"An Al Weed campaign staff member resigned Wednesday after sending out an e-mail referring to U.S. Sen. George Allen in an anti-Semitic manner.

The e-mail read, “Sen. George ‘Macacawitz’ Allen in Danville TOMORROW,” and “SHOW UP AND LET THE SENATOR KNOW WE ARE SICK OF HIS BULLSH*T!”

Meryl Ibis, the southwest regional field organizer for Weed’s campaign, sent out the e-mail to City Council members, local Democrats and the media late Tuesday night, encouraging them to attend a rally at 2 p.m. Wednesday at Luna Innovations.

Curt Gleeson, Weed’s spokesman, said Ibis resigned Wednesday morning after the Danville Register & Bee brought the e-mail to the campaign’s attention.

Dick Wadhams, Allen’s campaign manager, said the e-mail is proof of the anti-Semitic nature of the campaign to unseat Allen. Allen confirmed last month that his mother is Jewish and has been blasted for calling a campaign aide for his opponent, Jim Webb, “Macaca” during an August campaign stop in Dickenson County.

“Here we go again,” Wadhams said.

Allen, who made a campaign stop at Luna Innovations in Danville on Wednesday, brushed off the e-mail as a typical negative smear from his opponents.

“I want a campaign based on ideas, issues and performance,” he said.

Robert E. Denton Jr., a political analyst for WSLS News Channel 10, said the e-mail is anti-Semitic, and said Weed and the staffer owe Allen an apology.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Denton said Wednesday during a telephone interview. “This would be labeled hate speech.”

Denton said situations like this reflect the level of intensity seen in politics today since the 2000 presidential election. He said the level of polarization in politics today is all or none. He also said elected officials are shown a lack of respect that he’s never seen in his lifetime.

“The emotion in contemporary politics, I find, is rather frightening,” Denton said.

It used to be that political opponents ran reasonably clean campaigns and could shake hands and campaign another day, he said.

“You’re not going to see that anymore.”

Sheila Baynes, chairwoman of the Danville Democratic Committee, said the e-mail was a gross error in judgment.

“I don’t care what party does it, it’s absolutely wrong,” said Baynes, who was among that received the e-mail. “I agree it was a severe error in judgment and it is certainly not something my party condones.”

Instead of issuing an apology, Weed called on Goode to resign from Congress.

“We now ask for Virgil Goode to submit his resignation as well, because his actions are much more serious, taking $100,000, most of it illegal, and then wrangling $15 million in federal contracts the Pentagon never asked for,” Weed said in a prepared statement. “It was one thing when Virgil Goode was just a do-nothing member of Congress, but now he’s given our tax dollars to criminals and become part of the ongoing, widespread, corrupt lobbying scandals. He should resign or be fired next month.”

Councilman Adam Tomer, who also received the e-mail, said people should focus on the facts in the election.

“I think we need to get beyond the mudslinging and focus on the issues,” he said. “Mudslinging never created a single job or moved Virginia forward.”

Tomer added that even in politics people should always maintain professionalism, and derogatory language and racism have no place in politics.

Gleeson said Weed has nothing to apologize for because of the e-mail.

“We’re moving on,” Gleeson said.

Goode said the e-mail from Weed’s campaign was off base and he supports Allen.

“He did a good job as governor and has done a good job as senator. They should apologize on behalf on the campaign, those who did it,” Goode said." (Bernard Baker and Jessica Zarebski, Danville Register and Bee, October 5, 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