Monkey Festing?
By Captain Ed on National Politics
Captain's Quarters
Just a couple of weeks after Democrats went into high dudgeon over the poor treatment given one of their oppo researchers at a George Allen event and claiming Allen is a closet racist, the James Webb campaign has pulled much the same kind of boner. Staffers have organized a protest at an Allen event celebrating ethnicity that they have termed "Monkey Fest":
<<< Imagine: You are on the road looking for a quick place to grab a bite to eat and up ahead of you – just past the stop light are a dozen furry and yellow-peeled creatures – a gathering of monkeys, gorillas, and bananas. They are dead serious about their message: “Racism is NOT a family value.” But they are having a great time monkeying around with yellow balloons and bananas to give away. You think to yourself: “Perfect! A free snack!” as you pull over, park, and join them.
That’s right, we’re having a Monkey Fest and we hope you WILL join us. The special occasion is the Fairfax County GOP’s Ethnic Rally this Saturday, September 9th, 2006.
(Details further down) Allen and three other Republican candidates will be attending the event. We, Mac (the Monkey) and Anna (Banana) will be there, but much more exciting will be the opportunity to hang out with Patch Adams (clown doctor activist) who will be “Gorilla”! We will have 9 monkey face masks to share – first come, first serve and plenty of our favorite yellow snacks, balloons, and stickers. We encourage you to bring your own monkey outfits, masks, and signs. >>>
So the Webb staffers have decided to set up a counter-event to a Republican ethnic rally, after accusing them of racism .... and the geniuses involved decide to dress up like monkeys in protest? At an event that will draw people celebrating varying ethnic backgrounds, including people of color?
This sounds like a cute joke gone very bad. In general, I think counter-events to normal political events make little sense and generally paint the opposition as strident and a little obsessed. In this case, it makes them look like something else entirely. Perhaps to underscore their point, they'll start handing out copies of Uncle Tom's Cabin and have Jane Hamsher come out and do minstrel-show caricatures for the people who attend Allen's event. That should reinforce their arguments about Allen's latent racism, right?
The organizers of the ethnic rally beg to differ. Puneet Ahluwaliah, Harold Pyon, Dr. Rene Alvir, and Raul Danny Vargas have sent a letter to Webb's campaign demanding that they end this event before it starts:
<<< Unfortunately, it has come to our attention that paid members of your campaign are openly mocking our rally and advocating its disruption on the Raising Kaine website, run by two of your staffers, Lowell Feld and Josh Chernila. One of the posts this morning on Raising Kaine reads, “I expect to see people there who belong to one ethnic group, all dressed in ethnic clothing, speaking the same ethnic language with the same ethnic hairdo.” To date, this offensive post has only received positive feedback on the website.
In addition, Lowell Feld of your campaign suggests on Raising Kaine that those in attendance at the event Saturday will be White, Caucasian, Anglo, Saxon, Celtic, French, English, German, Irish, Scots-Irish. We resent this statement and its implication that only Caucasians would attend a Republican rally. While all these groups will be present and welcome Saturday, our rally will also include Afghan Americans, African Americans, Bolivian Americans, Chinese Americans, Colombian Americans, Cuban Americans, Filipino Americans, Indian Americans, Iranian Americans, Korean Americans, Pakistani Americans, Peruvian Americans, Puerto Rican Americans, Salvadoran Americans, Taiwanese Americans, Vietnamese Americans and more. >>>
Small wonder that the first comment on the Raising Kaine site is from Josh Chernilla, Webb's grassroots coordinator. His message? "Please get in touch with me. I need to talk with you." I'll bet he does.
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