By Kat Greene

With the race so close that a recount was likely, Democratic challenger Jim Webb held a slight edge over incumbent Sen. George Allen.

In Rockbridge County, Allen won 55 percent of the vote, but in Lexington, voters chose Webb with a little more than 60 percent.

The campaign visited Rockbridge twice. On Sept. 22, Webb visited Lexington in a rally on Hopkins Green. He and fellow Democrat David Cox spoke to a small crowd of supporters who had braved the rain to attend.

Allen visited Lexington during the Labor Day parade, which Webb missed because he said he wanted to be with his son before he was shipped to Iraq.

Neither candidate visited Rockbridge County more than once, because they are more focused on the swing voters in northern Virginia and the Hampton Roads area.

The race should have been in the bag for Allen, the Republican incumbent.

Political newcomer Jim Webb, his Democratic challenger, didn’t seem to have a chance against a longtime politician with his eyes on the 2008 presidency.

But that was before Aug. 11, before Allen put his foot in his mouth, and Webb launched what was probably the best possible publicity campaign to take advantage of it.

In a video that became an Internet sensation, Allen referred to one of Webb’s volunteers as “macaca.” The volunteer, a native of Fairfax County of Indian descent, took it as an insult, and the reversal began.

Later, Allen was grilled by some football players from his college years who accused him of using the “n-word".

In a September debate, a reporter asked Allen about his Jewish heritage. His mother was raised in French Tunisia, where her father had apparently fled to escape the Nazis. He said he didn’t think the question was relevant at the time, but that he didn’t have a Jewish background.

Allen’s grandfather was, in fact, Jewish. He said his mother had concealed it from him, and that he was not raised practicing the Jewish faith.

But the gaffe didn’t affect Allen as much as Webb, who tried to use it as a campaign tactic. It backfired when he emphasized Allen’s Jewish heritage on his website. He was accused of being anti-Semitic, and Allen’s ratings went up.

Webb struggled throughout his campaign with controversy over an article he wrote in the Washington Times against women in the Naval Academy.

Several women who had attended the Academy in the early 1980’s came forward and said that the article, published in 1979, only made things harder for them.

Though Webb, a former Navy secretary and Marine, later apologized for the rude language in parts of the article, it forced him to work harder to try and win votes from women.

A bestselling author, Webb also dealt with questions about the language in several of his novels. His republican accusers say that he degrades women in some passages of the books.

Webb added a section devoted to women on his website to try and counteract the attacks.

He also ran into problems when he began running advertisements featuring old footage of Ronald Reagan. Reagan’s widow asked him to pull the ads from his campaign, but he refused, saying that the footage is public property.

For Allen, the public-relations nightmare continued. On Oct. 31, Allen staffers dealt harshly with a liberal blogger who peppered Allen with questions. The blogger asked Allen whether he spit on his first wife, and was then escorted out in a scuffle that made national news.

Each candidate used smear tactics throughout their campaigns. Whether it is successful remains to be seen.

Produced by Washington and Lee journalism students.

Lead supervisor:      Prof. Claudette Artwick

Reporting supervisors:

Prof. Doug Cumming

Prof. Robert de Maria

Prof. Phylissa Mitchell

Technical supervisor:  Michael Todd