In case you haven't been following the unfolding saga with the midterm elections, it's far from over. That's because the final vote count isn't in from Alaska yet. Preliminary counts have the write-in choice out on top of Republican candidate and Tea Party favorite Joe Miller. It is presumed that all those write-in votes are for Lisa Murkowski, the incumbant who Miller defeated in the primary. But rather than pack up and retire, Murkowski made the bold choice to continue on fighting, launching the largest write-in campaign in over 50 years. The odds were against her as no one has ever won a write-in campaign for statewide office in Alaska and the last person to win a write-in campaign in the United States was Strom Thurmond in his run for Senate in 1954 after losing to the incumbant in the primary. The speculation for the Murkowski's success is because of a fear of Joe Miller. The Maddow Blog run by the Rachel Maddow Show is reporting that entire villages are going against the Tea Party candidate because of his "anti-everything platform". This is really telling because Alaska is the state produced the Tea Party Godmother Sarah Palin. Based on this interesting little fact, the Murkowski supporters might not even vote for Sarah Palin were she to get the GOP nomination in 2012. For her sake, she would be better off running a third party campaign under the Tea Party banner. But I digress. This race will definitely be one for the history books as a candidate defied her party to challenge the man who defeated her in the primary and turned around to defeat him in the general election. This is a once in a generation occurance, so don't look for it to happen again.
UPDATE: History has been made as the Associated Press has declared Murkowski the winner, the first person in over 50 years to win a national write in campaign.
No comments:
Post a Comment