Another day, another dose of protein-enriched cat fud from the bitter Republican ballot battle between Joe Miller and Lisa Murkowski. This is what it’s all about, people.
The biggest portion of the ballots remaining to be counted are absentees, which share some significant traits with a type of ballot that has already been counted: early ballots.
Both early votes and absentee votes were cast by voters who sometimes weren’t exposed to the last days of the campaign, which saw Sarah Palin making automated phone calls to Republican voters on behalf of Miller and Tea Party Express-funded ads making attacks on Murkowski.
While Miller won election-day voting 50.9 percent to 49.1 percent, Murkowski won 54.1 percent to 45.9 percent among early voters.
About three-quarters of the votes cast Tuesday were in the hotly contested Republican races for governor, lieutenant governor and senator. If that margin holds and the absentee votes mimic the early votes, that could eliminate Miller’s lead, the Empire’s analysis shows.
Also, a slightly larger proportion of the absentee votes come from areas where Murkowski ran strongly. Her strongest areas were in Southeast, where she was born, in Anchorage, which she represented in the Alaska Legislature, and in the Bush. Miller, from Fairbanks, was most strong in the Interior and the Mat-Su Valley.
Miller telephoned POLITICO Friday night, in an apparent preemptive strike against absentee-ballot challenges by Republican officials.
“We’re very disturbed over the fact that the National Republican Senatorial Committee has chosen to send a group of high-powered lawyers up here to Alaska to interfere with our election process,” Miller said.
“It appears that they’re trying to steal an election. The fact of it is, is that they only have one [goal], and it certainly is not the integrity of the election. It’s to skew the results against Joe Miller.” […]
“We’ve received calls from many people that have been queried – absentee voters who are asked who they voted for,” Miller said. “We believe that the votes ought to be counted appropriately, as they always have, without the interference of lawyers that are out there calling Alaskan voters to see how they voted, and without making challenges to the ballots.”
Way to make friends, Joe! Of course, Miller can publicly abuse the NRSC as much as he wants, and that organization will react as stony-faced as the Queen’s Guard staring down a throng of ill-mannered children. At the end of the day, the committee will offer their full support to Miller — should he be the nominee — but you can bet they’ll be grimacing on the inside if they need to do so.
In the Anchorage Daily News, Miller campaign spokesman Randy DeSoto doubled down on the allegations, saying that the NRSC is engaged in a “nefarious” scheme to “throw out ballots” marked for Miller. I note with some amusement that Miller is accusing Murkowski of attempting to “pull an Al Franken”, while also drawing attention to the fact that one of Norm Coleman’s recount lawyers is apparently providing assistance to Murkowski. I guess the phrase “pulling a Norm Coleman” doesn’t have the same cachet in teabagger circles.
Scott Kohlhaas, state chairman for the Libertarian Party of Alaska, told TheDC that a number of things have to happen before any decision is made. “Rumors are flying but I really have no comment on them because, I mean, Lisa would have to decide to do it and then our candidate would have to decide to voluntarily step down [and] then our executive committee would have to vote on a decision.”
Kohlhaas said he has no illusions about the fact that Murkowski is not a Libertarian, but says that having her run as one would be a way to get more publicity for the Party and possibly help the Party gain seats in state legislatures. “There are 7,000 state legislative seats out there and we don’t have one,” he said. “As far as getting the name out there, this episode is doing that much better than any one state legislative seat would. And in terms of morale for our Party a state [senator] would be a real gain for us.”
At the end of the day Kohlaas recognizes that having Murkowski run as a member of the Libertarian Party would certainly “confuse some people because she is not libertarian.”
“But that happens all the time. Our job is to educate and get the philosophy out there,” he said. “If we decide to do this it will advance the Party and believe me we won’t do this for nothing.”
Kohlhaas said that it will ultimately be up to David Hasse to decide if he would be willing to step aside.
“Yesterday, he was inclined to do this but today maybe not,” Kohlhaas said.
A lot of “ifs” there, of course. Murkowski certainly has her share of supporters who would like to see her commandeer the Libertarian line, including Andrew Halcro, who says that he’s shelling out for a Dittman Research poll in order to see how Murkowski would do in a three-way race against Miller and Democrat Scott McAdams. (Of course, we’ve already seen a poll like that, but perhaps Dittman will find more encouragement for Murk.)
