I’ll stop with these now, but overwhelmingly, even people who think the Allen novel strategy screams “desperate,” think it works for Allen:

If I may offer an alternate-alternate view. I know this is way outside my field of expertise–which is military and defense issues–but I think the revelations of Webb’s fiction writing is the equivalent of a 2,000lb JDAM slamming into Webb’s election HQ. And, without being condescending, I think I can say the vast majority of Americans, in Virginia and elsewhere, have never read Flannery O’Connor or even heard of her. And comparing those passages in Webb’s novels to the Bible? I wouldn’t recommend doing that anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon Line (well, OK maybe in parts of Alexandria and New Orleans.) Here, based admittedly on anecdotal evidence, is why I offer my alternative view to your lit-savvy correspondent: Webb, the pseudo-Dem, has marketed himself, in part, on the perception that he is a strong, pro-military combat vet. I know from your posts that you think Allen has gone all squishy on the feminist stuff. Well, this revelation seems to hit both men and women in the same fashion. For example, a half dozen of my uniformed male colleagues this AM were appalled that this guy could write some of these things. When a man who also happens to have children, in this case sons, is confronted with the scene Webb composed, the reaction is, well, strong. The common response I heard this morning has been “sick son of a b***h. Likewise, I have a sister-in-law in Newport News who is also a former Navy helicopter pilot. She is a weak Republican (not thrilled about Iraq) and was talking about not voting in the VA senate contest. Her reaction to Webb’s prose, relayed to my wife during an on-line chat they have every morning, was volcanic. She is a quirky lady–a “touchy” feminist who nevertheless opposes abortion. Her experiences in the Navy (after Webb’s tenure, BTW) made her even “touchier.” She also has two sons. She declared this morning that based on Webb’s earlier comments about women in the military and his sick imagination, she is voting for Allen. Both she and my wife agree that passages such as these are gratuitous–it’s not as though he was recounting actual events and, in my wife’s view, could have gotten the point across without the graphic account. They (and my male colleagues) think that these writings are a reflection of Webb the man, just as a film director who revels in gore or sex comes to be identified as a person with what he portrays on the screen. Likewise, I have two sons, and the passage I read on Drudge made me sick. Webb, and his campaign staff at the Washington Post, took this campaign down this road with all the nonsense about the “N” word, Confederate flags and other stupid “issues” (and did we mention Foley?). This is the ultimate blowback. This guy wrote this kind of stuff in almost every novel he penned. It’s the kind of stuff that sends school board members running for their professional lives when those Red state “rubes and nicks” the WashPo makes fun of discover it in their kids’ English lit homework. Allen seems to be holding onto the men’s vote; thus the “appeal” to women we normally hear from Dems. But if what I have witnessed here, and read elsewhere on the web, is indicative of a broader reaction, this will kill Webb’s candidacy. It may still be closer than we’d like, but I can’t think of the guy now without that image he created of the man and his son.