Pretty amazing butterfly effect…
November 13, 2006
By Mary Ann Akers,
Roll Call Staff
Now we can bring you the true, untold story of the great political “macaca” debacle. Democrats not only have Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) to thank for his fatal slip of the tongue, they have young S.R. Sidarth, Mr. Macaca himself, and Democrats at Quinn Gillespie & Associates.
We wish we could call it a dirty trick, but we cant, because who could have predicted that Sidarths presence at that fateful campaign event would have provoked what was perceived as a racially derisive comment from Allen? No one, not even Karl Rove, could have plotted something that brilliantly disastrous. But heres how a senior Democrat at QGA a firm whose top Republican, Ed Gillespie, was a leading adviser to Allens campaign came to play a pivotal role in Macacagate.
Last spring, Bruce Andrews, of QGA, got a phone call from a friend needing a favor. A young University of Virginia student named S.R. Sidarth wanted an internship in Democratic politics.
“Yes, of course,” Andrews said. “Have the kid send me his résumé.”
Andrews called the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee on the students behalf to see if they had any internships left, but the “D-Trip” was full.
Then he had a conversation with Sidarth to see what the kid was looking to do. “Id really like to work on one of the Senate campaigns,” Andrews recalled him saying.
So Andrews advised the kid: “One rule in politics: Bet on the winner. Jim Webbs going to win the primary in Virginia.”
Andrews made a couple of calls, got a contact at the Webb campaign for Sidarth and sent the lad on his way.
That was the last he heard of Sidarth, until he opened the paper one morning in August when he returned home from a trip and saw the news splashed across the front page. At a campaign rally Allen had pointed at Sidarth, who had become the traveling “mole” for Democrat Webbs campaign, and called him a “macaca,” saying, “Welcome to America, welcome to Virginia.”
Oh dear. “I turned to my wife and said, Holy s—! Youre not going to believe this! Remember that kid I was trying to help? He is Macaca!”
And that is Andrews footnote in history: helping S.R. Sidarth get an internship with the Webb campaign and a future in Democratic politics.
“Thank God the DCCC was all full up,” Andrews joked on the phone Friday, giddy over the Democratic tidal wave in last weeks mid-term elections. “History could have been different had S.R. Sidarth ended up at the DCCC.”
We decided not to rub salt in poor Ed Gillespies wounds and opted against calling him for comment on his firms role in making such history.
