In Alaska, Murkowski Trails Tea Party Upstart

In Alaska, Murkowski Trails Tea Party Upstart
By WILLIAM YARDLEY and CARL HULSE
Copyright by The Associated Press
Published: August 25, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/us/politics/26primaries.html?th&emc=th


In the final days before Alaska’s Republican Senate primary, longtime Republicans were bombarded with pieces of direct mail and automated phone calls urging them to oust yet another member of their party’s jilted establishment, Senator Lisa Murkowski.

“I was ready to tear the phone out of the wall,” said Dennis Fradley, a former chief of staff to Ms. Murkowski’s father, Frank H. Murkowski, who held the same Senate seat for 22 years before he eventually appointed his daughter to succeed him. “I had like eight mailers in one day.”

On Wednesday, Ms. Murkowski’s Senate career was hanging by a thread, thanks to a last-minute push by her upstart opponent, Joe Miller, a former Fairbanks judge and a Tea Party favorite whose candidacy had been all but written off a few weeks ago by political experts.

Mr. Miller benefited from Tea Party activists, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee and several other prominent conservatives who cast Ms. Murkowski as a Democratic sympathizer.

Unlike Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who aggressively beat back attacks from his opponent, J. D. Hayworth, Ms. Murkowski chose to ignore her conservative opponent — until it was too late. Mr. Hayworth tried to capitalize on Tea Party sentiment, but many of the groups were not enthusiastic about him.

Mr. Miller holds a narrow lead over Ms. Murkowski of about 1,700 votes. At least 7,600 absentee ballots remain to be counted as well as an uncertain number of questioned or provisional ballots. The final result may not be known until early September.

“It ain’t over yet, folks,” Ms. Murkowski told reporters here on Wednesday. “There are thousands of absentees that are yet to come in.”

Several factors appeared to play crucial roles in Mr. Miller’s success. An anti-abortion measure on the primary ballot drew more votes than any other race. The measure’s presence probably increased the turnout of conservative voters who could be expected to lean toward Mr. Miller since Ms. Murkowski supports abortion rights, a position that has long cost her support among the state’s right wing.

Loren Leman, who served as lieutenant governor under Frank H. Murkowski but endorsed Mr. Miller in a radio advertisement broadcast in much of the state in the past week, said in a telephone interview that Ms. Murkowski’s voting record on abortion was particularly unsettling.

“It’s a pattern of votes that runs counter to what would be the base of people that voted in yesterday’s primary,” Mr. Leman said.

“What it comes down to is who will have the backbone to stand up to the excesses coming out of the Obama administration and Congress,” he said. “Joe has far better credibility in that area.”

Still, several people were quick to note the tenor of the attack advertisements against Ms. Murkowski and the limited way in which her campaign responded.

“The Murkowski campaign just did not attack, and these guys are bullies,” said Andrew Halcro, a former state lawmaker and candidate for governor who is now a political consultant. “The Tea Party people are bullies. From his introductory spot to all of the Tea Party spots, they were all scorched earth.”

Mr. Halcro, who supported Ms. Murkowski but did not work on her campaign, said he was aware that Ms. Murkowski’s advisers had debated how to respond.

“At the end of the day it was we weren’t going to give credence to his message by responding,” Mr. Halcro said. “But when somebody’s whacking away at your kneecaps consistently for weeks, you’re going to start to wobble.”

The Murkowski campaign decided against running planned advertisements featuring the endorsement of former Senator Ted Stevens, who remained popular even after his career ended amid scandal in 2008. Mr. Stevens died in a plane crash on Aug. 9, and Ms. Murkowski said it would be respectful to hold the advertisements.

Speaking to The Anchorage Daily News, Mr. Miller said he believed the anti-abortion measure was important to his showing. He also called Ms. Palin’s support “pivotal.”

Although she never made a personal appearance with Mr. Miller, in the final days before the Tuesday vote, automated calls featuring Ms. Palin urged supporters to support Mr. Miller.

In a posting on Facebook on Friday, Ms. Palin wrote, “Our country does not need another Democrat in the Senate voting for the Obama agenda which is bankrupting us,” referring to Ms. Murkowski. “Alaska deserves a senator who will not talk one way in the Last Frontier and then vote the opposite way in the Beltway.”

Inside the Beltway, a loss by Ms. Murkowski, a member of the Republican leadership, would be a staggering blow to the party’s Washington establishment, which has already seen candidates backed by the National Republican Senatorial Committee tumble in Utah, Kentucky, Colorado and Florida. Party favorites were also defeated in Nevada and Connecticut primaries in a sign of how Republican voters are turning on those with perceived Washington ties.

“A little humility is called for,” said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, who noted that incumbents in both parties should be ready to “take extraordinary measures” to protect themselves.

“This is an unpredictable election cycle where anybody who has been in and around Washington, D.C., for the last few years is going to be tarred with the same brush,” he said.

Party operatives and analysts said Ms. Murkowski had been strongly encouraged to go on the offensive and to use her financial edge to define Mr. Miller, following the example of Mr. McCain, who spent more than $21 million on blistering attacks to defeat Mr. Hayworth, a former congressman, by 24 points on Tuesday. But Ms. Murkowski chose not to do so until the very end, when it may have been too late.

Republican strategists involved in the race said Ms. Murkowski, in part, believed her family’s name made her less susceptible to anger percolating in the electorate.

Alaska is still reliably Republican. The Democratic nominee, Scott McAdams, the mayor of Sitka, has not been on the radar of Democratic leaders.

Still, Democrats were quick to say Wednesday that they would paint Mr. Miller as an extreme conservative, outside the tradition of Alaska Republicans like Mr. Stevens, who brought home billions of federal dollars. Mr. Miller has criticized Alaska politicians and others for making states too dependent on federal money.

Jeff Zeleny contributing reporting.