After two weeks of hand counting the write-in ballots in Alaska’s senate race, Lisa Murkowski has won her re-election bid over Joe Miller. The Associated Press has declared her the winner but Miller has yet to concede and has even filed a lawsuit citing irregularities in the counting.  Murkowski is to be commended as she is the first person to win as a write-in candidate since South Carolina’s  Strom Thurmond.  This gives me hope for my future city council write-in campaign but it also makes me wonder what happened to Joe Miller? It seemed he had the race wrapped up. He had the endorsement of Sarah Palin, had beat Murkowski handily in the August primary and the Tea Party Express had poured thousands of dollars into his campaign. He even visited Washington, D.C and tweeted about the great welcome from his soon-to-be colleagues, his name on his soon-to-be office door and oh…doing some house hunting. The only thing he didn’t do, it seems, was measure for drapes.

Meanwhile back in Alaska, Murkowski, not to be outdone by losing the August election decided to run as a write-in, it seemed desperate and impossible but in this season of strange politics anything could happen. Miller continued his campaign based on getting rid of  everything from the Department of Education to Social Security, he was after all the Tea Party candidate and was coming off as really extreme. Even stranger was the Republican Murkowski adopting a more Moderate (read Democratic) stance in a red state such as Alaska. She said Miller didn’t represent the hopes and dreams of the people of Alaska.

“You know, he is — he has taken an approach that is just, plain and simple, more radical than where the people of the state of Alaska are,” Murkowski said. You just cannot talk about getting rid of a person’s Medicare and not suffer some consequences. Joe Miller found that out in the most painful way on election day as Murkowski’s write-in campaign actually worked. You know it’s time to concede when former Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman chimes in. Coleman who waged a similar lawsuit after his loss to Al Franken recently said, “I think that race is over, I think the counting’s been done I’m not sure there’s anything that would change that.” Even the  Alaska Republican Party who endorsed Miller has called on him to step aside and respect the will of the people.  Miller is not backing down and is in-fact digging in and looking like a real sore loser. Sometimes you have to know when to fold.

Posted by Libergirl