It would take a lot for some lifelong Republicans to pull the lever for a Democrat. Carol Miller, a horse rancher and riding instructor in the rolling hills outside of town, said she would stick with Allen this year.
But she said recent events might prompt her to support another Republican over Allen if he were to run for the GOP presidential nomination in two years.
Webb, Allen's challenger, is a Republican-turned-Democrat, decorated Marine and former secretary of the Navy under President Reagan. A neophyte campaigner who has never held elected office, he hasn't impressed Miller much.
"I don't approve" of Allen's comments, she said. "But it would not be enough to make me vote for the Democrat in this race."
Democrats, however, hope that the Allen campaign's turmoil will not only energize party members in the more liberal northern part of the state, but bring into their camp moderate-leaning newcomers in the south who tend to be less wedded to Virginia's political past.
Malcolm Baldwin, 66, a sheep farmer with a small vineyard, was for years a moderate Republican; now he considers himself more of an independent.
He voted for the state's other Republican senator, John W. Warner. But Allen turns him off.
"Allen is, to me, a rather stupid man," he said at the Leesburg Restaurant. "I think he's narrow."
Several voters interviewed agreed that the "macaca" episode, caught on videotape and replayed on news shows and the Internet, probably enforced old Southern stereotypes that they thought had been put to rest 17 years ago with the election of L. Douglas Wilder, the first black governor.
But few cared.
They were more mindful of the threat to the GOP's hold on Congress, saying their vote this November would be less for the candidate than the party.
Susan McCauley, a 54-year-old design consultant and lifelong Virginia resident, said she couldn't think of any misdeed, race-based or otherwise, grave enough to make her vote for a Democrat.
If she were unable to vote for the Republican candidate, she said while sorting through paint samples at a home decorating shop, "I'd probably just stay home."
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faye.fiore@latimes.com
mima.mohammed@latimes.com
