delaying the improbable
checking back in on the alaska senate race, where write-in choice-of-the-people lisa murkowski leads major political party nominee choice-of-the-tea-party joe miller almost every way you look at it, except joe's...
the only imperfect detail is that, until her party primary loss to joe miller this year, lisa murkowski was a loyal party-faithful politician, (in this case, republican), so it's not completely the independent candidate being graced by the independent voice of the people, but it's pretty damn close as far as i'm concerned, and i'm rooting for lisa in this race all the way. joe, on the other hand, fired his first salvo by petitioning a federal court to revoke the franchise of tens of thousands of alaskans for errors including the use of cursive handwriting to scribe the "L" in lisa. (no joke--"shortly after the second day of write-in ballot counting began, a miller observer challenged a vote for murkowski that appeared to have her name spelled and printed correctly, though the L in lisa was in cursive handwriting").
the funniest part? even joe's hypercritical nonsense has only been able to call into any sort of question about 9.9% of the first 30,000 murkowski write-in ballots scrutinized. at this rate, he'd still fall short of stopping the inevitability of murkowski's victory. (and, not to worry if you, like me, believe in honoring the votes of each and every voter wherever reasonable and possible--the state of alaska election commission has already cited case law defending their intent to discern voter intent in counting the ballots).
to her credit, murkowski is refusing to claim victory until the election is completed. to their credit, alaskans have proven that they will make any effort required to select the candidate of THEIR choice, not the major american political parties'. to nobody's credit, joe miller is continuing to do whatever he can do to disenfranchise anyone who opposes him.
yup, that much is indeed party politics as usual.
the only imperfect detail is that, until her party primary loss to joe miller this year, lisa murkowski was a loyal party-faithful politician, (in this case, republican), so it's not completely the independent candidate being graced by the independent voice of the people, but it's pretty damn close as far as i'm concerned, and i'm rooting for lisa in this race all the way. joe, on the other hand, fired his first salvo by petitioning a federal court to revoke the franchise of tens of thousands of alaskans for errors including the use of cursive handwriting to scribe the "L" in lisa. (no joke--"shortly after the second day of write-in ballot counting began, a miller observer challenged a vote for murkowski that appeared to have her name spelled and printed correctly, though the L in lisa was in cursive handwriting").
the funniest part? even joe's hypercritical nonsense has only been able to call into any sort of question about 9.9% of the first 30,000 murkowski write-in ballots scrutinized. at this rate, he'd still fall short of stopping the inevitability of murkowski's victory. (and, not to worry if you, like me, believe in honoring the votes of each and every voter wherever reasonable and possible--the state of alaska election commission has already cited case law defending their intent to discern voter intent in counting the ballots).
to her credit, murkowski is refusing to claim victory until the election is completed. to their credit, alaskans have proven that they will make any effort required to select the candidate of THEIR choice, not the major american political parties'. to nobody's credit, joe miller is continuing to do whatever he can do to disenfranchise anyone who opposes him.
yup, that much is indeed party politics as usual.
posted by kad barma at 6:40 PM
1 Comments:
On the other hand, given that Lisa whoever was not willing to accept the results of the primary and went back at it in the general election, I think the fact that she is having to fight for every inch is wonderful. She didn't like the outcome under the rules of the game, so she decided to make her own rules. Now she gets to fight under those new rules. I am not so sure she is what the conservatives would call a conservative Republican, but it is interesting to see how, in this election, a lot of people have kicked over the cart and demanded a new way. Senator Lisa Murkowski is but one of those people. I hope it gives hope and encouragement to others who are unhappy with the status quo. I do think the core Lesson Learned out of this election is that the People don't want business as usual.
Regards — Cliff
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