Archive

Posts Tagged ‘Lisa Murkowski’
September 23rd, 2010 at 8:37 pm
Mike Castle Mulling Write-in Bid in Delaware Senate Race

Hell hath no fury like a career politician scorned.  Nine-time congressman and two-time governor Mike Castle (R-DE) will conduct a poll to gauge his chances as a write-in candidate for Delaware’s Senate seat.  If he chooses to challenge the Republican Party’s nominee, Christine O’Donnell, Castle will join Lisa Murkowski(I-AK) and Charlie Crist (I-FL) as moderate GOP statewide elected officials who decided to quit their party rather than their hold on power.

Prediction: If Castle follows through with a write-in candidacy Christine O’Donnell will gain ground in the polls.  Like other Tea Party candidates she’ll be able to attack Democrat Chris Coons for supporting President Barack Obama’s agenda, and charge that Castle is nothing more than a self-aggrandizing career politician.

In this climate, the truth of both of those charges could be enough to give O’Donnelll a Senate seat for six years.

September 18th, 2010 at 5:37 pm
Pundits Can’t See the Tea Party Forest for the O’Donnell Trees
Posted by Print

It’s nearly a week later, but on this Sunday talk show-eve we can be guaranteed that tomorrow’s beltway chatter will be dominated by talk of Christine O’Donnell’s upset of Mike Castle in the GOP senate primary in Delaware. To save you the pain of sitting through Meet the Press, This Week, Face the Nation, Fox News Sunday and CNN’s State of the Union, here are the basic talking points you’re going to hear all morning: O’Donnell’s win proves that Tea Party radicals are taking over the GOP, ruining their chances for a majority this year and imperiling the long-term existence of the party.

Put aside the obvious bias of these remarks (remember how two years ago the GOP was imperiled because it was losing? Now apparently it’s imperiled because it’s winning). The truth is a lot more complicated.

It’s undoubtedly true that O’Donnell’s nomination makes it much likelier that Democrats will retain the Delaware seat that used to be held by Joe Biden. Delaware is a solidly blue state and O’Donnell’s deep Republican red — regardless of her virtues or vices — is never going to play as well as Castle’s fuschia statewide.

The Tea Party’s stated goal, however — moving the Republican party closer to the principles of small government — is on track for success in most of its other contested senate races throughout the country. Ken Buck in Colorado, Mike Lee in Utah, Ron Johnson in Wisconsin, Rand Paul in Kentucky, Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, and Marco Rubio in Florida are among the Tea Party-backed candidates who appear on track for victory. Joe Miller in Alaska is a strong bet too, though Lisa Murkowski’s misbeggoten attempt at a write-in candidacy may tighten that race. Only Nevada’s Sharron Angle presents similar difficulties to O’Donnell, but on a far narrower basis. As of this writing, she’s polling essentially even with Harry Reid.

But there’s an even bigger misperception at work here. Since pundits only discovered a few weeks ago that Republicans had a shot at taking over the senate, they were able to put their Prozac back in the medicine cabinet with the O’Donnell win. This is a mistake. For while Delaware may have just slipped out of reach, two seats that were not previously part of the electoral calcuation are now in play.

The first is in Connecticut, where former WWE CEO Linda McMahon has pulled within five points of the supposedly invincible Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. The second is West Virginia, where the seat formerly held by Robert Byrd was expected to be an easy win for Democratic Governor Joe Manchin. However, industrial executive John Raese has closed the gap to within five points as well. Given the strong conservative turnout expected this year, these could both be sleepers come election night.

Don’t despair, conservative America. We’re just getting started.

September 17th, 2010 at 6:32 pm
Alaska’s Murkowski is the Last Frontier’s Charlie Crist

Where’s the party unity?  Florida’s Charlie Crist morphed into an Independent when it became clear Marco Rubio would be the Republican Senate nominee.  To date, Delaware’s Mike Castle hasn’t called to pledge his support to GOP nominee Christine O’Donnell.  (Though he did find time to take phone calls from both President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.)

And today, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski announced she would reject the judgment of her fellow Republicans and run as a write-in candidate after losing her reelection primary to Joe Miller.

Here we go again.  While the conservatives always fall in line, it’s the Republican Party’s moderates that are refusing to put their own political interests at the service of party unity.

Wake me up when it’s November…

August 25th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
A Tea Party Victory in the Last Frontier?
Posted by Print

That’s the way it looks after last night’s Republican senate primary in Alaska. Despite plenty of polling that showed him out of striking distance, attorney Joe Miller now looks poised to take down incumbent Lisa Murkowski once the final votes are tallied in the great untamed north.

Miller should be an interesting candidate to watch. He’s a true constitutionalist, calling for the abolition of the Department of Education and the phasing out of Medicare and Social Security.

Those positions, combined with his endorsement from Sarah Palin in the primaries, are going to lead the press to paint him as some sort of unhinged reactionary. That’s going to be tough, however, considering that Miller is a West Point grad with a master’s in economics and a law degree from Yale.

We noted last week that Tea Party activitsts are going to have to focus on ideas in addition to elections, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t savor victories when they can get them. Joe Miller could be a great addition to Washington — especially if he reverses the Senate’s longstanding hostility to unshaven legislators.

June 10th, 2010 at 6:32 pm
Senate Votes to “Turn Out the Lights on America”

The U.S. Senate this afternoon voted 47-53 to reject a resolution (S.J. Res. 26), sponsored by Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), to prevent the EPA from unilaterally regulating all greenhouse  gas emissions  in the United States (in other words, regulating pretty much the entire U.S. economy).

Six Democrats joined with all 41 Republicans in voting “Yes.”    They included Senators Evan Bayh (IN), Mary Landrieu (LA), Blanche Lincoln (AR), Ben Nelson (NE), Mark Pryor (AR) and Jay Rockefeller (WV).  

During a floor speech prior to his vote in support of the resolution, Senator Rockefeller said he was voting “Yes” because “I don’t want EPA turning out the lights on America.”  Kudos to him.  Unfortunately, however, 53 of his Senate colleagues decided it best to relinquish Congress’ authority to a merry band of now unchecked, free-wheeling EPA bureaucrats for no other reason than the realization that their beloved Cap-and-Trade “climate change” bill is destined for failure in the normal legislative process.

Those 53 Senators, together with President Obama who lobbied hard to defeat the resolution, now must take full responsibility for the negative economic consequences sure to come.