In October of 2000, Larry Sabato moderated a debate between then candidate George Allen and Senator Chuck Robb. The Washington Post covered the debate with an article titled, "Larry Sabato, Immoderating the Debate in Richmond." (Pub. date 10/25/00) The article is available for purchase on the Washington Post's website.
Here's how Wa Post writer, Libby Copeland, phrased Sabato's performance:
The debate—and Sabato's proactive style—have caused their own small controversy in the final two weeks of the race. One analyst called the above exchange "good television" but "a waste of time." It was the tone of the debate that was so troubling, political observers and party activists are saying. The questions seemed editorializing, overly cynical.
Some viewers came away from the hour with a sense that there were three candidates on the stage in Richmond. There was the grinning, colorfully talkin' recent guvner; the measured, self-possessed senator; and—seizing nearly as much airtime—Sabato himself.
As one ranking Republican—frustrated by the debate's "nasty" questioning—put it, "Who is Larry Sabato? Who in hell died and made him king?"
It wasn't as if viewers weren't warned. Sabato informed them early on that "this is going to be an unusually tough debate." Then he set about to do something that, he says, few debates succeed at doing: revealing the "real" candidates.
The "real" candidate? Like revealing that one candidate is racist and uses the "n" word? Why did Sabato avoid the race issue in 2000?
Here's what Sabato had to say on
Hardball last night:
MATTHEWS: Well how did he have that reputation as a student, define that if you can?
SABATO: Well as you know and anybody who has followed politics recently knows, he had a long love affair with the confederate flag and other symbols of the confederacy, which frankly was a bit odd for somebody who grew up in an upper middle class family with every possible privilege in southern California. It was an unusual love affair.
MATTHEWS: Did you know about this at the time, in real time?
SABATO: Oh yes, yes, I did.
MATTHEWS: You knew that George Allen's son, the son of the former great football coach for the L.A. Rams and for the Skins here in Washington, had a son who was—what did you call him?
SABATO: I said he was devoted to, I called him a redneck, but I think he would embrace that term himself, Some people called him neck. That was his nickname.
So we know that Sabato knew about Allen's supposed past in 2000, yet didn't bring it up at the debate. Sabato told Kathryn this very morning, "character matters enormously." George Allen and the "n" word is a character issue today, but it wasn't in 2000? There's a higher character bar for a President than a Senator or Congressman? Nonsense.
And it's not like Sabato didn't question candidate Allen on gaffes he had made in the past. From Copeland's Wa Post article:
The debate did have its moments of awkwardness—if that passes for candor. What Sabato called "the first tough question for Mr. Allen" drew on a controversial remark Allen made as governor, in which he exhorted his fellow Republicans to enjoy, figuratively speaking, "knocking [the Democrats'] soft teeth down their whining throats." Sabato linked the remark with "other inflammatory statements" of Allen's, and asked him if he could understand why Virginians thought Robb more senatorial.
Allen seemed truly thrown for a moment, his near-perpetual smile temporarily missing. "So what's the question?" he asked.
"The question is very clear, Mr. Allen. Please proceed," Sabato replied firmly.
Sabato had his chance to bring up Allen's past and he sat on it. Sabato decided then, when he had every opportunity to bring it up, that it was not worthy of a Senatorial contest. What's changed? The excuse that George Allen might one day run for President doesn't cut it. There is absolutely no reason for Larry Sabato to have gone on Hardball last night and say what he did without backing it up. Nothing has changed from six years ago.
Back to 2000. Who won the debate? Copeland ends her article with this:
Then again, Holsworth added, "if either of these candidates at any point during the debate had turned to each other" and decided to forgo questions from Sabato and the panelists, and instead just shoot each other their own questions, "they would have been seen as the hands-down winners of the event."
Sabato either needs to fess up his secret "n" word source or retract it. As Liddy Copeland reported back in 2000, nobody died and made Sabato king - yesterday, or today.
