"Virginia's Senate candidates and their national party backers will begin a final, multimillion-dollar advertising blitz Wednesday, flooding the state's airwaves with campaign commercials during the two weeks before Election Day.

The close battle between Republican incumbent George Allen and Democratic challenger James Webb has become a nationally watched race in which the GOP may have to make an unexpected stand to retain control of the Senate.

As a result, neither side is letting up. During the next week, television watchers in Northern Virginia will see an average of five Virginia Senate ads a day. Together, the campaigns and the Senate party committees in Washington are spending $3.45 million over the next week in Northern Virginia.

"Voters are going to see so much stuff," said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of a nonpartisan political newsletter in the District. "If they are not numb already, they ought to shoot their brains full of Novocain."

Voters in other parts of the state will also be deluged with the commercials about Allen and Webb. But most of the money will be flowing to Northern Virginia and its expensive media market, where a week's worth of ads for one candidate costs about $1 million. By contrast, running the same number of ads in the Roanoke media market costs about $89,000.

By Nov. 7, the Virginia Senate candidates will probably spend more than $25 million. And the race, which has become closer than anyone predicted several months ago, has drawn financial resources for both parties away from other competitive states.

"There is a lot of national Democratic money flying into Virginia, and we are not going to stand idly by while it does," said Dan Ronayne, a spokesman for the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, which has invested about $1.4 million in Virginia ads.

The Republican committee's first ad attacks Webb for his reaction to the Navy's Tailhook Association scandal, in which women were assaulted at a Las Vegas convention in 1991.

"Jim Webb, he called this scandal a witch hunt and a feminist plot," the female announcer says. "Jim Webb. Right for '06. 1806."

The ad cites a 1992 New York Times article in which Webb said, "A botched internal investigation and the ongoing revelations of inexcusable harassment of women . . . have also left in their wake a witch hunt that threatens to swamp the entire naval service."

Webb campaign officials said the GOP ad is unfair and takes Webb's past statements about Tailhook out of context.

"Like everything that comes out of Republicans these days, it is complete lies and distortions about Jim's record and what Jim has said and done in the past," said Kristian Denny Todd, a Webb spokeswoman. "The bottom line is they are desperate. For a guy who has been in office in this state for 26 years, [Allen] has nothing to offer but this kind of garbage."

Phil Singer, a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesman, predicted that the GOP ad would backfire.

"At a time when people are desperate for a change in policy in Iraq and the middle class is feeling squeezed, they want to hear solutions that are going to work and not political potshots and ads like the ones Allen and his allies are putting up that are purely negative," Singer said.

Webb has launched two TV commercials, including one that features former governor Mark R. Warner (D). In that ad, the popular ex-governor describes Webb's background and concludes by urging voters to choose Webb.

"I know Jim Webb," Warner says, looking into the camera. "I know his independence. And I know he'll make us proud."

Dick Wadhams, Allen's campaign manager, said voters "are going to see lots of ads" between now and Nov. 7. "This is a race for the United States Senate. That is what races for the United States Senate have, lots of ads," Wadhams said. "But it is also important to note Senator Allen is traveling across the commonwealth on a very ambitious schedule, which he has done many times in the past."

Webb has also started running an ad that criticizes Allen's record of opposing increases to the minimum wage and allowing increases in college tuition, charges that Allen's campaign officials have denied.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has begun airing a commercial playing up Allen's loyalty to President Bush. It features Allen saying the phrase "stay the course" as an announcer says that "George Allen supports President Bush 96 percent of the time."

The ad continues: "Staying the course is not a strategy for victory in Iraq. And voting 96 percent with Bush won't move our country forward."" (Kyle Daly, C-Ville Weekly, October 24, 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