The state of Virginia, which once was a reliably Republican citadel, has now turned Blue. For those uninitiated about American politics - Red is the color of Republicans and Blue the color of Democrats.
Arguably the first breach in this Republican fort, just south of US Capital Washington DC came in the Senate election of 2008 - the credit for which goes to a young Indian American named S R Sidharth.
20 year old Sidharth was filming a campaign by the 2 time sitting Republican Senator George Allen, who was running for his 3rd term. When he saw Sidharth, the senator exclaimed - "Let's give a welcome to the Macaca here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia".
It was clearly a racist comment and was exploited to the hilt by his Democrat opponent. In spite of the prompt apology from George Allen, the poll numbers of the otherwise comfortably leading Republican candidate started to sink, enough for give his Democrat opponent a narrow victory on the election day.
No question Allen's " Macaca moment" led to his downfall, from which he could never recover. Once considered a prospective Presidential candidate, he could never get elected, his racist remark being the last nail on his political Coffin.
No doubt Sidharth was the harbinger of the beginning of the end of Republican dominance of the state of Virginia. Two years later, Barack Obama carried the state - by a Democratic Presidential candidate after 44 years, first time since 1964.
Obama again carried Virginia again in 2012. Now both the Senators, the Governor being Democrats and Hillary leading Trump by double digits, the transformation of the state from a solid Red to a Blue state is complete.
The main reason behind this change - the demography of Virginia is getting more and more the reliably Democrats, as the College educated, immigrants are flooding the northern part of the state of DC suburbs (same case in Research Triangle area of Raleigh, North Carolina has made it a swing state).
Yet, S R Sidharth will go down in history as the pioneer who opened up the floodgates of Republican levee, letting the Democrats to barge in, by handing George Allen his "Macaca moment" and changing the electoral map of Virginia and America.
Arguably the first breach in this Republican fort, just south of US Capital Washington DC came in the Senate election of 2008 - the credit for which goes to a young Indian American named S R Sidharth.
20 year old Sidharth was filming a campaign by the 2 time sitting Republican Senator George Allen, who was running for his 3rd term. When he saw Sidharth, the senator exclaimed - "Let's give a welcome to the Macaca here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia".
It was clearly a racist comment and was exploited to the hilt by his Democrat opponent. In spite of the prompt apology from George Allen, the poll numbers of the otherwise comfortably leading Republican candidate started to sink, enough for give his Democrat opponent a narrow victory on the election day.
No question Allen's " Macaca moment" led to his downfall, from which he could never recover. Once considered a prospective Presidential candidate, he could never get elected, his racist remark being the last nail on his political Coffin.
No doubt Sidharth was the harbinger of the beginning of the end of Republican dominance of the state of Virginia. Two years later, Barack Obama carried the state - by a Democratic Presidential candidate after 44 years, first time since 1964.
Obama again carried Virginia again in 2012. Now both the Senators, the Governor being Democrats and Hillary leading Trump by double digits, the transformation of the state from a solid Red to a Blue state is complete.
The main reason behind this change - the demography of Virginia is getting more and more the reliably Democrats, as the College educated, immigrants are flooding the northern part of the state of DC suburbs (same case in Research Triangle area of Raleigh, North Carolina has made it a swing state).
Yet, S R Sidharth will go down in history as the pioneer who opened up the floodgates of Republican levee, letting the Democrats to barge in, by handing George Allen his "Macaca moment" and changing the electoral map of Virginia and America.
No comments:
Post a Comment