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Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates - Ta-Nehisi Coates is a senior editor for The Atlantic, where he writes about culture, politics, and social issues for TheAtlantic.com and the magazine. He is the author of the memoir The Beautiful Struggle. More

Born in 1975, the product of two beautiful parents. Raised in West Baltimore—not quite The Wire, but sometimes ill all the same. Studied at the Mecca for some years in the mid-’90s. Emerged with a purpose, if not a degree. Slowly migrated up the East Coast with a baby and my beloved, until I reached the shores of Harlem. Wrote some stuff along the way.
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Veepstakes Continued

By Ta-Nehisi Coates

May 25 2008, 8:45 AM ET Comment

Commentor BillW speaks on his experience campaigning on behalf of Webb in the '06 Senate race:

I put in countless hours canvassing and making phone calls working for the Webb campaign in 06. It was a very tough campaign and quite frankly, we only won it because of George Allen's macaca moment. Even though Webb's beliefs in "Women Can't Fight" were absolutely the norm in the military's top brass at the time and he did apologize for them, they would have doomed his campaign had it not been for the flood of more racist revelations about Allen that followed his YouTubed racial slur. Even after all that the final result was very very close.This is exactly why Webb will not be Obama's VP choice. He just can't be. Webb will do much better to keep his senate seat anyway.

Alas, this isn't the first time I've heard this. That said, wasn't George Allen an incredibly strong candidate at the time. He's probably kicking himself right now. He's that doctrinaire conservative that Republicans couldn't find in their primaries.




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