Five consecutive polls, three of them with Sen. Lisa Murkowski being polled as an active write-in candidate in a three-way race show Teabagger Joe Miller at 50%, 47%, 42%, 36% and now - 30%. The last one, taken by fairly accurate pollster Craciun, puts Joe the Teabagger 11 points behind incumbent Murkowski, who he beat in a fairly closed GOP primary, back in late August. Miller has lost .6 percentage points per day since the primary.
Unfortunately for progressives, Democratic Party primary nominee, Sitka Mayor Scott McAdams has stayed in the mid- to low-20s pretty much through all the polls. McAdams' best hope is for Miller-Murkowski to stay tight enough that they go so negative, voters end up choosing McAdams, who might seem the only adult in the room among the three.
Murkowski didn't poll well against Miller in the first polls to emerge early last week, when she announced her write-in candidacy. Late last week, and through this one, a series of disclosures about questionable actions by Miller in the past, and the poor way Miller's campaign has handled his attempted transition from Tea Party hero, to some sort of moderate that might appeal to the majority of Alaska voters who are not party members, have combined to make likely voters turn against him quite rapidly.
His campaign may be about to enter a free fall, down into the mid-20's, as one of the latest scandals sinks into the consciousness of Alaskans. He appears to have broken Alaska Department of Fish & Game laws in the way he and his wife applied for a moose hunting permit back in the mid-1990s, about the time they moved here from the mid-Atlantic area and Kansas:
And is it just me, or is anyone else a bit skeptical that Mrs. Miller went out and shot her own moose? Now, I’ve known many a fine Alaskan woman who has shot and killed moose and various other wildlife, and many more who are far better fisherpersons than I am, so it is certainly possible. But how likely is it that a recent Alaskan transplant, who apparently spent the greater part of a decade pregnant or recovering from giving birth, went out and shot her first moose in 1995?
The penalty for knowingly making a false statement or omitting a material fact in an application under AS 16.05 is a class A misdemeanor. AS 16.05.420(b); see also AS 11.56.210 (unsworn falsification). There is absolutely no question that Joe Miller was not a resident of the State of Alaska when he applied for these resident permits. It is likely that his wife was also not a resident when she applied for these same permits. Joe Miller should be penalized for lying on his application and saving himself $245, and his wife should likely be punished as well.
Of course, there is an additional issue: did Joe Miller lie about his income in order to get a further reduction in the cost of his falsely-obtained resident permit? (From $55 to $5) Perhaps the Alaska State Troopers need to take a look at Mr. Miller’s income in 1994 — I would suggest starting with his 1994 mortgage application and his tax returns for that year. I’m sure that the military has records of the payments it made to Mr. Miller for his service in the reserves, and I’ll bet that the USDA has a record of the farm subsidies that Joe received. There is also the small matter of the Kansas farmland that the Millers claimed to have sold off to buy their house, and whatever subsidies Kathleen received for home schooling whatever portion of their brood of children existed at the time.
Fish and wildlife are not just important in Alaska; they are fundamental to our lifestyle and our identity as Alaskans. Thousands of Alaskans rely on subsistence hunting and fishing to feed their families, and Joe Miller gamed the system to get permits illegally. He lied and cheated to save himself $295 and he stole a moose and an unknown number of fish.
Joe Miller is a poacher and a liar.
Just days before that, it was revealed that Miller took thousands of dollars of Federal farm subsidies on some Kansas land, for leaving it fallow. He had the money sent to the same post office box he'd set up in Anchorage, to get the moose permit as a state resident, while still going to Yale Law school, and supposedly not making enough money to pay the same I would for mine.
Today it was revealed that he hasn't yet filed the mandatory Federal Election Commission personal finance disclosure reports. They were due in April or May. His campaign is claiming it is an oversight, and Joe, confronted Wednesday outside a DC fundraiser, by Politico.com, refused to answer questions:
Alaska GOP Senate nominee Joe Miller refused to answer questions Wednesday about his failure to file personal financial disclosure documents that were required by law to be filed several months ago.
While entering a high-dollar fundraiser in Washington D.C., on Wednesday evening, Miller stayed silent when questioned by POLITICO about the missing documents that were supposed be filed when he began his campaign for Senate in April.
There has been a lot of scrutiny about his finances. He seems to want to hide personal information in a number of ways, and he has a large staff. His staff's story, late Wednesday afternoon, that the failure to file the disclosure was "an oversight," is most likely bullshit. Everyone in Alaska knows that Ted Stevens got taken down for not making such disclosures.
More likely, there is information he or his campaign feels would hurt his chances, that they were hoping could slide by until later.
1 comment:
His ratings will slide down further and further because more Alaskans are waking up to the fact that Miller is a total sham. He's in it for himself and his half-baked ideas. Under him, Alaska would suffer but California would benefit.
Too bad Alaska can't learn to do its vetting BEFORE the election. How many times do we need to be hit on the head????
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