Allen campaign violates debate agreement

Already much beleaguered during this year’s U.S. Senate race, incumbent George Allen now faces criticism from another group: the League of Women Voters of Virginia (LWVVA). That group hosted the October 9 debate between Allen and his Democratic challenger Jim Webb. For that event, both candidates signed agreements saying “the candidates agree to not use clips of the opposing candidate for campaign purposes,” in order to encourage candidates to provide more candid responses rather than mere sound bites. But Allen’s campaign has violated that agreement, according to the LWVVA, airing an ad that uses a brief clip of a Webb comment to imply that Webb wants to raise taxes.
    Anne Kanter, LWVVA voter service director, says it is just this kind of use that the agreement was drafted to prevent. Her group has repeatedly requested the Allen campaign to pull the ad, but so far they have not complied.
    “It’s an agreement, not a contract, so there’s not much we can do about it,” says Kanter. “All we have is the power of public opinion.”
    According to the LWVVA, Allen’s campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, has responded that the agreement was already negated by the Webb camp when they linked their website to partisan blog Raising Kaine that linked to a YouTube debate video (still with us?). Yet the YouTube video is simply of the debate in its entirety, says Kanter, and the Webb campaign immediately removed any links to the disputed blog post upon the League’s request.
    “We don’t think that the fact that they’re claiming that the Webb campaign did something is a valid excuse,” Kanter says.
    Spokesmen for Allen’s campaign did not return calls by press time.