EdwardTeller

I met briefly with Democratic Party U.S. Senate candidate Scott McAdams last Thursday, in Anchorage. Today, he’ll be out in the Mat-Su Valley, the heart of the Darth Vaderesque Koch Brothers’ astroturf organization, known as the Tea Party Express. Out here, the day before our late September primary election, dozens of 3/4-ton diesel pickup trucks and Humvees raced around with 4′ X 8′ Jim Miller signs on top. Two of them sported large Confederate flags. One sported a huge Israeli flag, next to a much smaller American one.

Alaska State representative David Guttenberg (D- 8th District) beat teabagger Joe Miller in 2004. Here’s a bit of his advice to Sitka Mayor Scott McAdams, who is tightening the race against Miller:

“I beat this fool when he ran against me in 2004. Miller speaks drivel.”

What had been a 44% – 39% race between GOP-Teabagger leader Joe Miller and Democratic Party nominee Scott McAdams before incumbent GOP Senator Lisa Murkowki announced her withdrawal from the race yesterday, has only improved for Miller to a 50% to 44% lead over McAdams, who is still virtually unknown, not only in the lower 48, but also up here. However, the pollsters who surveyed 500 Alaskan likely voters have now changed the race from Solid Republican to Leans Republican.

The numbers started to go Sen. Murkowski’s way this morning in the counting of absentee and questioned ballots in Alaska, of last week’s GOP primary for her U.S. Senate seat. Trailing Tea Bag Express favorite, Joe Miller by less than 2,000 votes, she didn’t close the gap enough by late afternoon today to make the numbers add up. Late in the afternoon Murkowski conceded.

Teabagger Joe Miller’s lead over incumbent GOP U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski has contracted today, as most of the remaining ballots are now being counted. Miller’s lead has dwindled from 1,668 to about 1,294. Murkowski is getting 57% of the votes counted today. She needs 55% of the remainder to pull ahead.

On Sunday, the North Carolina-based polling firm, Public Policy Polling published their findings about Alaska’s current political climate. The poll concentrates on possible two-way and three-way matchups in Alaska’s November 2nd U.S. senate seat election, 63 days away. According to PPP’s report, “PPP surveyed 1,306 likely voters on August 27th and 28th.”

Just after 11:00 a.m. apparent GOP Alaska primary winner for the U.S. Senate race, Joe Miller, tweeted:

What’s the difference between selling out your party’s values and the oldest profession?
http://bit.ly/93kXBr#teaparty#tcot#alaska#ak
HowWMiller

Soon afterward the tweet was deleted, but the damage to his campaign might not be so easy to erase.

Wednesday evening, with the backdrop of a luscious late summer Alaska sunset over Kincaid Park in Anchorage, Democratic Party U.S. Senate candidate, Sitka Mayor, Scott McAdams, addressed the post-primary Alaska Democrats Unity Dinner. The dinner is designed to bring candidates back together after the sometimes hard-fought battles of internal politics.

Scott was the event’s last speaker.

As reporters and Alaska Democratic Party staffers mingled before U.S. Senate candidate and Sitka Mayor Scott McAdams was to appear at his first post-primary press conference, staffers described how they had been fielding calls all morning, quashing rumors that the party is trying to convince ex-Alaska Governor, Tony Knowles to step in for McAdams, who isn’t very well known outside of coastal Alaska.

With slightly less than 90,000 votes counted statewide in the Alaska 2008 GOP primary, incumbent U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski trails Tea Party favorite Joe Miller by about 2,000 votes.

This is close enough that the victor cannot be predicted.