I know it is a sore spot, and I’m very disappointed as well, but Joe Miller did not win enough Alaskan votes to be the next Senator. I blame the voters. Ignoring reality does not change the balance. Alaska is not as conservative as we would like to believe, nor is Colorado or Nevada for that matter. Neither was Virginia, North Carolina, nor Indiana in 2008. Fortunately most of the rest of the country is still relatively, or moderately, conservative. If the right candidates run they can win. We have to do better than Joe Miller, Ken Buck, and Sharron Angle. They represent our values but they lose elections. We need winning candidates. Note that I excluded Christine O’Donnell from the list because it is arguable whether Delaware could elect any conservative in our lifetime. That is certainly not true of Alaska, Colorado, or Nevada. We fumbled those seats away.
The numbers are very weird.
In the 2000 census there were 464,000 Alaskans over the age of 18.
In November 2010 there were 494,000 registered voters!!!
These numbers are approx; I had the links and lost them. Will try again.
According to the article:
Murkowski’s campaign touted they had a grand total of 85,756 votes – including challenged but counted votes – and were only 1,761 votes behind Republican Joe Miller with thousands of absentee and write-in ballots yet to be opened and counted.If absentee balloting continues previous trends, Miller has won.[snip]
With 87,517 votes in the bank, Miller’s campaign pointed out that he is leading even if all of the contested ballots are added to Murkowski’s totals. Miller campaign spokesman Randy DeSoto pointed out in a press release that already counted absentee ballots have skewed in their favor in the Senate race.
As much as I hate to admit it; you’re right. Joe ran a sucky campaign. I think he underestimated the Wicked Witch from the North. And, the handcuffing incident, at a Miller rally, didn’t help.
“We have to do better than Joe Miller, Ken Buck, and Sharron Angle. They represent our values but they lose elections.”
You may have a point with Angle - but Buck was within a whisper of winning and if the CO GOP had gotten its act together in the governor’s race, I say he wins that race.
Miller has not lost - and that’s especially true if there really are 40,000 absentees to be counted.
My understanding is that Joe Miller won the Alaskan Republican primary, and Lisa Murkowski had said she would not contest the outcome. Then, some Eskimo tribal leaders, for financial and business reasons, backed her big time financially for a write in and LM was off to the races. Lisa brought home their bacon. First she broke her word, then she got the backing of those Republicans who voted for her in the first place, plus the RAT voters who would rather have her version of Republicanism than a real conservative Republican like Joe Miller. Seems very unfair to me that Republican resources went to a primary, as in Delaware, that was completely ignored when the loser candidate would not accept the outcome. Joe Miller basically is running against his own party plus the democrat party. This is also what happened with Charlie Crist in Fla and Christine O’Donnell in Delaware. I think it should come as no surprise when a candidate for office skips the primary and launches their political run within a third party. These power grabs by the established, entrenched, incumbents is ruining the process that has been relied on to give candidates a fair shake in the elections. Credit for the corruption of the primary system must also be given to the entrenched elites and self proclaimed leaders of the GOP who interfere in the primary process by trying to pick their own candidate instead of accepting one chosen by local voters. This counting of votes with what appears to be new rules about interpretation of signatures only reinforces my suspicion that Joe Miller and the voters who won him the primary are getting a raw deal. It would not have mattered who ran against Murkowski and won. This is not just about Joe Miller or his qualifications for this senate seat. It is about entrenched power and incumbents who have a sense of entitlement to a position in government that was never intended to be for life.