I thought it was shocking when Senator Bennett of Utah was denied renomination, but I’m even more stunned that Senator Murkowski of Alaska is trailing her opponent in preliminary results from Tuesday’s primary. As the Wall Street Journal explained in an editorial this morning, this is a big sign that voters are not merely interested in electing big-government Republicans instead of big-government Democrats. They actually want leaders who will fight to limit government and expand freedom. After nearly 10 years of Bush-Obama statism, I’m very happy to see the American people still value liberty.
GOP Members of Congress who think they can return to business as usual if they regain the majority should pay attention. The biggest shock came in Alaska, with incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski trailing unheralded challenger Joe Miller by roughly 1,700 votes with as many as 16,000 absentee ballots still to be counted. …Though heavily outspent, Mr. Miller was helped by former Governor Sarah Palin’s endorsement and especially by Ms. Murkowski’s failure to understand the anti-Washington mood. When he asked Senator Murkowski in a debate which part of the Constitution permitted Roe v. Wade and bank bailouts, she responded that the nation might suffer if the government only funded things explicitly authorized by the Constitution. Bad answer. Ms. Murkowski opposed ObamaCare but Alaskans punished her for her 2009 refusal to rule out a government-run health-care plan. She is learning the lesson that ousted Utah Senator Bob Bennett did: GOP voters don’t want their representatives to negotiate with President Obama. They’re looking for people who can defeat his agenda.
I’m glad you have more faith than Brink Lindsey that something can change.
Murkowski is bad bad bad but she is just the latest example of the problem conservatives face in Alaska when trying to run good national candidates.
Alaska has a very strange situation when it comes to their relationship with the federal government. On one hand Alaskans are very independent people who would love nothing more than for the government to leave them alone. However, the government does not leave them alone. Much of their land is locked up under federal control. They have a lot more energy resources that they can use but the federal government blocks that. So if the federal government is going to keep blocking their own economic prosperity they want something from the federal government in return.
They are constantly faced with the desire to send conservative or libertarian reps to Washington but they also must balance the need for federal money to their state for a lot of things: roads, bridges, airports etc. etc. This is why Ted Stevens was able to stay in office so long and the reason why Don Young is still in office. What matters to many Alaskan voters, until the federal government allows them to do their own business at least, is “seniority” and committee chairs etc. to steer home the money. Murkowski was campaigning on this which tells me that although there is a backlash against government in general going on, it is still a strong sell to tell voters in Alaska that they need a senator with seniority in order to get federal money.