ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Politics up here seems to be a matter of constant intrigue, and if you think the shenanigans ended with Lisa Murkowski’s concession speech, you’re wrong. However, I can say no more about the behind-the-scenes maneuvering, as what happens at the Moose’s Tooth Pub stays at the Moose’s Tooth Pub:
BTW, there was quite a bit of chatter Wednesday about the Vanity Fair article on Sarah Palin that was, as they say, a long run for a short slide. Second- and third-hand talk about Sarah Palin is dirt cheap, so why would the editors of VF pay good money for such a flimsy story?
Permit me to anticipate a complaint: “Hold the phone, there, amigo! I didn’t vote for him! What do I have to repent of?” Let us be rigorously fair in the matter: we are all to blame. Who among us doesn’t have a gullible friend or an uninformed neighbor, upon whom the employment of even modest hortatory skills might have converted to a vote for comparative sanity? How many senile uncles out there might a loving niece or nephew have helped to a more judicious choice through the use of, say, an absentee ballot? Nay, we are all sinners
Avail yourself of the whole thing, if you’re in the mood for some well-written English.
Stacy is set to appear on Libertarian Politics Live at 2150 Eastern, which is 9:50 PM for you anachronistic types. I don’t know if his planned trip to Wasilla will come up, but, pending distraction by some shiny object, that’s his stated intention.
I was at the Murray For Congress campaign headquarters event tonight, and have some video to process for tomorrow. Hit the tip jar, because if he has to hitchhike home from Alaska, the honey-do list when he gets back could end his blogging career.
But mainly police gunfire. Just woke up from a long nap here in Anchorage and this was the big news:
SILVER SPRING, Md. — Police shot and killed a gunman who held three hostages for several hours Wednesday at the Discovery Communications building in Silver Spring, Md., authorities said. They said the hostages were safe.
My first thought was that this was some nut who had gone to extremes in an effort to get his own cable TV reality series. OK, so I was I was half-right. He was a nut:
“All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants and the false heroics behind those actions,” it reads. “In those programs’ places, programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility must be pushed. All former pro-birth programs must now push in the direction of stopping human birth, not encouraging it.”
In other words, James J. Lee hated babies and wasn’t content with doing what most people who hate babies do: Vote Democrat and contribute to Planned Parenthood.
No, he had to do more. And so he did, and now he’s dead.
So the world’s population has been reduced by one.
UPDATE: Ace of Spades, from whom I borrowed the headline riff, goes another way:
Perhaps also [Discovery shows would include] forums of leading scientists who understand and agree with the Malthus-Darwin science and the problem of human overpopulation.
In other words: This guy had a “science” fetish even more extreme than Charles Johnson’s.
“It would be nice if everyone could just agree that James Jay Lee, the hostage taker killed today in a standoff at the offices of the Discovery Channel, was deranged. And leave it at that. But of course, we’re already seeing some extremely partisan bloggers trying to put him in the ‘left wing’ category, simply because his weird views sprang out of a kind of extreme environmentalism . . . .”
Now, imagine if this crime had been committed by a creationist, upset about evolutionary rhetoric in Discovery Channel’s wildlife shows. What would CJ have said about that?
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Front page of the local paper:
“Murkowski concedes” not “Miller wins.” It’s about her, you see? And notice how, by delaying her concession until the absentees were counted, Murkowski cheated Miller’s supporters out of their chance to celebrate together on Primary Night.
TV news satellite trucks parked in front of Murkowski HQ.
Murkowski HQ was next to a mattress store in a shopping center.
Murky concedes. If you’ll look, you’ll see my cell phone on the round table. I’d put it on speaker and placed it there so that Melissa Clouthier could listen to the speech live.
Miller’s victory was a vindication for a lot of people who have grown tired of seeing the GOP act as accomplices to the remorseless expansion of federal power. The campaign succeeded in large measure because the Tea Party movement has turned long-simmering conservative discontent with big-government Republicanism into an organized national force. Ever since the 2008 TARP bailout of Wall Street — for which Murkowski voted — more and more GOP voters have joined the insurgency that helped fuel the Miller campaign in accomplishing a rare thing: The defeat of an incumbent senator in a Republican primary. . . .
