Final vote is in The Alaska Division of Elections counted the last absentee ballots Wednesday. The final vote in the Aug. 24 Republican primary for U.S. Senate was 55,847 for Joe Miller and 53,834 for Lisa Murkowski.
Erika Bolstad and Sean Cockerman also report:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky pledged $5,000 from his own political action committee to Miller, joining the support of the NRSC. . . .
Miller is also getting money from the more conservative wing of the party. South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint’s Senate Conservatives Fund on Tuesday devoted $12,983 to an online appeal to help raise money for Miller, according to disclosures. That comes on top of the Washington, D.C., anti-tax group Club for Growth promising to spend “whatever it takes” on Miller.
National Republican Senatorial Committee senior adviser and veteran GOP strategist Terry Nelson flew to Alaska Wednesday night to assist Republican Senate nominee Joe Miller’s campaign . . .
Nelson is going up to meet Miller and his campaign team and make clear that the committee wants to be helpful with fundraising, field operations and overall strategy as the insurgent begins his general election bid.
Nelson’s trip is also aimed at sending a signal to Sen. Lisa Murkowski that the national party is fully committed to Miller.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) will likely be forced out of her party leadership position should she decide to launch a write-in or third-party candidacy, a Senate Republican said Wednesday.
Kind of funny how getting 51% of the primary vote changes things. And if 50,000 pro-life voters in Delaware show up next Tuesday to vote for Christine O’Donnell, things will change even more.
In “How to Write an Anti-Palin Hit Piece,” I quoted a source who described the cheap-and-easy method by which reporters get those “anonymous sources” to provide them with fodder for their stories.
That’s so unfair, isn’t it, Michael? You have a conversation with someone, then they tell their side of the story in a way that makes you look bad, and . . . well, it just feels kind of wrong, doesn’t it?
Michael Gross not only not only made a flaming ass out of himself, but he also totally humiliated the liberal mainstream media. He managed to bring every caricature of an elitist, egotistical, out of touch, liberal journalist to life. And the worst part was that he was incredibly sloppy with many of the facts — which in turn, discredits his entire piece. Credible leftist/progressive journalists and columnists can’t flee from his disaster of a column fast enough — and I don’t blame them.
One point: It wasn’t a “column,” it was a 10,000-word feature article. And as someone who knows a thing or two about the publishing industry, let me point out that 10,000 words is a very good head-start on a book. If Gross isn’t already under contract for an anti-Palin book, this article certainly looks like it was intended as a pitch for such a book.
As I said before, every liberal journalist with any influence or ambition is either now writing an anti-Palin book or is trying to hustle a deal for an anti-Palin book. The fact that Sarah Palin isn’t cooperating with writers like Gross (i.e., she’s not helping him get paid to trash her) indicates that she’s not quite as stupid as he thinks she is.
Here’s some hard-to-watch video of Michael Gross on Hardball with Chris Matthews:
It’s hard to watch, I say, because even Chris Matthews seems embarrassed to have this idiot on his show.
The catch with anonymous sources has always been the lack of accountability. They face no repercussion for outright lies.
Well, not exactly. A source who burns a reporter by giving him “outright lies” has forfeited any claim to protection. But I’d like to make an important distinction here: To rely on anonymous sources in doing straight political reporting — e.g., the campaign manager giving you factual information he doesn’t want attributed to him by name — is different than relying on anonymous sources in doing the kind of “gotcha” stuff Gross did with the Palins.
A good source never burns a reporter, and a good reporter never burns a source — which is apparently what Gross did, as Trinko writes:
Gross hasn’t admitted that he was wrong to say Ivy Frye, Kristan Cole, and Meghan Stapleton were on “bad terms” or had “deteriorated” relationships with Palin. He hasn’t responded directly to Shannyn Moore, who says she was misrepresented in the article.
One of my sources particularly emphasized that Gross was wrong about Frye and Stapleton being on the outs with Palin (Cole’s name didn’t come up in our conversation, but I assume she’s still OK with Palin). All candidates and politicians shuffle their staffs from time to time, and contradictory rumors about behind-the-scenes maneuverings among staffers are commonplace.
