Joe the Teabagger Campaign Death Spiral Watch - Day Two

Monday was the beginning of the end of the Joe Miller for U.S. senate campaign. Even Greta van Susteren seemed to sense it, as she looked up into the eyes of Sitka Mayor Scott McAdams, in her short interview with the Democratic Party nominee, in the wake of Miller's bizarre farewell performance in front of the Alaska media he has come to hate.

Another place where it was obvious that it is close to completely over for Joe, was in the comments at the Anchorage Daily News article about the press conference.

Back in August, an article about Miller might elicit 200 or more comments there, most favorable to Miller. Yesterday's article, by Sean Cockerham and Richard Mauer, has now garnered almost 1,600 comments. Few are favorable to Miller. Many are unsparing.

By doing this on an early Monday afternoon, Miller's campaign has left itself open to retort and ridicule for almost an entire five-day media cycle. His jabs at the Alaska Dispatch (PA has talken several jabs at the Dispatch over the months, too) were by and large inaccurate, and probably raised the hackles on the backs of Alaska journalists who might otherwise not have been too ready to support the work being done there.

Perhaps Miller has the final three weeks of the campaign so sewn up in scheduled meet-and-greets, church visits, fundraisers and behind-closed-doors sessions with his masters (like reps of the billionaire Koch Brothers), that he wouldn't have had time for the media anyway. But by drawing enormous attention to the lawsuit brought against the Fairbanks North Star Borough by the Dispatch and the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Miller seriously screwed up.

His campaign will be haunted by Monday afternoon from now until either November 2nd, or his withdrawal, after the information he is so ineptly pointing toward, finally surfaces.

As observed by a commenter at Wonkette this morning, Miller's becoming a bigger joke every day:

"The statement followed the Alaska Dispatch quoting an anonymous source Sunday night saying that Miller used borough equipment in the unsuccessful 2008 attempt to oust state Republican Party Chairman Randy Ruedrich."

What, like a backhoe? Dynamite?

And salon.com closed an article on this today, with this reminder:

The website and the Fairbanks News Miner newspaper have now sued the borough for release of records relating to Miller's employment there. Miller, for his part, has claimed that the borough must (for unclear reasons) waive attorney-client privilege before the records can be released. The borough says it is merely waiting for Miller's permission. That may explain the purpose of the press conference Monday: Miller is essentially promising that he will not grant the permission.

There's evidence that he has not always had good relations with previous employers.

His supervisor at the big Anchorage law firm where Miller worked in the 1990s told the Anchorage Daily News recently without elaborating: "I can tell you when he said he was going, nobody said please don't."

By the end of this week, few will be begging for Joe to stay.


image - altered from DZ