It's beginning to look a lot like a deleted scene from Downfall

I'm talking about Joe Miller's campaign for US Senate, of course. The latest:

The editor of the Alaska Dispatch website was arrested [sic] by U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller's private security guards Sunday as the editor attempted to interview Miller at the end of a public event in an Anchorage school. ... the owner of the Drop Zone, the private security firm that's been providing Miller's security, accused Hopfinger of trespassing at the public event, a town hall sponsored by the Miller campaign.

As you can see, Anchorage Daily News journo Richard Mauer bobbled the lede there.

"Arrested" implies an at least nominally lawful detention of someone, usually by police, on suspicion of having committed an actual crime.

When one is grabbed and handcuffed to a chair by a couple of goons who ended up working "private security" because they couldn't get into the military or police force even under the "relaxed" standards of the post-9/11 era, for asking inconvenient questions of a political candidate at a public event on public property, one hasn't been "arrested," one has been "assaulted and abducted."

Is Joe Miller getting nervous yet?

He wants to be the next US Senator from the state of Alaska, but he also wants his prospective constituents kept in the dark about his previous history as a government employee.

Matter of fact, he's lawyering up to keep their prying eyes off his record as attorney for Fairbanks North Star Borough. Why am I not surprised to see that Sarah Palin's "threaten to sue anyone who doesn't just unquestioningly reprint our spin" guy got the gig?

Miller has to know that continuously acting like he has something to hide will cost him votes. Apparently he's betting that it will cost him fewer votes than coming clean would.

And I'm still betting that either approach will cost him more votes than he can afford to lose.

I'd like to feel sorry for the Tea Partiers, but I just can't. A movement that adopts Palin as its mascot, falls for the Scott Brown scam in Massachusetts, and even invites Wayne Allyn Root to speak at its events is effectively hanging a big "GULLIBLE -- CON ME!" signboard around its own neck. I'd have been surprised if the charlatans hadn't swarmed.

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memeorandum thread

You Can Write It Down

US Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) is now US Senate candidate Lisa Murkowski (IWR-AK). The "IWR" is for "Independent Write-In."

This could get interesting, in a horse-race cum train-wreck kind of way.

According to Wikipedia's article on write-ins, Strom Thurmond is the only US Senator ever elected as a write-in candidate.^*

Could Murkowski become the second?

She's got a $1.5 million war chest. She won't be getting any more money from the national GOP. That doesn't mean she won't be getting any more money, but let's assume for the moment she's raised most of what she's going to have.

In 2008 -- a presidential year with an Alaskan on the GOP's national ticket, so probably high turnout -- about 320,000 votes were cast for US Senator. Let's guess the turnout at 300k for this November. It's a nice, round number and it's probably in the ballpark, maybe even a little high.

Can Murkowski snag 150,000 votes -- 50% -- if she spends $10 per vote? How about a 40% plurality (120,000 votes) at $12.50 a pop?

Here's a rough-in:

$400k for media -- radio, TV, newspaper, Internet.

If she has a good voter list and voter ID op, she can get out three mailers (the last one a sample ballot with a sticker to put on the real ballot if Alaska uses paper ballots) @ $2 each to the right 150,000 voters for $900k.

That leaves $100k, or about $230 for each of Alaska's 438 precincts, for Election Day signs and volunteer-distributed sample ballots/stickers.

And a final $100k for sundry expenses -- staff salaries, travel around Alaska to kiss hands and shake babies, etc.

That's if she doesn't raise another dime. I bet she'll raise quite a bit. If you were a corporate lobbyist how much would you pay to elect a US Senator beholden to you and not subject to edicts from "party leadership?" Those guys throw money at winners and losers. You don't have to be a sure thing to get their bucks, you just have to have decent odds, and Murkowski has better odds than many candidates.

Right now the polling makes it look like a Miller/Murkowski fight, but don't count on it staying that way. A month ago, it was a safe Republican seat. As of now the Democrats would be stupid not to throw some money into the mix and go for a surprise Senate pickup.

I don't know if Murkowski can win it, but she can sure as hell affect it.

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* Of course, US Senators weren't elected by popular vote until after ratification of the 17th Amendment in 1913 ... but prior to adoption of the "Australian ballot" in the late 19th century, a reasonable case could be made that all popularly elected officials, including US Representatives and presidential electors, were elected by "write-in." Most voters used pre-printed ballots given them by their parties of preference, but there was nothing to stop you from writing your ballot out by hand, and there were no government-printed ballots or rules for being "on the ballot."

