Joe Miller: "If East Germany could, we could." (VIDEO)

Uhhh, never-gonna-be-Senator-in-a-million-years Joe Miller...are you sure that East Germany is something you need to be bringing up right now?



If you want to hear the comment for yourself:

Levi Johnston: Not necessarily bright, but honest and direct (VIDEO)

The fact that Levi Johnston thinks Climate Change isn't man-made doesn't speak well of the young man, but he was better in his answers than the former half-Governor of Alaska.

How do we know? Lawrence O'Donnell cribbed his questions to Levi right from Katie Couric's interview(s) with the half-Governor from 2008.

TPM: The GOP's Lieberman

Well, so much for Joe Miller.

I've been following the Alaska nonsense (similar to the nonsense found in Delaware and Nevada) for a while. And now that her long projected write-in candidacy is about to begin, I think its safe to say that Joe Miller is toast.

Sorry, Eugene.  I'm laying money on meltdown.

Senator Murkowski's write-in candidacy has nothing to do with the odious Mr. Miller, au contraire, it has everything to do with the former Half-Governor, Sarah Palin.  First Sarah runs against and trashes Senator Murkowski's father.  Then she supports Joe Miller against Senator Murkowski in the primary, so this is ultimately payback.

I can't say for sure that Senator Murkowski is going to lose this.  She's got enough name recognition, and goodwill in the bank that she could still win.  But I will go out on a limb and say as of this moment, Joe Miller can't.

He's something else, like with Charlie Crist, should she win...who's she going to caucus with?  On the one hand, her politics haven't shifted in the least, but what will she owe Republicans?

True to her word, Murkowski's not a quitter after all...

Following up on what I posted yesterday, we now have this from the Huffington Post:

Sen. Lisa Murkowski -- who shocked the political establishment when she was defeated by Tea Party-backed candidate Joe Miler in Alaska's GOP Senate primary last month -- is likely to run as a write-in candidate to keep her reelection hopes alive, Fox News reports.

According to the network, sources familiar with the matter say Murkowski is expected to announce how she plans to conduct her campaign in coming days. If the Republican incumbent follows through in mounting an independent campaign, she would face-off against Miller once again, as well as Democratic candidate Scott McAdams to keep her seat.

A senior Republican leadership aide told Fox that should a three-way general election match-up arise, "The entire Republican leadership has endorsed and would continue to support Joe Miller."

On the heels of Murkowski's loss to Miller, Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, signaled that he would firmly support the unlikely Senate nominee in Alaska's general election race.

Before I start jumping up and down and congratulating the second Democratic Senator from Alaska, I really want to see what the money does. If Murkowski can turn this into a mountain of fundraising from her usual (read: Oil) donors, Miller's done, cooked like Christmas Dinner.

Of course, if she turns it into a super-mountain, if the donors give to her like nothing's changed, she might even be able to win this thing.

I hope this Lieberman strategy does not turn into a trend. Senators, you are elected to these seats, you are not entitled to them.

On the one hand, the people sent her a message (which was get out). On the other, it's not like she's buying (outright at least) the seat. People are still voting for her. If they want her back in office that back, more power to 'em.

"Still in the game??"

If I were Republican nominee Joe Miller of Alaska (and I thank God everyday that I'm not), I'd be quoting Scooby-Doo right now. "Ruh-R'oh!":

A week after conceding the GOP primary, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski says she's not a quitter and is "still in this game."

Murkowski told The Associated Press on Tuesday that she's been inundated with calls and e-mails from supporters, asking her not to leave the race. She says she's been humbled and is listening — and weighing her options.

She said that if this was "all about Lisa, certainly the easy thing for me to do would be to figure out what my next opportunity would be with my family and just settle in to a nice job."

"But what I'm looking at is my state and the future of my state for my kids. So, I have not made that determination that I'm going to give up. I'm not a quitter, never have been. And I'm still in this game," Murkowski said.

It's real simple. If she does run, I don't know if she wins, but I guarantee you that Joe Miller does not.

Breaking: Murkowski Surrenders...

Following up on the Alaska Nonsense, this from CNN:

Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski conceded in the Alaska GOP senatorial primary which remained unresolved after last Tuesday's voting.

Tuesday (formerly Alaska)

First, the story from TPM:

Political prognosticators were surprised to wake up this morning and see Joe Miller holding a narrow lead of less than 3,000 votes over Sen. Lisa Murkowski in Alaska's Republican primary.

Unofficial returns as of this morning -- with 84.2 percent of precincts reporting -- showed Miller leading with 45,188 votes to Murkowski's 42,633 votes. That's Miller 51.5%-Murkowski 48.6%. What's more, the votes outstanding are from rural areas and 8,400 so-far-unreturned absentee ballots, so the final result won't be known for at least a week and might be undetermined until Sept. 8.

