Webb Campaign Brings Out the Whole Race Deck

It's not enough these days to trot out the race card, now you have to throw out the whole deck. The James Webb campaign in Virginia has decided that the only way to win is to slander George Allen by claiming he is (or was 35 years ago) a racist:

Sen. George Allen on Monday denounced as "ludicrously false" claims from a former college football teammate that he frequently used a racial slur to refer to black people.

Dr. Ken Shelton, now a radiologist in Hendersonville, N.C., also alleges that Allen, a former University of Virginia quarterback, once stuffed the severed head of a deer into a black household's oversized mail box.

In an Associated Press interview Monday, Allen vehemently denied the allegations Shelton made in an article published Sunday in the online magazine Salon.com and an AP interview Sunday night. His campaign released statements from four other ex-teammates defending Allen and rejecting Shelton's claims.

"The story and his comments and assertions in there are completely false," Allen said during an interview with AP reporters and editors. "I don't remember ever using that word and it is absolutely false that that was ever part of my vocabulary."

Is this really a winning strategy? Doesn't this have just as much chance of turning off moderate voters who might have gone for Webb? I personally think it's a loser for the Webb campaign.