The deal that Palin-hater Andrew Halcro is trying to broker to secure Lisa the Loser’s Senate nomination on the Alaska Libertarian Party ticket strikes many people as odd, simply because Murkowski is the kind of GOP Establishment type that LP activists loathe in their souls. And at least one top national LP official isn’t afraid to say so:
Wes Benedict, executive director of the Libertarian National Committee, told The Daily Caller that Murkowski hardly fits the Libertarian Party mould. “As far as I’m concerned if Murkowski is for bringing our troops home and for ending the war on drugs and if she voted against the TARP bailout and she is for reducing spending then maybe she could earn a spot on the Libertarian ballot,” he said. “But my understanding is that she voted for the TARP bailout and that is just insanely un-Libertarian.”
(Yeah, I was just compelled to link the Daily Caller for that quote. Life sucks sometimes)
There is much cause for conservative supporters of Joe Miller to be discouraged by the current situation, including the fact that I just got hit with an unexpected $678 repair bill for the 2004 KIA — life sucks sometimes — but we’ll leave that aside for a minute.
The far larger problem is that Team Murky is much better-funded and far more devious than the grassroots activists (and hired GOP clonebots) running Team Joe. What I’m hearing from Anchorage suggests that the Miller people don’t seem to grasp how a game like this is played, whereas the Murkowski crew is playing it like the ruthless political mercenaries they are.
Although Andrew Halcro’s obsessive hatred of Palin is such that he may be working as an unpaid freelance operative for Team Murky, he advertises himself as a political consultant. It is therefore likely he’s getting paid (if not by the Murkowski campaign, then by her Big Money supporters) to play matchmaker between Lisa and the LP.
Meanwhile, the LP people say Joe Miller’s campaign staff seem unduly cautious about reaching out. While Miller’s grassroots supporters are friends with the Libertarians — well-acquainted through common activism in the Tea Party movement — the paid staffers at Team Joe are regular Republican operatives, some of them from out-of-state. And not all of them seem to be taking the Libertarian Party seriously.
Which kind of explains the Tweet that one of those staffers sent out on Miller’s Twitter account:
“What’s the difference between selling out your party’s values and the oldest profession?”
Now, if that got spun as a dig at Murkowski, there would have been public-relations hell to pay, so the follow-up Tweet from Miller depicted it as being aimed at the Alaska LP:
“Please accept my apologies. Staffer trying to encourage Libertarians not to sell out.”
Good news: The LP people in Alaska have a sense of humor: “We don’t view prostitution as necessarily being a bad thing,” one Libertarian said. They understand and are not holding that one against Miller.
Bad news: This embarrassing incident is just one example of how the Miller campaign staff is badly misplaying their opportunity with the LP.
If Team Joe wants to “encourage Libertarians not to sell out,” they could try this simple and direct solution: Have either the candidate or his campaign manager make a phone call to Alaska LP chairman Scott Kohlhaas and arrange to meet for a cup of coffee.
It would be that simple, but that hasn’t happened yet.
Remember, first thing Wednesday morning — as soon as it became clear Murkowski had come up 1,668 votes short in the primary — Halcro called Kohlhaas to open negotiations, and Halcro is in direct communication with Murkowski.
All it would take to end this talk of Lisa the Loser becoming America’s Least Plausible Libertarian is for Alaska LP officials to say, “No deal.”
But — you knew there was a “but” coming, didn’t you? — the LP people aren’t going to make that kind of statement if Team Joe doesn’t show them some respect. So we’ve got something of a Mexican standoff that seems to be caused by a belief among key people at Miller HQ that it would be beneath the dignity of a Republican Senate nominee to reach out directly to those wacko Libertarians.
That’s discouraging, but now some good news: I’m informed that Sarah Palin has taken notice of the situation — she’s in Hershey, Pa., for a speech tonight, prior to her appearance Saturday at the Beck rally in D.C. — and is aware that LP Senate nominee is a fan. Don’t underestimate Mama Grizzly’s savvy.
More good news: Despite what Erick Erickson’s sources told him about Team Murky offering a “sizeable chunk” of Lisa the Loser’s million-dollar campaign account in exchange for the Libertarian Senate nomination, the LP people say they haven’t gotten one red cent from her, nor has anyone made a firm offer to the LP. No money has exchanged hands and no deal has been struck.
Meanwhile, Kohlhaas and other LP officials are being indundated by phone calls from Alaska and national media, but on-the-record public statements from Libertarians remain noncommital.
Call the LP whores if you wish, but they certainly aren’t stupid whores.
UPDATE: Just got off the phone with Alaska LP vice chairman Harley Brown who said, “More than likely — 99 percent — there’s no way Murkowski is going to be our nominee. I don’t see that happening, honestly.”
Furthermore, Brown dismissed as “completely ludicrous” any report that the Alaska LP has accepted or agreed to accept money from the Murkowski campaign. “That’s just somebody running their mouth . . . just a rumor,” Brown said.
Brown is an advocate for the legalization of marijuana, and said his original motivation for joining the Libertarian Party was former Gov. Frank Murkowski’s strong anti-drug policy.
Brown says the LP is willing to meet with Murkowski — it would be “rude” to reject such an offer, he said — and he is “flattered” that the Libertarian Party spot on the ballot is suddenly so coveted. He and other LP activists “worked our butts off” to get enough petition signatures to keep from getting “kicked off the ballot,” he said.
The attention national and statewide media are now giving the LP is “great publicity,” Brown said, and the Libertarians hope it will help their party.
Just a crazy idea: If Joe Miller’s supporters were to contribute to the Alaska LP — hit their tip jar, as it were — that might be an effective way to send a “No Murkowski” message.
UPDATE II: I’d promised to say more about that $678 repair bill, and have now kept my promise.
