E-Mail This Article to a Friend Charm/offensive Meet George Allen, Republican ‘It’ Boy BY ADAM REILLY
	Related links Senator George Allen, R-Virginia George Allen’s senatorial home page. Fifth Quarter: The Scrimmage of a Football Coach’s Daughter Memoir by Jennifer Allen, Senator Allen’s sister. Includes extensive detail on the senator’s raucous and apparently violent youth. Commonwealth Conservative: George Allen the Frontrunner? Discussion of Allen’s presidential buzz from a good conservative blog focused on Virginia politics. The Decembrist: A Tough Question for George Allen More discussion of Allen’s presidential prospects from a blogger on the liberal end of the political spectrum.

Manchester, NH — He is a political Frankenstein, a mix of the last three two-term presidents. The crinkly-eyed smiles and effusive empathy are Clintonian. The redneck swagger and testiness evoke George W. Bush. Finally — and fittingly, since Ronald Reagan is one of his heroes — George Allen looks downright Gipper-esque as he discusses America’s bright future, gazing vaguely into the distance as if lost in a reverie or searching for a teleprompter.

It’s these qualities, more than any concrete ideas or achievements, that have made the junior senator from Virginia an early favorite for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. And they should strike fear into the hearts of liberals everywhere.

This spring, a National Journal poll of Republican insiders named the 53-year-old Allen the party’s top presidential contender, ahead of several better-known rivals. Since then, the buzz around Allen — a former congressman who was Virginia’s governor from 1994 to 1998, and who defeated Democratic incumbent Chuck Robb to win his Senate seat in 2000 — has continued to build. Reporters from Virginia now follow Allen around the country in the same way Massachusetts reporters trail Romney, pushing him to discuss his plans and settling for pat assurances that Allen is focused on representing the good people of Virginia.

Today, though, Allen is taking a break from this responsibility. It’s a Saturday in late June, and he has traveled to New England to charm the GOP die-hards at the New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women’s Lilac Luncheon. Before he speaks, Allen methodically greets a throng of well-wishers packed into a cavernous function hall at the Manchester Radisson, hoping for a snapshot and a quick chat. The senator’s posture hints at his pedigree: a son of NFL Hall of Fame coach George Allen Sr., the former University of Virginia quarterback still carries himself like an athlete — leaned slightly forward, arms loose at his sides, one cowboy-booted foot bearing most of his weight. And as he schmoozes with the unknown men and women who may become his ground troops in a few years, it’s clear Allen is a campaign-trail natural. The men get hearty backslaps, the women solicitous touches on the shoulder, and every handshake is held a few seconds longer than usual for maximum effect.

Through it all, George Will — the Newsweek columnist, ABC-TV commentator, and conservative agenda-setter — watches intently. Will is here to research an upcoming column, but he’s already convinced that the hype surrounding his subject is legitimate. For starters, he tells me, Allen’s gubernatorial experience should reduce the liability inherent in running as a senator (see John Kerry, 2004).

Moreover, Will adds, Allen’s personal charm would be a potent weapon during the primaries, which still give inordinate weight to the small states of New Hampshire and Iowa. "If you take the opinion polls right now, it’s mostly name recognition — it’s Giuliani and McCain and everyone else — but they’re meaningless at this point," he says. "[Allen] has the manner.... You hate to condemn someone with this in Republican eyes, but he has Clinton’s people skills one-on-one. And in this state and everywhere else, early in the process, it’s retail politics."

A rage to win

So it is — and Allen watchers from both parties agree this is where the senator is strongest. "He is probably one of the most gifted politicians I’ve ever seen," admits one Virginia Democrat. "He’s very gifted and very skilled — he’s your typical backslapping, glad-handing politician that everyone wants to have a beer with on their front porch. He’s just a very good communicator, in the mode of George W. Bush."

Given Allen’s biography, the Bush comparison is especially apt. Like Bush, Allen wasn’t born a good ol’ boy. He came of age in Southern California, where his father coached the Los Angeles Rams and raised his family in the exclusive Palos Verdes Peninsula. Yet in Fifth Quarter: The Scrimmage of a Football Coach’s Daughter (Random House), Jennifer Allen, the senator’s sister, hints that her brother craved a different environment from an early age. "George loved Hee Haw," Allen writes. "His favorite character was big, slow-witted Junior.... There was ... something mildly country-thuggish about Junior that I think George felt akin to." Whenever this affinity was born, it bloomed after Allen transferred from UCLA. Today, the senator’s fondness for what he considers the trappings of a down-home Virginian (shotguns, country music, chewing tobacco, the aforementioned cowboy boots) is the stuff of political lore.

Allen’s mind, too, resembles Bush’s. While much has been made of Clinton’s restless mental agility, both Bush’s admirers and detractors consider his relentless focus a defining trait. This goes for Allen as well, but with an odd twist: the senator seems to process every new bit of data by making a football analogy. In Manchester, the Phoenix asked Allen to describe himself to New Englanders. "I did grow up in a football family," he replies in a slow, slight Southern drawl. "And I do believe in a meritocracy and a level playing field for all people. And I am competitive." Then he switches gears, touching briefly on domestic priorities (training more engineers to make America the "world capital of innovation") and international goals ("to continue the march of freedom") before name-checking Reagan and another Virginia politician, Thomas Jefferson. "I’m optimistic about the future," Allen concludes. "But it’s not easy. It’s not as if everything just — things naturally happen, and don’t happen, or will happen, even if no one makes an effort. But you have to have the right policy, the right leadership. And I think you can motivate people to those goals."

It is a telling exchange. When Allen takes on a tricky subject, like the contingent nature of progress, he can flounder. But if he uses football metaphors to make problems simple and manageable, he fares better. Football seems to function as a kind of mental security blanket for Allen — a touchstone he uses to ground himself before venturing into less comfortable territory.