"Democrat Jim Webb and U.S. Sen. George Allen, R-Fairfax County, debated differing views of the war in Iraq, the administration of President Bush and Allen’s six-year record in the Senate on Saturday during their first formal face-to-face encounter in a nationally watched Senate race.

“My friends, you all know me,” Allen told a crowd of Virginia Bar Association members at The Homestead resort as he laid out a case for his re-election based on six years of Senate experience plus a term as Virginia governor from 1994 to 1998.

“It is a record of performance that is based on facts, not fiction,” Allen said, slipping in one of several digs at Webb, an author and former Navy secretary under President Reagan.

Webb, a decorated Marine Vietnam war veteran and Republican turned Democrat, spent much of the debate blasting the Bush record on Iraq and domestic policy and tying Allen to Bush as a senator who voted with the president 97 percent of the time.

“When two people agree with each other 97 percent of the time, one of them doesn’t need a job,” Webb said in his strongest poke at Allen. “George agrees with the president on the oil companies. He has gotten almost $250,000 in contributions from the oil companies. He voted to maintain tax breaks for them that have added up to something like $18 billion.”

Appearing as a first-time candidate in his first debate, Webb borrowed a line from Reagan and said he wants to ask Virginians, “Is this country better off than it was six years ago? Have we benefited from leadership that could demonstrate competent judgment and foresight on the issues that confront us? Are we more well respected around the world? Is our economy truly fairer to all Americans that it was? Is your job secure?”

Saying he is “not a political figure,” Webb said he would like to see Congress gain more independent thinkers, “people who are not afraid to question a president when they disagree with him.”

Speaking of his backing of Bush, Allen responded that it would be “easy to kick someone when they’re down. I won’t kick a friend when he’s down.”

Political experience

Allen took advantage of Webb’s relative inexperience by forcing Webb to admit he did not know about a major proposal for a Hampton Roads port project at Craney Island off Portsmouth.

The senator asked Webb to discuss his ideas for the proper use of Craney Island, a manmade peninsula created with mud dredged from a shipping channel.

“I am not sure where Craney Island is. Why don’t you tell me,” Webb began.

“Craney Island’s in Virginia,” Allen responded.

“OK. What’s the issue?” Webb asked

Allen said the Senate finally got the U.S Army Corps of Engineers to agree to a fourth port there that he said would create tens of thousands of jobs for Virginia.

Webb said he is “not a career politician. I’m not going to try to make stuff up when I don’t know the facts on something, but I am a leader and I know how to make leadership decisions, and the best answer to your question is that I would sit down with people like [Gov.] Tim Kaine and work with him to figure out a good solution to that problem.”

Allen said the Craney Island port project is a really important issue to Virginians that has been in the news since the late 1980s.

Webb criticized Allen’s vote last week against federally funded embryonic stem cell research, saying it was out of step with Republicans like U.S. Sen. John W. Warner, R-Alexandria, and Nancy Reagan, as well as with “the overwhelming preponderance of the scientific community.”

Attacking the status quo

The Democrat said Allen’s interest in running for president in 2008 might have caused the Republican to switch from previous support of such research. “You can’t help but wonder if he is being pulled toward the more extremist base of the Republican Party, which is the nominating base,” Webb said.

“The embryos that we are discussing are embryos that were going to be destroyed,” Webb said of the bill Allen opposed and Bush vetoed. “I don’t understand that vote.”

Allen insisted that he supports other types of stem cell research, “but not the kind that destroys a human embryo.”

Allen said he supports a constitutional amendment also on the ballot Nov. 7 in Virginia to define marriage as between one man and one woman and he brushed aside concerns from Webb that the amendment could affect the rights of unmarried heterosexuals and gay Virginians alike.

“To be focusing on all of that is just a smokescreen for those who I think are out of touch with the values of Virginia,” Allen said of Webb’s concerns about the second paragraph of the proposed amendment. “It may be the values of Hollywood, but they are not the values of Virginia.”

Webb urged Allen to read the second paragraph of the amendment. “This will affect a lot of relationships,” he said. “The way this amendment is structured, it can affect heterosexual and gay relationships.”

On Iraq, Webb said the Bush administration has never explained what he called plans for four permanent American bases there.

Allen said the four bases are a good idea to protect American troops as long as they are there.

“This is a smart thing to do,” Allen said, adding that the bases “will not be made to be permanent U.S. bases.”

Breaking it down

Debate moderator Robert Holsworth, dean of Virginia Commonwealth University’s College of Humanities and Sciences, said both candidates did well enough.

If Webb is assumed to be a heavy underdog, “there’s nothing that changed it for the positive,” Holsworth said. “I think Webb’s best passion is when he’s the defender of ordinary people against the elite.”

Robert Denton, a Virginia Tech political analyst, said Webb did relatively well for a newcomer, especially after Allen displayed superior knowledge of the Tidewater port issue.

“He didn’t get defensive. He kept his cool,” Denton said of Webb. Denton added that Webb did not do very much to fire up a Democratic Party base, especially by citing Ronald Reagan, not Bill Clinton, as the president he considers a model.

State Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath County, said the Hot Springs debate showed that Webb “is not a politician. He’s an intellectual, but he was daggone impressive.”

“George Allen has had six years in the U.S. Senate,” Deeds said. “He said measure a person by what he has done. For six years, George Allen has had an easy job. He has agreed with George Bush every step of the way. Bush has destabilized the Middle East. He had failed to enforce our immigration laws and he has overseen the greatest widening between the haves and the have-nots in American history.”

Former Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore saw the debate quite differently and said Allen won it on experience.

“Sen. Allen showed that he had a grasp on all the issues in Virginia, from Big Stone Gap in Southwest Virginia to Craney Island to Northern Virginia,” Kilgore said. “He always has the ability to bring it home in a way that makes us understand why it’s important to keep him in the United States Senate.”

Of Webb, Kilgore said, “I think he has a lot of preparation to do. You’ve got to prepare for any debate and I had two good experiences and one bad experience last year.”

The next scheduled Allen-Webb debate is before the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce on Sept. 18, the scene of the debate Kilgore referred to where he had his bad experience last year in his unsuccessful run for governor.

Kilgore said that Webb on Saturday “gave us no reason to throw out the senator and elect a new senator.”" (Bob Gibson, The Daily Progress, July 23, 2006)

Editor's Note: An index to coverage of George Allen on the Loper website may be found at http://loper.org/~george/archives/2006/Aug/925.html