It's hard to make out, because the video is fuzzy. The copy I obtained was originally recorded off a television using VHS in 1993 and then transferred to a second tape, further degrading the quality. But, once you know what it is, it makes sense. It sits folded on a bookcase of trophies and bric-a-brac behind George Allen, who is seated at a desk in his home office. It's right there next to the fax machine. You can see the red field. You can make out the diagonal blue bar. And you can see what looks like a white star. It is the Confederate flag, and it appears in the very first ad that Allen broadcast in 1993, when he ran for governor.

"The ad ran in the beginning of his campaign, when we were introducing him," says Allen's 1993 media consultant, Greg Stevens, who made the spot. Stevens denies that the flag was purposefully added to the scene, which lasts for ten seconds of the 60-second commercial, to appeal to pro-Confederate voters. "To be honest, this spot helped him enormously, and it had nothing to do with the Confederate flag," Stevens says, adding that any criticism about "a Confederate flag supposedly put there to subtly suggest to people that he is a Confederate" is "horseshit, and you can quote me on that."