Senator's backers slam student to ground after question
POSTED: 6:24 p.m. EST, October 31, 2006
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RICHMOND, Virginia (AP) -- A heckler who confronted Sen. George Allen at a campaign appearance Tuesday was put in a chokehold and slammed to the floor by three of the Republican's supporters in an incident captured on video.
Mike Stark, a liberal blogger and first-year University of Virginia law student, approached Allen at an event in Charlottesville, loudly asking, "Why did you spit at your first wife, George?" according to witnesses.
Three men, all wearing blue Allen lapel stickers, immediately grabbed Stark, dragged him backward and slung him to the carpet outside a hotel meeting room, according to video captured by WVIR-TV in Charlottesville. (Watch one of the men tell Stark he's 'getting personal -- :53 Video)
Stark said later in a telephone interview with The Associated Press: "I am a constituent. I am allowed to ask my U.S. senator questions."
A new statewide poll conducted for CNN showed Allen's Democratic challenger, former Navy Secretary Jim Webb, with a slight lead in a bitterly contested race that could help determine whether the GOP retains control of the Senate.
In a Monday posting on "Calling All Wingnuts," the blog Stark publishes, he hinted that he would attempt to provoke Allen before the TV cameras.
"I'm also trying to 'Roger and Me' George Allen whenever I can," Stark wrote, referring to director Michael Moore's 1989 documentary in which he repeatedly tried to confront former General Motors' chief executive Roger Smith about the company's downsizing.
In August, Stark similarly approached Allen after a speech at a hotel near Staunton, loudly asking if he had ever used a common six-letter epithet against blacks.
That was two weeks after Allen, at a rally, referred to a Webb volunteer of Indian descent as "Macaca," which is considered by some to be a racial slur.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserve
