Saturday, September 18, 2010

Tea Party, GOP Push Out Another Moderate Republican - Murkowski Announces Write-In Candidacy After Primary Loss

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, a moderate Republican, recently announced her candidacy as a write-in candidate after losing to more conservative candidate and tea party favorite, Joe Miller.  This recent development in the Alaskan election proves that the GOP is too conservative.  Miller appeared on Fox News with Greta Van Susteren to discuss the announcement.
And it's also, of course, another example of a politician who's gone back on her word. You know, she said the Friday before the primary election that she would support the will of the electorate as demonstrated in the primary. Now, of course, she's obviously not a person of character, otherwise, she wouldn't be doing what she's doing, which is really disrespecting the will of the Alaskan voter.
I partially agree with Miller's statement, but I want to point something out - Miller only won in the primary by 1.8 percent, or about 2,000 votes out of 110,000 cast, and that is only from Republican voters - not Democrats, independents, third party, or non-participants.  Miller has also shown no intentions of becoming more moderate in the general election, which means he would not only ignore the roughly 50 percent who did not vote for him in the primary, but everyone else not conservative.  That to me indicates that Miller is the one who "is really disrespecting the will of the Alaskan voter."  There is also the issue of national money flooding into the campaign, especially from the right-wing tea party groups and the Fox News audiences.

Murkowski is offering candidates in Alaska a third option - a center-right option.  Accordng to current polls, Miller is leading, but with Murkowski in the race, all three candidates are neck and neck.  After reading about the positions of all the candidates, I favor Democrat Scott McAdams over the other two, but more so over Miller.  McAdams appears to be a moderate and rational candidate (here's a pretty good Q&A I found with McAdams and The Anchorage Daily News), and definitely more willing to listen to the will of the electorate (refer back to my response to the Charlie Crist campaign).  If Murkowski were to win, I would be pleased with the result because it would keep a teabagger out of Washington, but there are still plenty of things I do not like about her and her record, while somewhat moderate, shows that she would continue with the GOP's obstructionist policies.

Murkowski's candidacy is a great thing because it can potentially split the Republican vote, handing the election to McAdams.

I also wanted to point out this little bit of hypocrisy on Miller's part - he attacks Murkowski for collecting out of state funds when he himself is guilty of the same thing!
Oh, it was just -- you know, I don't want to go into the personal detail of it, but it was just inappropriate. And you know, I think that what this is about, it really is a character issue. It's an issue I think that is reflected in kind of the liberal approach, which is, if you got power, you don't relinquish it, you keep it at all costs.

And I think it's also reflective of -- you know, when -- in her case, she has something -- by some calculations 1.8 million bucks in the back. You know, the people that gave her that money -- first of all, it was mostly out of state. I think 90 percent -- 88 percent over the last year came from out-of-state sources. But in addition to that, it was people that thought they were giving money to a Republican. And she, now like other liberals, she has somebody else's money and she wants to spend it. And so that's what's going on in this write-in campaign.
First, Miller thinks only "liberals" try to retain power at all costs, which is a flat out lie - just look at the GOP's actions since they lost power and the lengths they are willing to take to regain it.

Secondly, he attacks Murkowski's campaign financing, claiming she is doing the "liberal" thing, but he has raked in some considerably large donations from out-of-state sources - I believe a majority of smaller receipts came from Alaskans but the big-ticket financiers came from abroad.  He also is implying that Murkowski is no longer a Republican, but she is - she only announced candidacy as a write-in, which will now put two Republicans on the ballot in November.

Miller is not good for Alaska and definitely not good for the nation.  Here's to siphons and the hope that Miller loses!

Also, check out Palingates - they had posted the video of Murkoski's announcement, as well as some interesting commentary that follows, like Sarah Palin's advice for her one-time political friend, as well as the possible falsification of a tweet by the former half-term governor.

2 comments:

  1. I would hardly call Murkowski a moderate, but compared to Miller, Ivan the Terrible was a moderate. Spliting the right may give the Dem a chance,however slim.

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  2. She may have been moderate at one point, and she isn't the worst of them all, but in the increasingly right-wing GOP, she could possibly be considered a moderate now - that why I wrote above that she was "somewhat moderate."

    I found it interesting that almost every article I read about her called her a moderate.

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