Alaska's Senator Murkowski To Run As Write-In Candidate

By Sean Cockerham and Erika Bolstad
McClatchy Newspapers

With the slogan "Let's Make History," Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski announced Friday she'd pursue an unprecedented write-in bid to recapture the Senate seat she lost to Joe Miller in the August Republican primary. ...

... No one has been elected to the U.S. Senate as a write-in candidate since Strom Thurmond in 1954, ...

... She'll be boosted by the $1 million left in her campaign account, but it was clear Friday she wouldn't have support of the national Republicans political machine. Some, like former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, made it clear they'd continue to support Miller.

"It's a futile effort on her part, it really is," Palin told reporters in Des Moines, after a speech at the Iowa Republican Party's Ronald Reagan dinner. ...

... The campaign will be a massive undertaking, not only to convince voters to support her but also to educate them on what they need to do for the vote to count. ...

We can be sure that Joe Miller doesn't have to worry about placing second anymore. He may finish third!

Much more can be read by clicking the post's title, which will take you to the paper's article, and don't miss Nate Silver's post at the NY Times' 538 blog, which explains how Murkowski could win as a write-in candidate. And, from CNN, the tea partiers are surprised. Finally, see The Mudflats' "Murkowski’s Write-In Campaign–What Are Her Chances?"

Sarah Palin's shortsightedness

Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, being primaried by a tea partier endorsed by Sarah Palin, has made a cogent argument for another term:

Seniority actually means something in the Senate.

Joe Miller, her opponent, says of her:

"She has a very liberal voting record and that also reflects her views of government as being the answer to all ills," he said. "That kind of perspective isn't going to pull the nation from the course we're on."

But the Associated Press' Becky Bohrer writes:

Murkowski makes no apologies for her voting record, acknowledging that while she's not a guaranteed Republican vote, she votes "with Alaskans' interests 100 percent of the time."

Palin's endorsement of Miller is typical of the sort of throw-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater thinking of Sarah Palin and ideologues like her. We see it in many of her other endorsements, and in her haste to score a point over an Islamic cultural center in New York, to the detriment of the war in Afghanistan, something she has supported in the past.