Someone like Gross looking to do a takedown on Palin would obviously want to talk to any disgruntled ex-staffer, and he seems to have accepted second-hand gossip about Palin associates who were merely rumored to be disgruntled.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski is strongly considering mounting a November write-in campaign to keep her seat and could make an announcement as soon as tomorrow, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.
Running as a write-in candidate appears to be Murkowski’s last remaining option. . . .
Another source familiar with Murkowski’s deliberations contends that she has definitely decided to remain in the race and challenge Miller and Democrat Scott McAdams in the general election. . . .
Murky and her advisers clearly don’t care about anything but themselves and are employing the same selfish scorched-earth approach as Charlie Crist. One of the commenters at AOSHQ had this reaction:
Good Lord, this is like trying to break up with the psycho-bitch of a girlfriend and she keeps calling all of your friends and relatives to beg them to help her make you take her back.
How long before Murky keys somebody’s car in the parking lot?
UPDATE: Murkowski campaign manager (and Palin-hater) John Bitney didn’t help his boss win over the LP with his comment about the Libertarians being “star-struck,” Doug Brady notes at C4P and adds:
The fact that Bitney would be running [Murkowski’s write-in] campaign means Joe Miller won’t have to worry about much.
What she’s looking for is a lifeboat — a nice, lucrative job as a corporate lobbyist, VP of a “defense” contractor firm, something like that that keeps her well-paid and down south.
The bluff — aimed at the Republican establishment higher-ups who can summon that kind of lifeboat for her with a few words in the right ears — is “hook me up or I hand this seat to the Democrats.”
To quote Allahpundit, “Hmmmmm.” But I’m invoking Occam’s Razor here and sticking with the simplest explanation: Murkowski is just another D.C. power-junkie addicted to having a bunch of staffers who call her “Senator” as they jump to satisfy her every whim.
For Murkowski to run as a Libertarian, [LP Senate candidate] Haase would have to step aside and the party would need to reverse its vote barring her from the ticket.
“It would be a serious flip-flop,” party chairman [Scott] Kohlhaas said. “And I don’t think it’s happening.” . . .
Haase said Murkowski does have Libertarian tendencies but that her support for the war on drugs is a problem.
Maybe Lisa could talk to 2008 LP presidential candidate Bob Barr about the drug issue. Bob used to be hardcore against drugs when he was a Republican, but has mellowed out as a Libertarian. Not quite Cheech and Chong, but no longer Sgt. Stadanko.
As I noted yesterday, Murkowski isn’t the only Republican talking to the LP. Bill Walker, who placed third in the GOP gubernatorial primary (challenging Gov. Sean Parnell), reached out to the Libertarians after being turned down by the Alaska Independence Party.
Still, time is running short. The current candidates would have to write a letter to the state Division of Elections withdrawing their names and the party would have to agree to substitute the new candidates as the official nominees. And the elections office must have the new nominations by Sept. 15.
So this storyline can only continue for another week and, as Epler explains, the prospect of Murkowski attempting a write-in candidacy is remote. The practical effect of the continuing shenanigans at this point is to give the media an excuse to ignore the guy who actually won the Republican nomination.
Alaska Republican sources confirm the report by Eric Dondero that Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski had lunch in Anchorage today with Libertarian Party senatorial candidate Dave Haase and state LP chairman Scott Kohlhaas.
One source said that when Haase was asked about the meeting afterwards, he indicated that he had made no decision about Murkowski’s effort to replace him as the Libertarian candidate, even though the state LP executive committee had previously rejected Murkowski.
Murkowski was defeated by Tea Party challenger Joe Miller in the Aug. 24 Republican primary, but refused to concede until after absentee ballots were counted.
Now, Dondero and other sources say that Republican Bill Walker, who mounted an unsuccessful GOP primary challenger to Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell, has made an effort to secure the LP gubernatorial nomination (replacing Billy Toien). Walker had previously been rebuffed by the Alaska Independence Party.
UPDATE: At least one top national GOP official has contacted the Alaska LP to discuss the latest developments. LP officials have not changed their determination to stick with their party’s current nominees.
UPDATE II: I’m going to have to put the squeeze on my sources, as it appears that these exclusive tips aren’t quite as exclusive as I’d been led to believe. When Allah and Aceboth beat me on this kind of story — my home field, as it were — it’s kinda embarrassing.
Well, exclusive: Lisa and her new BFFs at the Alaska LP had barbecued ribs for lunch.
