Lisa Murkowski, a politician from the moment she was put to her mother’s breast, has apparently lost to Tea Partier Joe “Who?” Miller, whose only previous political campaign was a loss in a race for the state legislature. Miller was supported by you-know-who, and will now face Sitka Mayor Scott McAdams.
I still see Alaska as a win for the Republicans. Some think that Miller is too extreme, and point to Begich’s win in 2008 as evidence. I disagree. Begich won for two reasons: Steven’s conviction, and name recognition of his own. (He was mayor of Anchorage (the state’s largest city), and his father was in Congress.) A mayor of Sitka would not have been able to defeat Stevens.
Nor can a mayor of Sitka defeat Miller. I believe, given two relative unknowns, that Alaska will remain safely Republican. Joe Miller will be the junior Senator from Alaska come January.
I would assume that, all things being equal, write-in ballots would favor the more stable candidate, as they tend to be physically older than the vote. She has the more famous name, being a second-gen politician. I would suspect the write-ins largely come from smaller, more separated towns. I think her chances of winning is at least even, and probably better than that.
Miller’s success is a mystery to me, since part of his platform is to have the state stop accepting government money. One-third of the jobs in Alaska are federal, a large number of contractors depend upon federal projects, and nearly every program depends upon federal spending, so it would be disastrous to shut off the flow. Not that the legislature would allow him to do it in the first place. Murkowski has apparently been branded as not being conservative enough. What this really means is that she thinks for herself on many issues (such as abortion) instead of marching in lockstep with the Palinistas. Also, a lot of people are still pissed off about her being appointed to the position by her daddy, her subsequent election notwithstanding.
I agree that absentee ballots will favor her, possibly even heavily enough to pull off a win.
The polls turned against Murkowski fairly recently, so I think her hope is that absentee ballots, which were filled out some time ago, will reflect previous polling rather then the results of the actual election.
Dunno how believable that is, or whether absentee ballots in similar elections have shown that pattern, but it seems at least vaguely believable.
Many people in Alaska vote absentee so they don’t have to fight any lines (that’s a joke, as hardly anybody votes up there), and can do so almost up until election day.
A somewhat shocking result, but since Murky decided to “take the high road”, they can only blame themselves. I know John Bitney, her campaign manager, and I’m sure he was frustrated by her lack of fight. She also had the unmitigated gall to actually vote for some Obama initiatives, which put her at odds with the lock-step obstructionist mentality of the Republicans. The general campaign should be a real dogfight.
The NYT has revealed in a very good investigative piecethat Joe Miller, he of the anti-government, don’t accept government money bent, has spent a good part of his life working for the government and accepting government handouts. He has eight children, which means that for many years he was collecting 10 permanent fund dividend checks from the state. At the height of the payout, that was $32,000. The guy sounds like a fake and a flake to me. This one could backfire on Palin, the Tea Party and the Pubs.
Regardless of who wins, the state of Alaska, which relies extremely heavily on Federal funding, will have the least experienced Senate delegation in the country. It’s one House member is 77 and who knows how long he’ll be around.
It gives the Dem a real fighting chance if Murky splits the vote. Joe Miller’s ideas and behaviors are too goofy even for a state as red as Alaska presently is. Murkowski is more centrist, even though she votes party line, and is therefore the enemy of all things Palin. I’m sure she’d like to retaliate for the bitch slap she got in the primary.
There’s only been one US senator ever elected in a write in campaign (Strom Thurmond in the 50’s), seems like quite a long shot, and she’s going to make herself a pariah amongst the GOP, which ought to limit her post-senate career options.
Didn’t say she did, but getting a job as a lobbyist or in a Conservative think-tank after she’s out of the Senate would probably be a lot easier if she wasn’t going up against her party now, regardless of whether they deserve it or not. Especially given that she’s still young enough that immediate retirement probably isn’t an option.
Not that I think she’ll be starving on the streets or anything, I’m sure she’s still well connected enough to find another gig, but still, she’s making life more difficult for herself in whats historically been a pretty quixotic strategy thats unlikely to pay off.