The Wall Street Journal this morning takes incumbent Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski to task for her half baked, revenge motivated write in campaign:
While 2010 is shaping up as the year of the conviction politician, the election is also throwing up candidates running on little more than their personal sense of entitlement. On that score, Lisa Murkowski is giving Florida’s Charlie Crist a run for his money.
On Friday, Ms. Murkowski let it be known that she would conduct a write-in campaign for the Alaskan Senate seat against Joe Miller, the tea party favorite who toppled her fair and square in the Republican primary last month. Senate incumbents are always hard to beat, especially in a state like Alaska that has long rewarded seniority, and we assume voters understood the choice.
Though Ms. Murkowski heavily outspent the West Point grad, decorated veteran and federal magistrate, she said over the weekend on CNN that Mr. Miller had only prevailed because of “lies and fabrications and mischaracterization.” She then denounced the “pretty radical things” that the Republican nominee supposedly supports, including “You know, we dump Social Security. No more Medicare. Let’s get rid of the Department of Education. Elimination of all earmarks. You know, he is—he has taken an approach that is just, plain and simple, more radical than where the people of the state of Alaska are.”
If Ms. Murkowski isn’t taking orders from Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, it’s hard to tell. The only result of this destructive and false message will be to cut the Republican odds of taking the Senate in November. The best Ms. Murkowski can personally hope for is splitting the GOP vote and throwing the election to Democrat Scott McAdams, the mayor of Sitka.
Ms. Murkowski is current poster child for the out of touch entitlement mentality of the Ruling Class. She is a self-absorbed, self-entitled, petulant politician who cannot accept loss gracefully. Alaska Republicans chose Joe Miller to be their candidate for United States Senate, but rather than except loss graciously Ms. Murkowski has chosen to thumb her nose at her constituents and the Party by conducting a long shot write-in campaign in and effort to retain “her” seat in the Senate.
The problem is it isn’t her seat, it belongs to the people of Alaska and they opted not nominate her for another term. I don’t know enough about Alaska politics to know how her decision will play with voters there. I suspect at most she’ll split the the Republican vote and ensure that Democrat Scott McAdams becomes the next Senator from Alaska… But maybe that’s her goal — a little revenge on the voters who fired her.
Update: Looks like Ms. Murkowski’s self-serving write-in campaign isn’t playing well with Alaska voters:
Republican Joe Miller attracts 42% of the vote in the first Rasmussen Reports poll of the Alaska Senate race since GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski announced her write-in campaign to try to keep her job.
The telephone survey of Likely Voters in Alaska shows Murkowski picking up 27% of the vote and Democrat Scott McAdams earning 25%. One percent (1%) say they’d prefer some other candidate, and five percent (5%) are undecided.
I think it’s safe to say voters are more sick and tired of these self-absorbed, self-entitled, career politicians than anyone realizes…. I’m loath to say this out loud, but I suspect Mr. miller will win by an even larger than the polls predict simply because voters are fed up with this kind of garbage and want to send a message that can’t be easily misinterpreted or misunderstood.
Related
- Murkowski likely to be stripped of committee – CNN Political Tracker