Murky's Bluff?

That's what commenter "Carl" over at The Other McCain thinks is going on here.

The short of it for people who haven't been following: After losing the GOP primary for re-election to the US Senate from Alaska, and after being told "no" by the Alaska Libertarian Party once, Lisa Murkowski is talking to the ALP about their ballot line again, which of course has the rumor mill turning.

"Carl's" hypothesis runs something like this (read it yourself, though -- this is my gloss on it):

- If Murkowski runs on a third party ballot line (or possibly even as an independent write-in), the Democrats will likely pick up a Senate seat, current polling that shows her winning on the LP ballot line notwithstanding.

- What she's looking for is a lifeboat -- a nice, lucrative job as a corporate lobbyist, VP of a "defense" contractor firm, something like that that keeps her well-paid and down south.

- The bluff -- aimed at the Republican establishment higher-ups who can summon that kind of lifeboat for her with a few words in the right ears -- is "hook me up or I hand this seat to the Democrats."

I think Carl's hypothesis makes sense.

I also think that while the Alaska LP is willing to string the whole thing along for as much publicity as it can get, they'd probably stop short of actually giving her the ballot line. I may have missed it, but I don't remember ever hearing anyone call out Murkowski's name as an example of a "libertarian Republican," a "libertarian-leaning Republican," or even one of the weaker labels that sometimes appeal to libertarians ("fiscal conservative," "constitutionalist," etc.). Playing along for awhile is good publicity for the ALP, but actually going all in on the thing would probably damage their brand big-time, and they probably realize that.

memeorandum thread

Baked Alaska

In comments at The Other McCain and Independent Political Report, I made two predictions yesterday:

1) That the Alaska Libertarian Party will not make its ballot line available to US Senator Lisa Murkowski if she loses the GOP primary for re-election to office; and

2) That Murkowski will, in fact, win that primary.

Prediction #1: Check. While I'm no longer a political partisan (this is all just horse-race stuff to me now), my nostalgic attachment to the Libertarian Party is still strong enough for me to be proud of and grateful to the Alaska LP for not selling out.

Prediction #2 has yet to play out, but the number of as-yet-uncounted ballots keeps increasing (it was 8,000 on Wednesday morning, now it's at 25,000 and rising) and that tends to advantage Murkowski.

Why? Two reasons:

1) Absentee ballots tend to be marked and sent in early. Murkowski's primary opponent, Joe Miller, closed a ginormous polling gap in the month leading up to the election to emerge as the apparent victor on Tuesday. The earlier the ballot was cast, the more likely that ballot was marked for Murkowski.

2) Miller's campaign was a grass roots, "on the ground" operation in Alaska. A lot of Alaska's absentee voters aren't just disabled and homebound, or out of town on election day. Some of them designate Alaska their official residence, but split their time between there and elsewhere. Some are military personnel deployed outside the state. Some live in areas remote enough that the candidates won't be knocking on their doors and absentee voting just makes the most sense. Murkowski has the advantage of incumbency and name recognition with those voters.

Miller is ahead by 1,688 votes. There are, at present, 15,720 uncounted absentee ballots; 663 uncounted "early votes;" and 9,117 "challenged" ballots. That's 25,500 ballots.

The statistics I've seen put the ratio of Republican to Democratic primary ballots at 80/20, so we're probably looking at about 20,400 ballots here. To tie it up, Murkowski needs to get 11,888 of those votes to Miller's 8,512 -- 58.x%.

I expect that she'll do at least 55% on the absentee and early ballots, and far, far better than that (75% would not surprise me) on the "challenged" ballots.

Why so well on the "challenged" ballots? Because she's got the money behind her (her own campaign's money and money from the national GOP establishment, in particular the National Republican Senatorial Committee) to lawyer up in a big way. She'll challenge every ballot for Miller, and hotly contest every challenge to a ballot for herself.

Could I be wrong on this? Sure -- it's happened before. But I remain confident in my prediction that Lisa Murkowski will appear on the November ballot as the Republican Party's candidate for US Senate.

Update, 09/01/10: Well, I blew the second call there. Murkowski has conceded. I thought her chances still looked reasonably good on the absentee/challenged ballot count, but apparently she decided it was over (and/or wanted to get it under the bridge and in the past before the weekend news talk TV cycle ticks over).