Showing posts with label Lisa Murkowski. Show all posts
The Opinionator: Free Will Quick Hits
The GOP primary for Joe Biden's Senate seat has raised the question that has often bedeviled "conviction" voters: do we vote for the person who matches us politically, or for the one who is the "most conservative who can win?" In this case, neither candidate is especially inspiring. Christine O'Donnell has youth and ideas, but she also comes off as amateurish. Mike Castle, on the other hand is a political lifer who will be 77 years old should he choose to run for re-election in 2016. Plus, he's nowhere near the most conservative who can win. At least for this election season, when voters are looking to replace the House and Senate's Old Guard wholesale, I think it's worth a roll of the dice to vote for O'Donnell.
Lisa Murkowski's trial balloon for a write-in third party candidacy should make every moderate in the GOP caucus blanch. How many times have we been told we have to support this or that "moderate" over a better, more conservative candidate. And how many times have those "moderates" turned on the GOP as soon as their hold on power was loosened. Conservatives have shown more loyalty to the GOP than Arlen Spector, Lincoln Chaffee, and now Lisa Murkowski ever have.
Good riddance to Mayor Daley. I'm always hearing about how sophisticated Chicago is, but why its voters prefer to be governed by mayor-for-life acting as potentates dispensing favors like a Tammany Hall ward heeler is beyond me. If it is their destiny to be lorded over by Rahm Emanuel, they deserve every bit of it.
If I put out an invitation to my Facebook friends announcing that I was going to burn a Bible in my backyard, would anyone care? Doubt it. But, call CNN and say you're going to burn a Koran at some podunk "church" and suddenly it's "alert the media" time.
Michael Gross' anti-Palin hit piece in Vanity Fair was apparently self-debunking. What's funny, though, is how easy it was to get through the week without having to read Gross' article. A few years ago, such an article would have been must-see reading. Now, you wonder, "do people still read Vanity Fair?" I used to subscribe - I read it as a satire of upper-crust life - but around 2006 it published one too many "rise of the vulcans" style pieces about the Bush Administration, so I quit.
CNN is apparently replacing Larry King with Piers Morgan, a Brit journalist (he used to be editor of the Daily Mail) turned media personality. He seems like a pleasant, sophisticated guy with a plummy accent, but he's also a firm believer in the BBC brand of leftism, reflected in the fact that he lost his editorship after publishing fake photos of US atrocities in Iraq. You have to wonder why CNN thinks this is the guy to increase its appeal in middle America.
Just watched The Outlaw Josie Wales. It's good, but about 20 minutes too long, plus it has a goofy scene where Clint Eastwood parleys with some Navajo, using the sort of "men good/government bad" rhetoric that probably sounded very profound back in 1976. Worth seeing for the excellent supporting cast, which looks like it just stepped out of a Civil War-era tintype. You have to wonder whether a movie starring an ex-Confederate soldier refusing to surrender would be made today.
The Big Murkowski: Another Moderate Loses Their Seat
Jim Geraghty has rightly described the apparent Joe Miller victory over Lisa Murkowski in the GOP primary for the Alaska Senate race as the biggest upset of the 2010 primary cycle. It's not just that Miller was an unknown going up against a scion of one of Alaska's first families. Miller was almost no one's radar screen, and wasn't even polling within 10 percentage points in the last couple weeks before the election.
Of course, polling in Alaska may not be as exact as it is in a wired state like California. One expects that Alaskan "push polling" involves sled dogs at the Iditarod. And, who's to say that Miller was "obscure," which seems to be the take by Murkowski's friends in the media and Senate? Maybe they hadn't heard of Miller, but someone did. Sarah Palin endorsed him, and it's my understanding that she has a certain level of fame in Alaska. More important, the Tea Party Express spent $500,000 on GOTV efforts in Alaska, and Miller's ground game was apparently enthusiastic and hard working. Can't we assume that going door-to-door in Alaska requires a bit more determination and enthusiasm than doing the same in, say, Philadelphia? That's the sort of determination and enthusiasm that wins elections, and which a pol like Lisa Murkowski is congenitally unable to whip up.
What Miller did not have was MSM publicity of his campaign. Even Rand Paul was profiled in a number of articles in the NY Times in the months leading up to the Kentucky primary. But, Miller was treated with the same level of coverage as a fringe candidate like Alvin Greene or Orly Taitz; that is with none at all. Miller is a military veteran, a Yale Law graduate, and a former magistrate judge. In other words, he's a solid citizen with an accomplished record of public service and intellectual achievement. But, he's a Tea Party candidate, and thus "fringe" in the eyes of people who should really know better at this point.
Then again, I knew who Miller was because Mark Levin interviewed him a few weeks ago and continually included Miller in his roll call of insurgent candidates to support in the place of moderate squishes. Now, I realize Levin is a hateful, fear-mongering radio blowhard. But he is also a guy with a nightly audience of 6 million. Levin might not be a member of the MSM, but he certainly is a media figure and political analyst. You would know a lot more about Alaskan politics listening to him than all of the other "smart" talking heads who fill cable and network shows and express befuddlement about how Miller "came out of nowhere."
Murkowski, for her part, seems to be in denial. That's the only possible reason for the talk of her pursuing a third party run. Funny how GOP moderates, whom we are told we *must* elect, are always bolting for the other side or chasing independent bids as soon as they are in danger of losing their jobs. So much for the party loyalty they always demanded from the rest of us.
The fact is that Murkowski is emblematic of the sort of politicians who are in big trouble this year. She voted for TARP. She refused to support the repeal of Obamacare and even said she thought the country needs sort of government health care plan that "works"(?!). She's the sort of Republican Senator - like Bennet and Spector - who could be counted on to make a deal. And that's the thing. After the Obamacare cram-down, we are not interested in any more "deals" with Democrats, at least not the ones presently in office. For Murkowski, the Constitution was an impediment to "comprehensive" liberal legislation from which she could extract booty for her constituents. That's just not going to cut it this year.
