Life's funny...
One day, you're a nice establishment connected RINO incumbent in a solid Red state all ready to waltz to re-election in the Senate seat daddy appointed you to.
And the next day, some Palin-backed conservative tea partier named Joe Miller comes out of nowhere and pulls off an upset.
That's pretty much what happened to Lisa Murkowski, the incumbent in Alaska as Miller edged her in the Republican primary.
The absentee ballots are still being tallied up, but Miller is ahead by almost 1,700 votes, and Murkowski's people no doubt told her that closing the gap was a pretty big long shot.
So she decided to explore pulling off a Charlie Crist and running as an independent.
According to Alaska's laws, if she loses the GOP nomination she has two options ( aside from trying to queer the vote count). She could either run as the candidate for an established party, with the Alaska Libertarian Party being the only realistic choice...or she could pursue the expensive and difficult write in route.
Since the Libertarians already have a candidate, Murkowski's next move was to clandestinely offer herself to the Libertarians to take the place of the Libertarian Party’s nominee, David Haase.
Except..the Libertarians sat down and had a meeting in somebody's house this morning, talked among themselves and decided 'thanks, but no thanks, Senator.'
“We have decided that we will not offer the nomination to Lisa Murkowski for the Senate seat, even if came to that, because of fundamental differences,” said Alaska Libertarian Party Chairman Scott Kohlhaas.
Kohlhaas was a gentleman about it and claimed that Murkowski's campaign had never approached them, but lets just say say fairly reliable sources tell me different.
Kohlhaas cited several of Murkowski’s votes in Congress and in the state legislature as reasons for the party’s decision. He said Murkowski’s votes in Congress in favor of a bank bailout and authorizing the war in Iraq were contrary to his party’s principles.
“She’s a nice lady,” Kohlhaas said. “We wouldn’t tell a sitting senator to get lost. But we just had to let people know.”
Based on the above photo, Senator Murkowski now knows too.
The only thing left for her is to try and tweak the results. As Dan Riehl reveals, her campaign already has been involved in such doings.
(via memeorandum)
7 comments:
I live in Anchoridge and I hope this teabag clown Joe Miller gets the nomination.
Easy win!
Ummm..it's Anchorage 'real Alaskan'.
Better luck with future astroturfing.
Rob
ps: Joe Miller is only ahead of his Dem challenger McAdams by ten points..and that's before the primary being resolved ...*chuckle*
She looks like the Wicked Witch Of The West ! Quick, hide Toto ! --dragon/dinosaur
d/d
that sounds like an insult to the WWotW.
It does seem to be the conventional wisdom among Democrats, the main stream media, and establishment Republicans that the tea party candidates don't have much appeal in a general election. It remains to be seen if they are correct.
Acutally I would expect the Democrats and the Republicans to actually work together to destroy the candidacy of Mr. Miller and other so called tea partiers. One of the few areas of agreement among Demcorats and the Republican leadership is they both hate and despise the tea party!!
The Republican leadership wants to run as "Democrat-lite." Perhaps the tea partiers want to be real conservatives. At this time it is unkown how they would actually govern, as they have no real power yet. Do the voters want Democrat, Democrat-lite, or the possibility of a real conservative alternative. I suppose we will find out soon enough.
To BPoster : please define ' real conservative '. Are you talking re a libertarian-style conservative, ie, someone willing to name specific departments, agencies, ministries, & bureaux which they believe should be eliminated totally. Or are you referring to post-1978 Republican, ' social ' so-called conservatives, ie, someone willing to merely shift spending from one set of departments, agencies, ministries, & bureaux to another & then trumpet the cuts in increases for the former as a so-called ' decrease ', even though the entities in question are still extent, ready to blossom like weeds when the playful winds of the political weather shifts.
To louielouie : you're right. At least, the Wicked Witch Of The West was a consistent Green. I don't wish to be accused of being a racist. She probably just had a bad childhood, & we must acknowledge that she is a victim.
;) --dragon/dinosaur
Anonymous,
I hope we can get real Conservatives who will name specific departments to be cut. Where I would start, if I could, would be to eliminate the EPA and OSHA. These two agencies would be at the top of my wish list to completely eliminate.
Local governments and market forces are perfectly capable of regulating the areas currently regulated by these groups. We have no need for them. I'd like to see those agencies completely eliminated and GONE.
Another place to eliminate or at least curtail would be the Deparment of Education. As I understand it, this is handled by about 14 or so agencies and there are redundancies. At a minimum, we should be able to stream line this to one and possibly two agencies. The cost savings would be enormous.
As a practical matter, it is going to be very difficult to eliminate these agencies right now, especially the ones I named. They are very powerful and have many allies. For the time being, the best we can probably do is to curtail there growth and try and keep them under control.
We will have to cut spending though. As a pratical matter the first areas to be cut are going to be in the area of defense spending. The reasons for this are primarily two-fold. 1.)Defense spending represents "low hanging fruit." Cuts here will be fairly easy. The defense industry does not have the clout that the agencies I mention above do. It represents a real way to cut spending and it would be fairly easy to do. 2.)The media constantly rails against the "military-industrial complex." Standing up to this group represents an easy way for politicians to score points with the media and to get favorable press coverage.
With regards to number 2 the fact that it costs nothing to rail agains the military industrial complex and it makes one popular proves the point regarding the lack of power of this group. Try railing against OSHA, the EPA, or the Department of Education. See where that gets you?
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