“If she wants to stay in the race, I’ll support her 100 percent.”
Reached by phone from Murkowski’s campaign office, which has remained up and running as staffers complete administrative tasks, Bitney sounded like someone who was itching to jump back into the fight.
“It is a campaign office that is just ready to launch at a moment’s notice,” he said.
Maybe you don’t know who Bitney is, but he’s a favorite “anonymous” source for anti-Palin journalists.
Why? Because he was on her 2006 gubernatorial campaign staff and subsequently became her legislative director until he developed what one Republican source in Alaska described as a “zipper problem.” The married Bitney had an affair with another man’s wife and was fired by Palin. He has been badmouthing her ever since.
Bitney has presented himself as the strategic genius behind Palin’s gubernatorial campaign but, as my source said last week in reference to Bitney’s handling of Murkowski’s campaign, “You go from 40 points ahead to losing by 1,600 votes? Some genius.”
Another source in Alaska suggests that business supporters of Murkowksi have also been promoting her effort to get the Libertarian nomination. They’re probably concerned about losing their influence in GOP politics.
UPDATE IV: Eric Dondero at Libertarian Republican now gives background, including the fact that “at least one former staffer for US Congressman Ron Paul” has been talking to LP candidate Dave Haase. So there’s a Paulista angle here that ought to make things interesting.
UPDATE V: Welcome, Instapundit readers! As for Professor Reynolds’ theory that Murkowski would not risk “the enmity of Tea Party folks nationwide,” I frankly don’t think she gives a rip about anyone but herself and her precious power.
Being called “senator” seems to be powerfully addictive. Note how Arlen Specter desperately tried to hang on. I’d be interested in knowing what percentage of U.S. Senators have voluntarily retired in the past 50 years.
UPDATE VI: A reader writes to correct the record. As explained in Sarah Palin’s memoir, Going Rogue, although Bitney has claimed that he was fired for the affair, he was actually fired for incompetence — including one occasion when he forgot to bring a bill to the bill-signing ceremony. As the reader says, “Bitney uses that false story in order to exonerate himself for being fired for incompetence and to make Sarah Palin look like a religious zealot out to punish adulterers.”
UPDATE VII: Dan Riehl points out that in a debate last month with Miller, “Murkowski said she respects the electorate and would support whoever wins.”
Some things are predictable — i.e., that the Palin-haters would decide it was a good time to recycle the old SPLC/LGF attacks on me in order to exploit my interview with Todd Palin for a guilt-by-association smear. When Rachel Maddow tried the same trick last fall — based on my friend Lynn Vincent’s collaboration with Sarah Palin on Going Rogue — I made a few points in my response:
I don’t have to explain myself or prove a negative. . . .
There is no obligation for me to speak a word in my own defense.
Bad Faith – The accusation that conservatives are motivated by bad faith (mala fides) is essential to the Left’s attacks. Stigmatizing and marginalizing conservatives is much easier than debating them. Cogent arguments about policy become unnecessary to advancing the Left’s political agenda if they can dismiss its opponents as racist, sexist, homophobic, etc.
The Ransom Note Method – By carefully selecting “evidence” of bad faith, the Left is able to present a distorted image of its conservative targets. Out-of-context quotes and controversial biographical data are cherry-picked and re-assembled (in the manner of a kidnapper assembling a ransom note) to present the target in the most damning possible light. This method is particularly effective against conservative talk-radio personalities who engage in polemic battle with leftists. This is why Media Matters devotes such enormous resources to monitoring talk radio in hopes of grabbing a 40-second “gotcha” sound-bite.
The ‘Links and Ties’ Method – More than simple guilt-by-association, the Links-and-Ties Method involves presenting a chain of incidental connections to suggest a sympathy of views that does not actually exist. To wit: Target A once spoke at Event B which was sponsored by Group C, co-founded by Person D who once made controversial statement E. By this method, it is implied that Target A actually endorses Statement E.
