GOP could lose Alaska Senate seat with split vote if Senator Lisa Murkowski runs - Phot from Youtube video

Alaska has long been a solid GOP strong hold, but could fall to the Democrats in November if Senator Lisa Murkowski decides to run as either a write in candidate or shows up on the ballot as the Libertarian Party’s candidate.

Sen. Murkowski lost a very tight primary election to Tea Party Express candidate Joe Millar this past August by a mere 2,013 votes. Sen. Murkowski’s seniority would be a loss for Alaska residence, but many voters there felt she was too liberal and that they wanted a candidate that would fight the big government expansion that has taken place under the Obama Administration.

“We trust Sen. Murkowski will keep her word that she and Joe gave four days before the election to honor the will of the electorate,” said Miller’s campaign spokesman Randy DeSoto. “Her campaign manager also spoke with one of our staff members about how important it would be to come together after the primary, so the Republicans would have a unified front.”

However Murkowski is seriously considering reneging on that deal as she is currently in negotiating with Libertarian Party officials to back her as their candidate and if that fails, she is also considering allowing herself to be a writ-in candidate.

Many of Senator Murkowski’s supporter’s are happy about the possibilities and someone even started a Facebook page (though it’s not clear if the page was started by a fan or Sen. Murkowski herself), “Write-in Lisa Murkowski for Senator in November,” which has gained more than 1,400 backers thus far.

This past Thursday 10 local GOP officials who signed a letter to Ms. Murkowski Thursday urging her not to run including bank executive Michael Dunton who said “Good Lord, I can’t think of a bigger train wreck than that.”

Senator Murkowski though doesn’t believe that her running as a write-in candidate would split the Republic vote. She stated on the new Facebook page “Ok folks, let’s talk about the word on the street…splitting the republican vote. Writing-in Lisa is NOT intended to do that. We need all the people who did AND did not vote in the primaries. We also need democrats, and there are plenty of them out there who will vote for Lisa.”

While Senator Murkowski’s “intent” may not be to split the vote history has proven that it will do just that. If Senator Murkowski runs, whether as a Libertarian candidate or a write-in, Alaska’s next new senator could very well be Democrat Scott McAdams.

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Tea Party Express candidate Joe Millar wins Alaska GOP Senate primary

Tea party Express candidate Joe Millar who had the backing of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin has won the Alaska GOP Senate primary as current Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski conceded the race.

With Murkowski trailing by roughly 1,630 votes after more than 15,000 absentee ballots had been counted late Tuesday evening the writing was on the wall. Murkowski said in her concession speech that she didn’t see a scenario in which the primary results would turn out in her favor at this point.

Murkowski said she was proud of the campaign she ran, which she called “honest” and “upright.” And that her campaign had stayed focused on the issues and the “high road.”

“I’m coming back home,” she said. “You all know my heart and soul has always been in Alaska.”

Mean while Joe Millar will now go on to face Democrat Scott McAdams, mayor of Sitka Alaska this coming November in the general election. The Tea Party Express candidate with the backing of former governor Sarah Palin will be a strong favorite to win the general election in the traditional strong Republican state.

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DISCLOSE Act fails in the Senate

Democrats in the Senate failed to turn a single Republican to vote for the DISCLOSE Act legislation which failed on a 57-41 vote on Tuesday.

Earlier this year the Supreme Court ruling in the ‘Citizen’s United’ case undid much of the campaign finance laws already on the books which President Obama criticized.

The Democratic congress then set out to create a bill enact new campaign finace laws to correct what they saw as disastrous in the Supreme Court ruling. The bill narrowly passed the House earlier this year, but was unable to make it through the Senate where the Democratic majority is slimmer.

The legislation was doomed to fail from the beginning. While sold as a means to crack down on the powers of special interest groups, it instead turned out to be a means to stifle traditional Republican supporters while placing virtually no restrictions on traditionally Democratic allies such as big money unions.

The law would have restricted white collar workers at General Motors, but the United Auto Workers union would have been unrestricted in its support of Democratic allies in the House and Senate. The UAW using union dues gave over 2 million dollars to Democrats in the 2008 election.

While both sides claimed to want tighter controls and more transparency on campaign financing the current bill was designed only to restrict the donations and political advertising of corporations while giving free reign to unions. Maine’s Olympia Snow was targeted by Democrats to get the one Republican vote the needed for passage, but even a “yes” vote by Snow would have left Dems short as they also needed a “yes” vote by Joe Lieberman (I) of Connecticut and as it turned out he missed the vote to addend the funeral of a friend.

Aides in both the Senate and the House insist the legislation will come up for consideration again. However unless the legislation is rewritten to create transparency and restrictions equally amongst the two Parties traditional donors there is little chance the bill has any chance of passing.

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