Steve Aufrecht, from What Do I Know, rode his bicycle around to the McAdams, Miller and Murkowski Anchorage campaign headquarters' today. His goal - pick up on some of the ambience of the various campaigns by checking out what kinds of food they had available for volunteers.
I predicted earlier in this series that Joe Miller would end up third in the Alaska U.S. Senate race. The accumulation of bizarre actions by Miller or his campaign staff over the past four months will finally catch up with him by the end of this week, the final one before this year's pivotal November election. There's just no way he can survive this:Waiting for the first poll to put Joe in the high 20s........In the short span of time the employees were trying to get to the bottom of what had happened, Miller lied no less than four times:
He told them he'd had to use another computer because he couldn't access the website he needed to get to on his.
He claimed he had to clear the cache or the website might block his access.
He initially denied being on more than one computer
And he claimed he was visiting a professor's website at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
In a written account of events offered by one of Miller's co-workers -- identifed in an earlier records release as "employee 3" but now known to be Jill Dolan, Miller's acting supervisor at the time -- Dolan states that the office staff felt none of what Miller was saying made any sense and that he was acting bizarre.Miller had also been talking about threats he had recently received, but wouldn't offer specific details. Dolan also didn't trust his stories about the computer use because he had, some time earlier, been asking a lot of questions about accessing the computer servers and wanting to make sure they were safe from hackers.
He insisted his colleagues were "overreacting" and even attempted to shift the blame to them.
"He maintained the whole time he did not violate the computer use policy and that actually all of us did for not securing our computers," Dolan wrote.
Rep. David Guttenberg (D - 8th District) was quoted by The Mudflats, back on August 31st, from Dave's facebook page:I beat this fool when he ran against me in 2004. Miller speaks drivel.At that time, the growing realization that Miller might not be a good option for having someone "in charge of your life," helped spur the budding fundraising efforts for Scott McAdams. Right after the Alaska primary, McAdams was unknown. Concern about how dangerous Miller might be spurred people to help McAdams set an Alaska record for single day on-line fundraising during the first week of September.
He clearly cares nothing about the lives of Alaskans just about this constitutional double talk. If I was a Tea Party supporter, I would worry about this guy being my champion. I believe he is a career wanna-be big high mucky muck, who wants to be in charge of you life.
Tuesday, while shopping at a computer store, and during a rehearsal break, I got asked pretty much the same question by friends. I suppose a lot of readers here who live in Alaska have been asked the same question, or will be asked soon:Q: "Who you gonna vote for?"I suppose somebody else will be popping me the question.
A: For what?
Q: In the Senate race.
A: You know the answer to that - Scott.
Q: But what if McAdams isn't even in the picture and it's really close between Miller and Murkowski?
A: The last polls will show Joe dropping a lot.
Q: What if they don't? What if Joe ends up winning by one vote?
A: I can't vote for Lisa Murkowski, and Joe Miller should be indicted. Scott gets my vote.
This set of new signs was up on Trunk Road, between Mat-Su College and the Palmer-Wasilla Highway this morning. Dewey the Sign Guy put them up yesterday. Go Scott!
That's the poster I've made for the Anchorage Civic Orchestra's upcoming Fall Concert, to be held a week from Saturday, at the Sydney Laurence Theatre. Among other works, the ensemble will be playing Heitor Villa-Lobos' hauntingly beautiful Bachianas Brasileiras No.5, a work for eight cellists and soprano. It begins with one of he most memorable melodies of all time:
Pansies growing in the driveway on Monday.
Flowers still blooming in Judy's rock garden.
Making beet-goat cheese ravioli Sunday afternoon.
Folded and finished ravioli.
Cooked ravioli, with Costa Rican lobster. Yum!
If I could choose an image that shouts "Tea Party Club House!" this would be it. It is Joe Miller's large cabin by Caswell Lake, near Willow. He got a good deal on it. Since, he has generally listed it as "rental property," when he has chosen to disclose its place in his portfolio. The Alaska Dispatch has an excellent article on this today, written by Craig Medred.
