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.

We love the Constitution, just hate them Amendments (VIDEO)

This was a fantastic (and funny) segment with Yale Law Professor Akhil Amar, who made point about the 14th Amendment I had not considered.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Citizenship Down - Akhil Amar
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election Fox News

It's the Amendment that protects the other Amendments.

By the way, here's the text of the 14th Amendment; which, for the record, was adopted by Congress on July 9, 1868.

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Another view from Harold Meyerson (of the Washington Post):

By proposing to revoke the citizenship of the estimated 4 million U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants -- and, presumably, the children's children and so on down the line -- Republicans are calling for more than the creation of a permanent noncitizen caste. They are endeavoring to solve what is probably their most crippling long-term political dilemma: the racial diversification of the electorate. Not to put too fine a point on it, they are trying to preserve their political prospects as a white folks' party in an increasingly multicolored land.

Absent a constitutional change -- to a lesser degree, even with it -- those prospects look mighty bleak. The demographic base of the Republican Party, as Ruy Teixeira demonstrates in a paper released by the Center for American Progress this summer, is shrinking as a share of the nation and the electorate. As the nation grows more racially and religiously diverse, Teixeira shows, its percentage of white Christians will decline to just 35 percent of the population by 2040.

The group that's growing fastest, of course, is Latinos. "Their numbers will triple to 133 million by 2050 from 47 million today," Teixeira writes, "while the number of non-Hispanic whites will remain essentially flat." Moreover, Latinos increasingly trend Democratic -- in a Gallup poll this year, 53 percent self-identified as Democrats; just 21 percent called themselves Republican.

To be sure, the wretched state of the economy could drive some otherwise Democratic-inclined Latino voters to the GOP this November. But Republicans are doing their damnedest to keep this from happening. Their embrace of Arizona's Suspicious-Looking-Latinos law and their enthusiasm for stripping Latino children of their citizenship will only hasten Latinos' flight.

Sentient Republican strategists such as Karl Rove have long understood that unless their party could win more Latino votes, it would eventually go the way of the Whigs. That's the main reason George W. Bush tried to persuade congressional Republicans to support immigration reform. But most lawmakers, reflecting the nativism of the Republican base, would have none of it.

By pushing for repeal of the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause, the GOP appears to have concluded: If you can't win them over -- indeed, if you're doing everything in your power to make their lives miserable -- revoke their citizenship.

And E.J. Dionne (Washington Post) from a couple of days ago:

Nothing should make Republicans prouder than their party's role in passing what are known as the Civil War or Reconstruction amendments: the 13th, ending slavery; the 14th, guaranteeing equal protection under the law and establishing national standards for citizenship; and the 15th, protecting the right to vote. In those days, Democrats were the racial demagogues.

Opponents of the 14th Amendment used racist arguments against immigrants to try to kill it, even though there were virtually no immigration restrictions back then. President Andrew Johnson played the card aggressively, as University of Baltimore law professor Garrett Epps reported in his 2006 book on the 14th Amendment, "Democracy Reborn."

"This provision comprehends the Chinese of the Pacific States, Indians subject to taxation, the people called Gipsies, as well as the entire race designated as blacks, people of color, negroes, mulattoes, and persons of African blood," Johnson declared. "Is it sound policy to make our entire colored population and all other excepted classes citizens of the United States?"

Republicans were taken aback that Gypsies were suddenly transformed into a great national peril as part of the campaign against the amendment. In his definitive book "Reconstruction," historian Eric Foner cites a bemused Republican senator who observed in 1866: "I have lived in the United States now for many a year and really I have heard more about Gypsies within the past two or three months than I have heard before in my life."

The methods of politics don't change much, even if the targets of demagoguery do.

ThinkProgress: Thumbs up to the...Idaho GOP??

I can't believe it myself, yet:

Despite coming under widespread criticism for his “joke” about hunting President Obama, Idaho Republican gubernatorial candidate Rex Rammell wrote a tweet this morning doubling down on his own tasteless humor:

• Obama hunting tags was just a joke! Everyone knows Idaho has no jurisdiction to issue tags in Washington D.C.

Rammell is facing fire from allies in his own state. Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) issued this statement:

• Rex Rammell’s comments are in very poor taste and should not have been said. … Remarks like these should not even be made jokingly. We are engaged in a critical national debate over many major issues facing our country today. Remarks like these are not only unhelpful in that debate, but they undermine it. He should apologize for those remarks and for the perception they may have created.

Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID) added, “It is absolutely irresponsible to say such inflammatory things, especially for someone who seeks to be a leader in Idaho.” Even the Idaho Republican Party said it “does not condone Rex Rammell’s comments, whether in jest or not.” Nevertheless, Rammell refuses to apologize.

HuffPo: Idaho GOP Hopeful was only kidding when he joked about hunting Obama...

Rex? Do yourself a favor. Apologize.

An Idaho Republican gubernatorial hopeful insists he was only joking when he said he'd buy a license to hunt President Barack Obama.

Rex Rammell, a former elk rancher slated to run against incumbent C.L. "Butch" Otter in the May 2010 GOP primary, made the comment at a Republican rally Tuesday in Twin Falls where talk turned to the state's planned wolf hunt, for which hunters must purchase an $11.50 wolf tag.

When an audience member shouted a question about "Obama tags," Rammell responded, "The Obama tags? We'd buy some of those."

Rammell told The Associated Press Thursday he was just being sarcastic and sees no reason to apologize for the comment.