'Macaca Moment' Marks a Shift in Momentum

"He's still got to make the sale," Rothenberg said.

But Democrats say the state is changing in their favor. In the six years since Allen last campaigned, a half-million people have moved into the state, many of them immigrants and, some say, less conservative than voters of old.

"Virginia is becoming a more Democratic state, in what is shaping to be a Democratic year," said New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer, the chairman of the Democratic campaign committee in the Senate, which has promised to help finance Webb.

"We think this is a neck-and-neck race," he said.

A Silver Bullet

The war is supposed to be Jim Webb's silver bullet.

This week, he will see his son, Jimmy, deploy with his Marine unit to a war that his father warned against years ago. The elder Webb, himself a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, said he will continue to wear desert combat boots to symbolize what he calls a failed war that threatens to divert attention from terrorism.

"It is in total disarray," Webb said about the nation's foreign policy in a speech last month. "The Bush administration has failed to bring an end to the occupation of Iraq. The Middle East is in danger of spinning out of control."

But the very qualities that made Democrats drool over his biography -- war hero, GOP Navy secretary, early war critic -- make him more a foreign policy wonk than a fiery antiwar activist.

Unlike Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), Webb has not called for pulling out troops on a specific date. Unlike Connecticut's Ned Lamont, who whipped up antiwar sentiment to defeat Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman in that state's Democratic primary, Webb does not talk about the war at every campaign stop.

And unlike Democratic candidates across the country, Webb has not demanded the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Instead, Webb offers a formula for leaving Iraq that includes refusing to build permanent bases in that country and working with allies in the region.

"The number one issue in Virginia is the Iraq war," Webb said. "People are very upset about where we are in the Middle East. The question becomes: 'Is there a way for us to extricate ourselves from Iraq and still maintain stability in the region?' "

Allen's campaign accuses Webb of failing to offer specifics. "Even his signature issue of Iraq . . . is still hazy at best and contradictory at worst," said Wadhams, who declined to make Allen available for an interview, saying, "I'm going to speak for him."