Miller: Alaska should forgo federal help
Uncle Ted this guy ain’t! Miller also stuck by his openness to privatize Social Security, moderating himself only to say that those who have paid into the program already can keep their benefits (this despite also suggesting that Medicare and Social Security are unconstitutional). How magnanimous of him! Of course, that’s the kind of talk that tickles the erogenous zones of the nutters at the Club for Growth, and The Creative Team Who Brought You Bill Sali is now saying that they’ll direct fundraising dollars to Miller.
At a press conference after the primary election, McAdams, who grew up in Petersburg, said commercial fishing “goes to the core of my identity.”
“I learned to read, write and reason in a town where 85 cents on the dollar came from commercial fishing,” McAdams said. “I spent five years as a deckhand working in fisheries throughout the state.
“I seined in Southeast, Kodiak, I hand-bait longlined in the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea. I have an appreciation and a great affinity for the lifestyle and the culture, and for the need for commercial fishing in our state.”
McAdams also picked up the endorsement of the Alaska AFL-CIO over the weekend (along with his fellow Democratic ticket-mates… and EFCA-backer Don Young). I’m looking forward to hearing more from and about McAdams once this Republican cat fud buffet is closed.
Murkowski actually pulling this out. This is the first article I’ve seen that suggests that’s a possibility.
If that happens, this will be third Alaska race in the past two years where the absentee ballots have changed what everyone thinks of the race (Don Young’s primary win and Ted Stevens evenual loss being the other two examples)
This thing is going to take forever to sort out, with each side growing more angry by the day!!!!
… a slightly larger proportion of the absentee votes come from areas where Murkowski ran strongly …
There are some 13,470 absentees to count. If they follow the primary trend, 10,300 are Republican ballots. Let’s then assume that a somewhat higher percentage came from Anchorage than during the general. That might push the trend from 51 Miller, 49 Murk up to, say, 56 Murk, 44 Miller. That takes Miller’s overall margin down to 500 votes or so with the questioned ballots to go.
But.
That’s a best case scenario and ignores that a lot of the Anchorage absentees will come from military voters who will favor West Point Joe. The questioned ballots are usually people voting in a new precinct or recent registrations so they’d tend to favor Miller as well.
I’d like to see Murkowski win but I don’t think the numbers are there.
that when the official count was over after the Canvassing Board carefully went over all the absentee ballots, Al Franken was LEADING by 225 votes, and that the Coleman camp was the one that sued.
So if Miller’s camp wants to run with the “pull an Al Franken”, that would imply he’s saying Murkowski will finish AHEAD of him once the absentees are counted, and that Miller’s people will be the ones suing.
Preferably, someone would question Miller about this on camera. 🙂
Young had better ratchet up his pork wrangling for AK.
1. Miller has filed a couple of complaints with the Div or Elections over interference by Murk poll watchers during absentee counting. Those complaints will go to the Lt Gov who heads Div Elec. Lt Gov Craig Campbell is a lame duck, not running for re-election. He is retired military and came to state govt in 06 when he was appointed Commissioner of Military Affairs by … Sarah Palin. When Palin resigned, Lt Gov Sean Parnell moved up to Gov and then selected Campbell as Lt Gov.
2. Campbell would presumably have to rule on any candidate switch. If the Libertarian Party asked to remove their candidate and replace him with Lisa Murkowski, Lt Gov would have to approve this. The current Libt candidate, Frederick Haase, is healthy and pulled almost 5,000 votes in the primary. Would the Lt Gov approve a blatant poltical move that would “thwart the will of the voters”? What would prevent a rich guy from waiting to see who won the primary and then buying his way onto the ballot?
3. The Libertarian option may be dead – apparently the party met over the weekend and voted on the issue and have scheduled an announcement “soon”, complete with press conference. Since the votes haven’t been tallied, one would think that they will say they will ‘stand on their principles’ and not sell out.
4. Lisa M may already know this. Larry Sabato Tweeted yesterday ‘Private word from Murky camp is her family favors write-in bid (not Libertarian) if she loses. No doubt emotions up & down. We’ll see’
5. A write-in would be tough but Miller might make it easier … said on nat’l TV yesterday that Alaska should take less fed money. That won’t play well here.
6. John Cornyn has told Miller he’s ‘pulling his team out.’
But I have long wondered whether the Club for Growth was an elaborate, decades-long conspiracy by wealthy Democrats to undermine the GOP from the inside. In this cycle alone they’ve dashed our chances in Nevada and lost ID-1. They never contribute positively to electing Republican candidates; they just ensure that we nominate the least electable one.
Her only chance if she loses the primary is a write-in campaign.
http://politicalwire.com/archi…