Will Sen. Allen's Cowboy Boots Fit Virginia Voters?

In 1979, during his first run for the House of Delegates, consultants told Allen to wear wingtips. He did, and he lost. Thereafter, he vowed to ditch the executive-style footwear.

In 1982, wearing boots and riding in a battered pickup truck, he ran again and won. He hasn't lost since.

Allen held his first hoedown in 1994 when he took office as governor. The next year, it became one of his featured fundraisers. Buttoned-down donors would shed their neckties, open their collars and arrive in stiff blue jeans and recently purchased cowboy hats and boots.

The event has remained an Allen staple even as Virginia has become more urbane, more ethnically diverse and -- some say -- less hospitable to a senator who styles himself a cowboy. In Fairfax, the state's largest jurisdiction, a quarter of the population is foreign-born. Loudoun County is diversifying, with white residents now accounting for 74 percent of the population, down from nearly 83 percent in 2000. The Latino population in Prince William County has more than doubled in the past six years, census figures show.

The Allen campaign says he has garnered plenty of minority support. For example, a group called the Latino Coalition endorsed him Monday. But some minority voters panned the image of Allen on horseback at the Buena Vista Labor Day parade.

Jarding, who last summer mocked Allen's time in Nevada at "a dude ranch," said he thinks voters will put Allen out to pasture.

"He may have wanted to be a cowboy, but there weren't a lot of cowboys on Santa Monica Boulevard," he said.

Allen's advisers say the senator is unlikely to alter his persona.

"He's the kind of person who relates to the old Western way of doing things, where you have a lot of self-responsibility and you have to do things on your own and you can't rely on others." Timmons said. "He is not somebody who is going to change who he is to suit some fad."