Telescoping and Telepathy – The actions, statements and associations of a conservative target acquire a trans-temporal permanence in the smear attacks of the Left. Once a target is associated (however incidentally) with controversy, this association can be repeated endlessly as evidence of bad faith, no matter how many years intervene. Furthermore, if the target is associated in Year X with a respectable person or organization that becomes controversial in Year X+5, that association can be cited in Year X+10 as evidence against the target – even if the target had no involvement in the cause of controversy. Finally, all evidence of bad faith accumulated by these methods is presented as indicative of the target’s deepest and unwavering personal convictions, as if the accuser were possessed of telepathic mind-reading abilities.
Deny, Denounce, Repudiate – The key to these attack methods is the presumption of the target’s guilt. The accuser, having carefully selected the evidence to be discussed in the manner of a prosecutor making an indictment, demands that the target deny the accusation, denounce the bad-faith views involved, and repudiate the persons and organizations to whom he has been connected by the links-and-ties method. As anyone who has been targeted by such attacks can attest, it’s rather like being accused in one of Stalin’s infamous Moscow “show trials.”
What is at the root of this game is the accuser’s moral authority to act as Grand Inquisitor. The accuser arrogates to himself the unquestionable righteousness to judge the accused, who is then expected to attempt to prove his innocence.
If you play that game, you’re accepting the accuser’s authority.
The idiocy of the accusation that I am a “white supremacist” ought to be obvious: What, exactly, does “white supremacist” mean in 2010? Have I ever advocated any such policy? Do I hatefully derogate non-whites or espouse some bizarre theory of racial superiority?
I do not, and never have.
Remember that it is not sufficient proof of such a serious charge to say that, over the course of a long career, I have occasionally made ill-considered statements or that I have associated with people whose reputations may be even worse than my own. In the first instance, I’ve written many thousands of words which my accusers never bother to cite — e.g., my 2008 feature about Lt. Col. Allen West or my April profile of Vernon Parker — and in the second instance, a journalist necessarily makes a wide range of acquaintances.
I don’t like being told what to think or what to say, and I don’t make a habit of letting other people decide who I can be friends with. Some of my conservative friends can’t understand why I’m friends with that horrible reprobate Dave Weigel, for example, while my liberal friends — and I do have some of those — are shocked that I’m friends with that nasty Dan Riehl fellow. (I may even be part of Dan’s “ilk“!)
Having many friends who can vouch for my bona fides — people of good reputation who know me personally and never once had cause to think of me as a racist hatemonger — I expect that many voices will defend me from the likes of Phil Munger, an instigator of this latest attack.
Hate is against my religion. If I am commanded to pray for my enemies, why then should I hate entire races of people whom I’ve never met and who have done me no harm?
If I do not hate, neither will I fear. There are important stories I need to be covering, and I’ve got better things to do than to seek vengeance on a bunch of pissant “progressives” whose only claim to fame is their vicious obsession with the Palins. I’m past caring what such people think of me, but if I am called on to fight in defense of the good name of the Palins, I’m prepared again to invoke the war oath of Clan Cameron:
Within hours of her death, [Rachel] Corrie was transformed from human being to sacred symbol, an icon revered by the “Blame Israel First” crowd. She was subsequently glorified in a cantata composed by a University of Alaska professor (who has since become a notorious anti-Palin blogger) and in a play that ran for 48 performances on Broadway.
Exploited to advance the anti-Israel cause, this symbolic Rachel Corrie functions in death as the real Rachel Corrie functioned in life, scapegoating Jews and acting as a human shield for terrorists.
One of two outcomes is possible: Mike Castle wins on Sept. 14, in which case all this psychotic raving about Christine the Dangerous Right-Wing Catastrophe will appear unseemly in retrospect; or O’Donnell wins on Sept. 14, and Democrats will then congratulate themselves that Republicans have already done their dirty work for them.
You can read the whole thing. What’s amazing to me is the fanatical reaction of people who never said a peep about the Delaware primary until the Tea Party Express announced it was going to spend some money to beat Mike Castle. Now, they’re suddenly experts on the Atrociously Awful Very Bad Candidate Christine O’Donnell.
The suddenness and synchronicity of the anti-O’Donnell online onslaught is enough to make me wonder if there is some equivalent of Journolist among conservative bloggers, to which I am not privy.
So why didn’t we get any warnings back then from all these True Blue Conservative Stalwarts who are now screaming that Christina O’Donnell is a trainwreck, a nightmare and the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse?
I dunno. I’m just sitting in an airport bar — I can see Russia from here! — and wishing I was back home.
