Another day, another dose of protein-enriched cat fud from the bitter Republican ballot battle between Joe Miller and Lisa Murkowski. This is what it's all about, people.
The New Math: The Alaska Division of Elections announced over the weekend that they now have 23,472 ballots (and counting) to process. That number includes 13,740 absentee ballots (out of 16,000 that were requested), 9,069 questioned ballots, and 663 uncounted early votes. It bears repeating, of course, that not all of these ballots are Republican, and that some will inevitably be invalidated rather than counted. The first batch of votes will be counted on Tuesday, with additional counts on September 3rd and 8th. We don't know how many votes will be counted tomorrow, but the Anchorage Daily News is reporting that the DoE will determine the number at some point today.
Hope for Murkowski?: The Juneau Empire took a closer look at where the absentee ballots are coming from, and finds that a "slightly larger" portion of the absentees are coming from Murkowski-friendly areas:
The biggest portion of the ballots remaining to be counted are absentees, which share some significant traits with a type of ballot that has already been counted: early ballots.
Both early votes and absentee votes were cast by voters who sometimes weren't exposed to the last days of the campaign, which saw Sarah Palin making automated phone calls to Republican voters on behalf of Miller and Tea Party Express-funded ads making attacks on Murkowski.
While Miller won election-day voting 50.9 percent to 49.1 percent, Murkowski won 54.1 percent to 45.9 percent among early voters.
About three-quarters of the votes cast Tuesday were in the hotly contested Republican races for governor, lieutenant governor and senator. If that margin holds and the absentee votes mimic the early votes, that could eliminate Miller's lead, the Empire's analysis shows.
Also, a slightly larger proportion of the absentee votes come from areas where Murkowski ran strongly. Her strongest areas were in Southeast, where she was born, in Anchorage, which she represented in the Alaska Legislature, and in the Bush. Miller, from Fairbanks, was most strong in the Interior and the Mat-Su Valley.
Fear and Loathing in the Mat-Su Valley: Joe Miller's sure been off to a great start in displaying Senatorial temperament, first getting nailed by us for comparing the Murkowski/Libertarian Party situation to prostitution and now snarling in the direction of the NRSC:
Miller telephoned POLITICO Friday night, in an apparent preemptive strike against absentee-ballot challenges by Republican officials.
"We're very disturbed over the fact that the National Republican Senatorial Committee has chosen to send a group of high-powered lawyers up here to Alaska to interfere with our election process," Miller said.
"It appears that they're trying to steal an election. The fact of it is, is that they only have one [goal], and it certainly is not the integrity of the election. It's to skew the results against Joe Miller." [...]
"We've received calls from many people that have been queried - absentee voters who are asked who they voted for," Miller said. "We believe that the votes ought to be counted appropriately, as they always have, without the interference of lawyers that are out there calling Alaskan voters to see how they voted, and without making challenges to the ballots."
Way to make friends, Joe! Of course, Miller can publicly abuse the NRSC as much as he wants, and that organization will react as stony-faced as the Queen's Guard staring down a throng of ill-mannered children. At the end of the day, the committee will offer their full support to Miller -- should he be the nominee -- but you can bet they'll be grimacing on the inside if they need to do so.
In the Anchorage Daily News, Miller campaign spokesman Randy DeSoto doubled down on the allegations, saying that the NRSC is engaged in a "nefarious" scheme to "throw out ballots" marked for Miller. I note with some amusement that Miller is accusing Murkowski of attempting to "pull an Al Franken", while also drawing attention to the fact that one of Norm Coleman's recount lawyers is apparently providing assistance to Murkowski. I guess the phrase "pulling a Norm Coleman" doesn't have the same cachet in teabagger circles.
The Libertarian Option: Joe Miller's tweet became a lot more famous than the article to which it was attempting to draw attention, but there was some good dirt in that particular Daily Caller article from Alaska Libertarian chair Scott Kohlhaas:
Scott Kohlhaas, state chairman for the Libertarian Party of Alaska, told TheDC that a number of things have to happen before any decision is made. "Rumors are flying but I really have no comment on them because, I mean, Lisa would have to decide to do it and then our candidate would have to decide to voluntarily step down [and] then our executive committee would have to vote on a decision."
Kohlhaas said he has no illusions about the fact that Murkowski is not a Libertarian, but says that having her run as one would be a way to get more publicity for the Party and possibly help the Party gain seats in state legislatures. "There are 7,000 state legislative seats out there and we don't have one," he said. "As far as getting the name out there, this episode is doing that much better than any one state legislative seat would. And in terms of morale for our Party a state [senator] would be a real gain for us."
At the end of the day Kohlaas recognizes that having Murkowski run as a member of the Libertarian Party would certainly "confuse some people because she is not libertarian."
"But that happens all the time. Our job is to educate and get the philosophy out there," he said. "If we decide to do this it will advance the Party and believe me we won't do this for nothing."
Kohlhaas said that it will ultimately be up to David Hasse to decide if he would be willing to step aside.
"Yesterday, he was inclined to do this but today maybe not," Kohlhaas said.
A lot of "ifs" there, of course. Murkowski certainly has her share of supporters who would like to see her commandeer the Libertarian line, including Andrew Halcro, who says that he's shelling out for a Dittman Research poll in order to see how Murkowski would do in a three-way race against Miller and Democrat Scott McAdams. (Of course, we've already seen a poll like that, but perhaps Dittman will find more encouragement for Murk.)
Facing the Nation: Miller appeared on CBS yesterday to give us all a taste of his overwhelmingly tea-stained agenda, and he had headlines like this one to show for it back home:
Miller: Alaska should forgo federal help
Uncle Ted this guy ain't! Miller also stuck by his openness to privatize Social Security, moderating himself only to say that those who have paid into the program already can keep their benefits (this despite also suggesting that Medicare and Social Security are unconstitutional). How magnanimous of him! Of course, that's the kind of talk that tickles the erogenous zones of the nutters at the Club for Growth, and The Creative Team Who Brought You Bill Sali is now saying that they'll direct fundraising dollars to Miller.
The Real Deal: Meanwhile, tacked on at the end of a piece on the booming salmon harvest up in Alaska, we have some more color on Sitka Mayor Scott McAdams, who sounds like a staunchly reality-based dude:
At a press conference after the primary election, McAdams, who grew up in Petersburg, said commercial fishing "goes to the core of my identity."
"I learned to read, write and reason in a town where 85 cents on the dollar came from commercial fishing," McAdams said. "I spent five years as a deckhand working in fisheries throughout the state.
"I seined in Southeast, Kodiak, I hand-bait longlined in the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea. I have an appreciation and a great affinity for the lifestyle and the culture, and for the need for commercial fishing in our state."
McAdams also picked up the endorsement of the Alaska AFL-CIO over the weekend (along with his fellow Democratic ticket-mates... and EFCA-backer Don Young). I'm looking forward to hearing more from and about McAdams once this Republican cat fud buffet is closed.