Read the whole thing. Yesterday, somebody asked me, “What do you think of Alaska?” I answered, “I haven’t seen Alaska. I’ve seen an airport, a taxi, a motel, another taxi, a campaign headquarters, a government office, a restaurant and another campaign headquarters.”
And it was exhausting. I don’t know exactly how many hours of sleep I’ve had since Sunday — when I decided to buy a one-way plane ticket here — but it hasn’t been enough.
So I’m making an executive decision to get some sleep today.
After spending my first night in a cheap motel by the airport, now I’m in a better hotel. The checkout time is noon local time (4 p.m. ET) but I’m going to need a lot more sleep than that. If readers will hit the tip jar to help fund another night’s stay here, I’d appreciate it.
Once I’ve gotten some sleep, I’ll think about booking a flight back home and then . . . well, I understand that Delaware is lovely this time of year.
Sissypuss was all set to review the POTUS prime-timer, and then Stacy blew town for Alaska.
Fortunately, Stacy’s goth twin Skippy was in between rehearsals with “Lips Can’t Go”, his Alien Sex Fiend tribute band, and was thus available, and they got together in the basement, along with some catnip and pudding, and took in the speech. Our staff may not be pretty, but who else works for these kinds of wages?
Allahpundit may be losing his touch, as he cannot come up with a metaphor for this:
The helicopter represents the Ruling Class, leaving the man with the Sword of the Constitution and the hot chick on the ground to represent the Tea Party. The vehicle is the November elecion, the last chance to do anything about the Ruling Class, before the Tea Party is vaquished. The helo gets taken out, but a red-garbed RINO wants to take the hot chick and deny the Tea Party the fruits of good conservative hotness, in a spirit of pure Cornyn-ism.
The Tea Party throws the Sword of the Constitution at the red coated RINO (for the words of the Constitution are written on his heart; the blade can be replaced, the chick, not so much) cleaving the RINO’s arm asunder, leaving him to fall into the Chasm of Progressivism.
Remember, Allahpundit: The Other McCain has always got your back.
UPDATE 11 p.m. ET (7 p.m. local) — It’s over. I just returned to Joe Miller campaign HQ after attending Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s concession speech on the other side of town. I fed live audio to Melissa Clouthier via cell phone, so she Tweeted the speech as it happened:
And let me ask readers: After I spent last night in a fleabag motel near the airport, don’t you think I deserve a night in the Sheraton downtown? Hit the freaking tip jar!
UPDATE 8:50 p.m. ET (4:50 p.m. local) — Absenttes in Fairbanks are reported to be good news for Joe Miller. Anchorage talk-radio host Dan Fagan on 750 KFQD just said that the votes remaining to be counted would have to break 55% for Lisa Murkowski in order for her to win: “That’s not going to happen . . . . It’s over.”
Joe Miller campaign headquarters, where a delivery of pudding is expected to arrive momentarily.
Momma O’s is famed for its fried halibut sandwiches.
Miller volunteer SemperVigilo drives the “JoeMobile.”
UPDATE 8 p.m. ET (4 p.m. local) — Dan Riehl and Big Government were first to break this, and other sources here in Anchorage are also reporting that Lisa Murkowski is expected to concede the GOP nomination to Joe Miller in a few hours.
UPDATE 8:25 p.m. ET (4:25 p.m. local) — More numbers reporting, now the margin is 1,210 votes.
UPDATE 7:30 p.m. ET (3:30 p.m. local) — OK, it turns out that that folks at Joe Miller campaign HQ had been misinformed about the count in districts 13-16. I just interviewed Gail Fenumiai of the Alaska Division of Elections, who explained that absentee ballots (and early votes) were counted in those Mat-Su districts today. It was the questioned ballots that weren’t counted, and those will be counted Friday.
As of now, Miller leads by 1,292 votes. We don’t know if numbers from Juneau are included in this total. They’ve just started counting in Fairbanks. Fenumiai said she expects the online totals for today’s votes to be more or less complete by “six-ish” — i.e., 10 p.m. ET.