Jonathan Bernstein:

First, give the Sage of Wasilla credit. Right now, I don’t know whether or not Joe Miller will actually knock off Senator Lisa Murkowski in the Alaska primary, but even if he ultimately falls just short (and he’s leading now, so it’s at least just as likely that he’ll prevail), Sarah Palin’s reputation will surely be enhanced by her endorsement of an unknown insurgent against a sitting Senator. Did she carefully and correctly assess Miller’s chances of winning before she took to her usual combo of Facebook and Twitter, or was she just carrying on her personal feud with Murkowski’s family? Did her endorsement actually make any difference in the contest? I have no idea the answer to either question, but in terms of her national reputation, neither matters: all that anyone is going to know is that she endorsed a nobody who either took down a sitting Senator or came close. Maybe her endorsement mattered, but if not, figuring out which way the parade is headed and jumping out in front is an important political skill, and she at the very least seemed to have that working this time around.

Second...no matter what the final result, but especially if Miller wins: these primaries are sending a very strong message to GOP pols about the dangers of ever allowing any space to develop between themselves and movement conservatives. And that’s true whether or not that’s a message that Alaska’s primary voters are intending to send (it may be, as I said last night, that the explanation for this election has more to do with the reputation of the Murkowski name in Alaska along with general voter discontent with the economy than it has to do with her actual actions in the Senate): the interpretation everyone’s going to hear and believe is that ideological deviation, even very mild deviation, is extremely dangerous to one’s electoral health. Whether it’s the New START treaty, or a compromise deal on the budget if the GOP controls at least one House of Congress next year, or any other issue, you can be sure that Republican pols who have to cast tough votes are going to remember Bob Bennett and Lisa Murkowski (and Arlen Specter, for that matter).

Marc Ambinder:

In Alaska, Sarah Palin's endorsement does seem to matter. It's not like no one predicted that Joe Miller could be the next senator; former Gov. Tony Knowles told me a month ago that Murkowski was not taking Miller seriously and that he could easily organize a campaign to beat her in the primary. Absentees won't be fully counted for a while, but Miller's victory can be reasonably inferred from the outstanding ballots.

But Also:

It is fairly clear that the anti-establishment / anti-Washington / pro-radical revolution plankton are feeding more off Republicans than off Democrats. As the year has unfolded, it has become easier and easier for formerly fringe candidates to find funding sources, get key "outsider" endorsements and shock complacent frontrunners. When it comes to the Tea Party factor, remember: about issues it ain't. Bill McCollum was one of the attorneys general who filed a lawsuit against Obama's health care reform bill. He is as conservative as a Blackberry at an Apple convention. But he has ties to the state's now-discredited Republican establishment (think of the indictment of the former party chairman) and his avuncular, amiable, comfortable-as-a-leather shoe style just doesn't fit with the times. Rick Scott didn't need the money, but the Tea Party Express helped him build a volunteer base. In Alaska, the same group ponied up $500,000 to help Miller (probably) defeat an incumbent U.S. senator.

Meanwhile, there was an equal surprise on the Democratic side:

Thanks to an old-fashioned political upset, Sitka, Alaska Mayor Scott McAdams is about to get a lot more ink.

McAdams (D) will face the winner of the Republican primary between Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Joe Miller, though we may not know for sure if Miller unseated Murkowski until next month. National Democrats tell us privately the Alaska Senate race wasn't even on their radar, until today when Miller's showing stunned Washington.

Well, we'll see.

Updated at 11:16pm, Pacific, where I added the Ambinder stuff, and changed the Post's title.

Senator Begich, Part II

Mark Begich's lead over hopefully soon to be former Alaska Senator Ted "Tubes" Stevens has jumped from 1, 022 Votes, now to 2,300 Votes, with counting expected to last until 6pm tonight (Pacific Time).

Per Ed Schultz, they might want to start thinking about renaming the Anchorage Airport.

TPM: Senator Begich...

Begich's overwhelming lead in the Alaska Senate race against soon-t0-be jailbird Ted Stevens has gone from 3, to 814, to 1022 in the last 48 hours.

But the best news comes from TPM's Eric Kleefield.

The Anchorage Daily News points out that some of these new ballots have come from the Mat-Su area, the right-wing stronghold that gave us Sarah Palin -- so the fact that Begich's lead is still going up is a very bad sign for the incumbent Republican. Not only is the pool of remaining votes shrinking, but Stevens is running out of GOP areas that could put him over the top.

Begich Takes The Lead

Mark Begich takes a commanding lead in the Alaska Senate race...

UPDATE: (5:41pm Pacific): What was meant as snark may actually be true.

From Nate Silver:

Roughly 15,000 additional votes have come in in Alaska, with more to come, and Democrat Mark Begich has taken a three-vote lead over Republican Ted Stevens, 125019 to 125016.

More to come tonight and in the coming few days to finish off the race, but given where we expect the remaining votes are located, this looks very good for Begich. It looks very bad for Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Bill Maher, and Andrew Sullivan, who probably wanted the material if Sarah Palin were to run to replace Stevens in a special election.

UPDATE (10:07pm Pacific): Now it's 814 Votes.