Leading up the Senate primary election on Tuesday, June 13, Democrats Harris Miller (left) and James Webb have both come under attack for their alleged Republican sympathies.
Poor George Allen. Back in March, The New York Times reported that the Virginia Senator is bored with his job. The paper quoted him telling a crowd in Iowa that the Senate is “too slow for me.” Well, be careful what you wish for—the Republican pseudo cowboy now has a pair of Democrats injecting some real excitement into his life.
On Tuesday, June 13, Democratic voters will head to the polls in the Senate primary to see whether James Webb or Harris Miller will get the chance to run against Allen in November. Charlottesville and Albemarle have emerged as a battleground area for these two candidates, says Fred Hudson, chair of the Albemarle Democratic Party.
As an author of military suspense novels and a former Secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan, Webb enjoys a great deal more name recognition than Miller, who is a telecommunications lobbyist from Northern Virginia. Both men have one thing in common, though: Each has been criticized inside their own party for excessive Republican ties. Webb endorsed both Allen and George Bush in 2000, while Miller has previously lobbied Congress on behalf of Diebold, the voting machine manufacturer run by a Republican (and suspected by some Dems of helping the GOP rig the 2000 presidential election).
The good news for Democrats is that a May poll from Survey USA found that George Allen had a 47 percent “favorable” rating among Virginia voters; the bad news is that more than a third of respondents said they were “unfamiliar” with both Webb and Harris. Hudson says Harris’ strategy has been to campaign across Virginia, including rural areas, while Webb has focused on population centers. Both have visited Charlottesville in recent weeks.
Hudson says his biggest hope is for a high turnout, even though primaries do not usually generate much voter excitement. “A low voter turnout can give you a candidate that only a small number of people support, and that’s not where we want to be,” he says.—John Borgmeyer