The summary at this point: Chill out. At this point, we’re still about three hours away from knowing what the complete picture is today. However, if there are any Ace of Spades readers in Anchorage, please drop off a six-pack of Jello vanilla pudding cups at the Miller campaign HQ on Northern Lights Boulevard.
UPDATE 5:55 p.m. ET (1:55 p.m. local) — While we were at lunch, the margin shifted again. Now, Joe Miller leads by 1,294 votes. I’m told that this reflects early votes and questioned ballots from the Wasilla-Palmer area.
I’m told that districts 13 through 16 will only count questioned and early ballots today, while absentees there won’t be counted until tomorrow.
UPDATE 6:10 p.m. ET (2:10 p.m. local) — Just confirmed with Miller campaign manager Robert Campbell: Absentee ballots in districts 13-16 — Miller-Palmer area, aka the Mat-Su Valley — will not be counted until Wednesday. So today’s totals, with Lisa Murkowski gaining slightly, do not reflect the final outcome in those districts, generally considered a Miller stronghold.
4:35 p.m. ET (12:35 p.m. local) — Joe Miller has just increased his lead over Lisa Murkowski to 1,460 after further counting of absentee ballots in the GOP Senate primary.
UPDATE 4:25 p.m. ET (12:25 p.m. local time) — “We’re thinking it will be a good day at the end of the day,” Joe Miller campaign spokesman Randy DeSoto says in reaction to preliminary absentee ballot count from Anchorage:
UPDATE 4:05 p.m. (12:05 p.m. local) — Things are very busy at Miller campaign HQ, about three blocks away from the Elections Division office. Spoke briefly to campaign manager Robert Campbell and interviewed campaign spokesman Randy DeSoto and hope to have video in a few minutes.
UPDATE 3:25 p.m. ET(11:25 a.m. local) — After preliminary count of absentee ballots from Anchorage division, Joe Miller leads by a 1,325-vote margin, with 48,051 votes to 46726 for Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
Although this narrows Miller’s lead from 1,668 in Election Day results, it is being interpreted as good news by the Miller campaign, because Anchorage had generally leaned toward Murkowski. Miller’s stronghold is in the Mat-Su Valley, where preliminary results of the absentee ballot count will be reported later today.
UPDATE 3:10 p.m. ET (11:10 a.m. local time) — Preliminary totals for absentee ballots from Anchorage should be available within the hour, according to Gail Fenumiai, director of the Alaska Division of Elections.
The absentee count began at 9 a.m. in Anchorage, where five clerks were operating Accu-Vote optical scanners at the Election Divisions headquarters. On the other side of the same room, separated by a partition wall, five more clerks were reviewing “questioned” ballots. Officials and volunteers representing both candidates in the GOP primary — Sen. Lisa Murkowski and challenger Joe Miller — were observing the count.
Meanwhile, the absentee count began at 10 a.m. local time in the Mat-Su Valley district office, while Juneau is scheduled to begin counting at 1 p.m. and the count begins in Fairbanks at 3 p.m.
Soon to be the World’s Most Famous Ballot-Counters operate the Accu-Vote optical scanners at the Elections Division office in Anchorage.
Gail Fenumiai of the Alaska Division of Elections briefs reporters covering the absentee ballot count in Anchorage.
PREVIOUSLY: OK, I just checked. It’s 2.7 miles from my cheap motel near the airport to the Division of Elections office downtown. where they start counting absentee ballots at 9 a.m. (1 p.m. ET). The Division of Elections is less than half a mile from the Joe Miller campaign headquarters. Expect updates throughout the day.
Nearly 11,000 absentee ballots are scheduled to be counted Tuesday in Alaska with the outcome of the Republican primary in the U.S. Senate race in the balance.
The Alaska Division of Elections lists 10,850 absentee ballots for the count starting Tuesday morning in Anchorage and Wasilla and Tuesday afternoon in Fairbanks and Juneau.
Another 14,000 ballots still outstanding presumably will be counted Friday and Sept. 8.
Got to take a quick shower and pack. Here’s the front page of today’s Anchorage Daily News:
