Sarah Palin’s endorsement and the support of the Tea Party Express were invaluable factors in Miller’s victory, but it was the candidate’s eagerness to distance his agenda from his opponent’s that put him over the top. Miller called for repeal of the federal income tax, the return of federal lands in Alaska to state jurisdiction (sixty per cent of Alaska is under federal control) and restricting federal powers to those strictly enumerated in the Constitution. Two years ago, such positions would have been deemed so extreme that no candidate would dare express them. Indeed, there has traditionally been little to distinguish the agenda of a winning candidate from that of a losing candidate in a typical election, particularly in a primary. All candidates are privy to the same sort of polling data. They know what sells and they know what’s important to voters. Competing messages have thus always been more a matter of nuance than substance, with dollars in the campaign war chest usually deciding who could achieve better messaging and thus win an election.
Miller vs. Murkowski didn’t follow the traditional pattern. If Murkowski wanted to paint Miller as an “extremist,” he was not troubled by that label. His Democrat opponent, Scott McAdams is certain to go down that road too, but Miller views that charge as one that does his opponent’s campaign more harm than good. If someone is going to call what he stands for “extremist,” Miller has said, then they are in effect calling the founders of our nation extremists as well. Joe Miller demanded that Alaskans pick a side in this ideological battle and then he clearly defined which side he was on. This primary was a microcosm of the on-going battle for our country’s heart and soul that will flare brightly in 2010. America is deeply divided right now, and those divisions are reflected in election after election. Voters aren’t being asked to figure out shades of meaning or to decipher subtle messages, they are being presented with very clear, very different, choices.
The trend frightens liberals, who believe that anyone unwilling to recognize multiple shades of gray whenever principles are at issue must be a dangerous right-wing fanatic. They desperately want to believe that the election of candidates like Joe Miller means that the Republican Party is divided, disintegrating, and desperate. In fact, every time someone like Joe Miller wins a race, they help chart a new course for the GOP in a year in which Republicans are being sent a clear message: provide America with a real alternative to big-government-as-usual or get out of the way. Miller’s victory is just the latest bit of evidence to suggest that Republican voters understand what’s at stake and are thus leading the party back to the principles that once defined it.
As an Alaskan, I can attest to Joe Miller's guts and determination in a fight that all the pundits thought lost back in June.
Joe never faltered. Like the Army officer he was, as the top 1% of his class that he was, as a steadfast warrior that he is Joe went to bed in the early morning and came out fighting the next day again and again.
We need that guts and determination in this new Congress if we are to reset our spending priorities, rescue the country from financial insolvency, and secure our borders and the the weapons that could harm us.
We need more Joe Millers. Here in Texas, my friends and I are turning out conservatives for Nov. 2. We'll support any honest conservative, but the Republican Party can't take us for granted. The Republican Party has been the Democratic Party in slow motion. That has to stop.
It is a sea change.
As another Alaskan I can attest to the fact that Alaskans have always been strong conservatives and have always lived a seperate life to those in the lower 48. Now we all see that we cannot live that life without getting involved with the movement to take back our country. Without that movement we will never take back our state from the Feds who now controll all our natural resources. Joe MIller who I know personally, is a strong constitutionalist and will work for Alaskas future to achieve our independence from the dependence thrust on us by the Federal Government.
It is the fact that she is INDEED far form a "solid conservative" that doomed her in this election year. It is not simply INCUMBENTS who are feeling the wrath of voters, although many pundits–especially those with a typically leftward approach–would like readers to believe it so. It is the reliably LIBERAL and the reliably RINO whose jobs are in peril. Murkowski was a classic example of the latter and it finally caught up with her. Had McCain faced a strong challenge from a STRONG candidate, he too would have been relegated to betraying the American people from the bleachers next year.
The way the Left handles effective opposition is to call itnames and infiltrate. Names are having no effect on the tea party so infiltration is next on on the docket.