Joe Miller, the Tea Party, Alaska Voters and Doing it Differently

Joe Miller ran a good race. He won the primary, he took the lead with an argument so many American's want to hear - I hear you, and I'm here for you.

Murkowski, took the path that is legal, constitutional and a very important part of our elections, she ran an independent write-in campaign and gave the people another option, if they wanted it. Write-in campaigns are tough; running a campaign with no party backing in our current political atmosphere, extremely difficult. Doing it as an incumbent in an anti-incumbent movement, maybe akin to doing nothing more than wasting time.

But as the count lies right now, Murkowski has done the impossible. Even throwing out all the ballots that the Miller campaign has contested, even the ridiculous ones like the one with the handwritten (cursive) L, Murkowski has more than 2000 ballots more than Miller. If you count them all, that's more than 10,000 more than Miller.

10,000 is a significant number, especially in Alaska, with only slightly over 250,000 votes cast in the state. That's 4% of the vote.

So is Miller bowing out gracefully, having heard the people? At this point absolutely not. His idea of doing things differently has been bringing in Republican political hitmen like Floyd Brown, notorious for offensive political tactics in the name of run of the mill Republicans for several decades. This is doing it differently? I'm not sure that Miller and his benefactor, Jim DeMint, understand the concept of "differently" or have heard anything the people are saying.

Let's address the name issue that Mr. Miller is tagging all his waning hopes on. He demands that every single ballot have "Lisa Murkowski" on it, exactly like that, nothing less, nothing more, in perfect print. No " L isa Murkowski" or "L. Mukowski" or "Lisa Murkowski - Republican" allowed. Absolutely no variation allowed, regardless of obvious intent, or "the voice" of the voter to be heard here by Mr. Miller. Absolutely no concern for the imbalance of fairness to voter and candidate in regarding the spelling if say someone named "Miller" was running on a write-in rather than "Murkowski."

Never mind this screams of the equivalent of a litmus test to allow your vote to be counted.

Miller wants to win. Now he is winding up to file a lawsuit to demand that spelling should override voter intent or at the very least, demand a recount (and probably a series of more lawsuits) if the vote "is close."

Is Mr. Miller deaf? What happened to hearing the people? Let their voice be heard, send the Republican thugs home finish the count and accept, Mr. Miller, that perhaps if you ran your campaign acting and looking a little less like a thug, the people wouldn't have kicked you to the curb for an incumbent, "RINO" (according to some) female.

Mr. Miller, next time consider the fact that hearing the people doesn't involve using your private security force to "arrest" journalists like your some kind of despotic leader of a banana republic. Oh, and maybe buy a razor, who goes to an interview wearing their bad decision making skills across their face like that?