I've received two reports now of Miller goons and thugs chest-bumping adherents of Lisa Murkowski and Scott McAdams Sunday night at the conclusion of the KTUU debate at the Alaska Native Heritage Center. One person requests anonymity, as she had been a Miller supporter until she witnessed the incident. She claims Miller goons bowled over an older woman as they sought to clear a lane toward the nearest exit for Joe.
I. Judy and I watched both the KTUU TV debates Sunday evening. We watched at home, as she prepared for another trip to the lower Kuskokwim villages where she mentors first and second year teachers. Those who attended the debates in person had to deal with the frequent stops in the continuity of the debates. At home, what we got during those lapses was a huge wave of political ads.Ethics took center stage Sunday during a debate in which Alaska Senate hopeful Joe Miller said he was suspended for or docked three days' pay for violating ethics policy while working as a local government attorney in 2008. This acknowledgment came less than two weeks after Miller told Alaska reporters he'd no longer answer questions about his past or background after alleging his personnel file from his time as an attorney for the Fairbanks North Star Borough had been illegally leaked.
After former borough Mayor Jim Whitaker said Miller was nearly fired for using government computers in a failed effort to oust the state GOP chairman in 2008, Miller told CNN he had violated ethics policy but said it was unrelated to his leaving the job in 2009 or to the issues of the current Senate race. On Sunday, a day after a judge in Fairbanks ordered the borough release Miller's personnel records, Miller said he had participated in a private poll during his lunch hour. He said it was a mistake that he's learned from. His attorney said no decision has been made on whether to fight the records' release.
For those who believe Palin plans to run in 2012, the fact that she has thrown herself into so many races—to date, she has endorsed 56 candidates, 35 of them tea-partyers—is a significant piece of evidence. There are others. The fund-raising total for her PAC through September 30 ($2.5 million) ranks behind only Romney among potential candidates. She has given more than 70 speeches this year all across the country. In September, she dipped her toe in the Iowa waters by headlining the state party’s annual Ronald Reagan Dinner.
Much was made of the fact that Palin did none of the traditional kowtowing to Republican activists and local officials in the Hawkeye State. Yet, in other places, she has begun courting GOP lever-pullers whose support is critical to winning the nomination. Earlier this month, Palin attended a closed-door dinner at the Breakers in Palm Beach, hosted by the CEO of the conservative media company Newsmax and attended by several dozen A-list insiders, and repeatedly invoked the memory of Reagan. In doing so, she not only tried implicitly to rebut concerns about her electability—noting that naysayers said the same about the Gipper in 1980—but imbue herself with an optimism that some Republicans have found lacking in her relentless assaults on Obama. (In San Jose, she name-checked Reagan eleven times, often in proximity to terms such as “positive” or “exceptionalism.”)
Even with the rise of the tea party, the widespread presumption is that, in the end, the Establishment candidate would prevail: “As Republicans, that’s our history, that’s our DNA,” notes Castellanos. Enhancing that presumption is another: that Palin will be prone to such horrific gaffes, appalling missteps, and gratuitous misstatements that they will clarify for Republican voters what selecting her would mean. “There’s a strong, strong possibility that she will falter, will make some big mistake,” says Weber. “Then it becomes a little bit like Howard Dean, where the party finally looks at her and says, ‘Gee, we like a lot of what she says, a lot of what she stands for, but she would lead us to a disaster.’ ”
But as Weber himself acknowledges, there is another possibility—one that he says is much on the mind of his old friend Newt Gingrich. “She could just take off and sweep everything,” Weber offers glumly.
“You can’t talk about that without talking about the culture in which we live,” says a senior strategist. “Reality-TV culture has taken over real life, which, together with opinion news, she is using more effectively than anyone. At the end of the day, her ability to create a spectacle, get a crowd, whip up people—is that translatable into a plurality victory in a Republican primary? It’s impossible to know. Because you’ve never seen anything like it. It’s totally uncharted territory.”
Totally uncharted territory indeed. As one commenter at this morning's ADN article on the Senatorial debate observed:Joe Miller and Sarah Palin have played Alaskans like a harp on a string. Although he rails against big government, he's a squatter who's used government subsidies for his welfare family. Sarah Palin, who endorsed this bozo, quit her governorship just to raise money for her hillbilly family, and bamboozle the enablers who support her. Wake up Alaskans, you're being hoodwinked by poor white trash!!
