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News & ArtsWednesday, November 17, 2010
Politics Senator Murkowski, Ra! Ra! Ra!
Posted by Cienna Madrid on Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 3:23 PM
The Associated Press says that Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski won her underdog, write-in campaign for re-election against Sarah Palin/tea party darling Joe Miller. It's not official, of course, but it's still delightful news.
From the NYTimes:
Election workers have manually counted more than 100,000 write-in votes in Juneau, the state capitol, over the last week, and more than 97 percent of the votes were for Ms. Murkowski, according to state election officials. As Wednesday began, she led Joe Miller, who upset her in the Republican primary in August, by 10,400 votes with less than a thousand ballots left to count.
The state hasn't certified Murkowski's win and Miller isn't conceding—he's challenging votes and squawking about election fraud and raising money for a recount and generally shitting bricks right and left.
The Times notes that if Murkowski wins, she'll be the first write-in candidate to do so since Strom Mother-Fucking Thurmond in 1954.
1
Miller's been challenging a lot of ballots, alleging that misspelling "Lisa Murkowski" doesn't count as a vote for her. A few of the ballots he's challenging on those grounds have, written clearly in the appropriate space, "Lisa Murkowski". I don't know either.
4
Palin still has a tiny bit of currency nationwide due to her relentless media whoring, but Alaskans for the most part hate her stinking guts. She's a quitter. Quit the governorship. Walked out on Alaska for a TV gig in New York City. Her endorsement is the kiss of death.
If she gets the nomination in 2012 Alaska will go for Obama.
If she gets the nomination in 2012 Alaska will go for Obama.
5
What @3 said. I don't believe an election won by a Republican can be described as "delightful." More like "slightly less appalling than the likely alternative."
11
Hope the Republicans like their new Joe Lieberman. Hehehe...
And yes, people, this is good news. Alaska is a ridiculously conservative state and Lisa Murkowski is actually relatively moderate - I know, I know, the standard of moderation is awfully low these days, but she votes against her party's line sometimes and we can't really hope for anything much better from her constituency. Even a small shift in the political persuasion of a single Senate seat is liable to be the deciding factor for some bill or other at some point in time, so this outcome almost certainly means that something - maybe small, maybe big - in the next 6 years will go better for us than it would have been if Joe Miller had won.
And yes, people, this is good news. Alaska is a ridiculously conservative state and Lisa Murkowski is actually relatively moderate - I know, I know, the standard of moderation is awfully low these days, but she votes against her party's line sometimes and we can't really hope for anything much better from her constituency. Even a small shift in the political persuasion of a single Senate seat is liable to be the deciding factor for some bill or other at some point in time, so this outcome almost certainly means that something - maybe small, maybe big - in the next 6 years will go better for us than it would have been if Joe Miller had won.
12
Not only does she vote against her party line sometimes, she no longer has to kowtow to her party for the sake of keeping her Republican Credentials. So hopefully there will be more voting against typical Republican bullshit.
Lean right Independents are way more valuable to our government than lean right Democrats. Except for Lieberman, the douche.
Lean right Independents are way more valuable to our government than lean right Democrats. Except for Lieberman, the douche.
13
Poor Joe Miller, he already went to Washington DC and bought his carpet and curtains for his new office an everything. Hubris, meet Nemesis.
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