countries in building a stable Iraq. He calls Syria's alliance with Iran "unnatural" and argues America should open direct talks with Syria. While these policies may sound controversial, certainly it's better to have a senator willing to analyze alternatives to the current "we'll stay there until all the insurgents/terrorists/Iraqis leave or die" plan.
George Allen, on the other hand, toes the line of the Bush administration. On his official Web site, Allen simply includes a few platitudes about how withdrawing from Iraq would be "forfeiting to the terrorists" and how America must "help the tree of liberty take root in Iraq." As long as Iraq continues to be a desert, Allen may have a problem growing trees, literally or figuratively.
The Republican spin machine has set the stage for a game the party is bound to lose in Virginia, in which the candidate who fought in a war and headed a military branch is -- shockingly -- a Democrat. If Webb, who is basically a hawkish moderate, loses his Virginia election to a less qualified candidate, the Old Dominion will look blindly beholden to the GOP.
Cowboy boots may conjure up romantic images of the old West, but the desperado diplomacy of the Bush administration that Allen praises mandates that Virginia voters vote for change: change in the form of a challenger whose boots know what it means to fight and to make conscientious decisions about Iraq not only because he remembers the dusty hell of battlefields, but because his son is over there as well. This isn't meant to sentimentalize the Democratic candidate. But having his son in Iraq will surely make Webb's foreign policy votes a little more cautious -- a little more concerned about the flag-draped coffins flown back from distant lands.
Marta Cook's column usually appears Wednesday in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at mcook@cavalierdaily.com.
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