James Webb and George Allen were invited to address the state American Legion convention to talk about, among other things, their positions on the Iraq war.
The
AP article I'm reading doesn't give an assessment of how either candidate was received by the convention, but this paragraph could be informative:
At the close of Allen's remarks, Legion officers singled him out for a special ovation for supporting a constitutional ban on burning the American flag. Allen voted for the amendment, which the Senate rejected two weeks ago. Webb, who opposes the amendment on free-speech grounds, did not mention the flag amendment and received no comparable recognition, even though he is a legionnaire.
James Webb came out against the flag amendment, which set off a
war of words between the two camps. The thing is, the last time the issue of flag burning became a campaign issue, George Allen
used it quite effectively in his eventual win against incumbent Chuck Robb. Robb, like Webb, is a Vietnam veteran who was against the flag amendment.
If the special ovation that Allen received at the American Legion convention is any indication, Virginia veterans want their politicians to support a flag burning amendment. This bodes well for Allen in November.
