Joe Miller, Besieged

I've been saying it all weekend, and I'll continue to say it right through Tuesday: For a senatorial candidate that is allegedly ten points behind, Alaska leftists are in an awfully frenzied full-court slime press against Republican Joe Miller.

But at least this time the crap isn't coming from Luella Madcowsky - not directly, anyway:

Big Journalism has the recording and transcript of a voicemail accidentally left on a Miller campaign staffer's phone from a reporter for the Anchorage CBS-TV affiliate. In the conversation reporters (possibly including the station's news director and assignment editor) discuss trying to identify sex offenders at a Miller event and using social media outlets to announce that "Joe Miller punched at rally".

The "Joe Miller punched at rally" part is reminiscent of the attempted Lauren Valle ambush against Rand Paul a few days back.  I have to conclude that this sting operation would have included somebody actually trying to take a swing at G.I. Joe, since getting punched in the face would leave SOME kind of mark or bruise, and that's not something that can just be made up.  So is this conspiracy to commit felony assault against the Republican senatorial candidate?  That's what the logic of this plotting would suggest.

But the "Let's frame Joe Miller and his supporters as child molestors" angle is just so completely and unimaginably despicable that I can't fit it into my head.  It's hatred and malevolence so stupendously out of proportion to the stakes of the situation as to not even bear more than a tangential relationship to the U.S. Senate race.  People don't conspire to wreak character genocide on a group just over politics.  This isn't a mere "dirty trick"; It's the attempt to destroy people's lives by rendering them subhuman and worthy of persecution and violence and, yes, ultimately, systematic death.

Does it even have to be stated that the vile animals gleefully trafficking in this filth ought to be fired on the spot and purged from "journalism" forever?  Besides, they'd have lucrative careers awaiting them in politics anyway, so it's not like they'd starve - unlike Dan Fagan.

Naturally, KTVA is circling the wagons and offering up the "you didn't hear what your lying ears told you" defense, which is nothing more than wasting dozens and dozens of words whose true sentiments could be expressed with two extended middle fingers much more efficiently.

In fact, I've got a theory of my own.  Wanna hear it?  Okay, here goes: I don't think this voicemail was left on the Miller campaign staffer's cell phone "accidentally" at all.  I can think of at least three purposes for KTVA having done so quite deliberately:

1) They tried to "find" (i.e. stage) a "child molestor" showing up at the Miller/Palin rally on Thursday, but were unable to get sufficiently convincing footage, so they resorted to leaving this voicemail to provoke an indignant reaction so they could employ the "We thinks he doth protest too much" angle.

2) Apart from this specific episode, they wanted to keep the "controversy continues to swirl around Joe Miller" meme at a high-rolling boil through the weekend and right into Election Day.

3) If all press attention is focused on Joe Miller's "ethical problems," nobody will be paying attention to Luella Madcowsky's cocaine follies, O'Donnellesque academic corruptions, illegal electioneering, and Gestapoesque flattening of dissent.

Now let us turn to a completely different branch of this ongoing clusterbleep: what Mitch McConnell and the Senate GOP caucus are going to do if King Frank's little girl succeeds in her mad power quest and returns to D.C. for another term alongside half a dozen or more of Jim DeMint's incoming "true conservative" freshmen.  Luella claims she fully intends to caucus with the Republicans again (sorry, lost the link), and if they recapture the majority she would take the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee gavel from Babsy Boxer (since McConnell's caucus chickened out on stripping her of her seniority after she reneged on accepting her primary election defeat).  I would suggest that is the ONLY reason she'd still caucus with the GOP, and if those conditions turn out differently, she'll cross the aisle so fast she'll leave a vapor trail.

However, Senator DeMint has already publicly promised that if a restored Republican Senate majority doesn't undeviatingly toe his "true conservative" line to the nth degree, he'll bolt the party and doubtless take all his freshman recruits with him.  He's already pissed that his colleagues didn't strip Madcowsky stark naked; just imagine his reaction when the most infamous RINO this side of the Florida Panhandle not only stiffarms her way back to her seat but gets a powerful committee chairmanship in the bargain, from which she'll be highly likely to make "bipartisan" lesbo kissy-facing with Senator M'am on the next incarnation of Cap & Tax.

ABC has been imagining it.  Oh, yes.  But I don't think they've thought it through very well:

A high-level GOP source tells me that party leaders have essentially given up on Republican Senate candidate Joe Miller and are now banking on a victory by write-in candidate Lisa Murkowski as the best bet for Republicans to keep the Alaska Senate seat.

Problem one: a single, anonymous source.  Sorry, but at this stage I call that bullshit; Karl has to do better than that if he wants this trial balloon to not end up like the Hindenburg.…

The nightmare scenario for Republicans is that McAdams comes in second on Election Day, trailing “write-in candidate.”  Those write-in votes won’t be counted unless there are more write-in votes than there are votes for any candidate on the ballot.  Once the write-in votes are counted, however, some of them will inevitably be disqualified (illegible writing, wrong name, etc.).  And a small number will be for candidates other than Murkowski.  If enough are tossed out, second place McAdams would be the winner.

Problem two: If the combined write-in vote is bigger than the second place finisher, and the write-in votes won't be counted unless they total more than any candidate on the ballot, doesn't that by definition mean the write-in votes will be counted?  Isn't Princess Luella likely to at least out-canvass (ah, the irony) David Hasse (the Libertarian candidate)?

Problem three: When has Joe Miller trailed Scott McAdams in this entire general campaign?  Answer: NEVER.  This sounds like pure wishful thinking on Karl's part.  So under the more likely scenario, Miller is the second-place finisher, and HIS votes are more likely to get tossed out than the bug-eyed crackwhore's.  Or maybe his "thinking" is that enough Miller and write-in votes would be tossed to screw BOTH of them and install McAdams like Mark Begich equivalent was two years ago.

Not in King Frank's kingdom, pal.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee has been forced to spend precious resources in Alaska.  But take a look at the latest ad running in Alaska:  It spends twenty-five seconds attacking Democrat McAdams and less than five seconds mentioning Joe Miller.

If the NRSC really wanted to help Miller, it would be attacking Murkowski.  Indeed, an anti-McAdams ad may be the last thing Miller needs right now.  At this point, what he really needs is for McAdams to siphon anti-Miller votes away from Murkowski.

As Ensign Ed notes, the NRCS's first priority would be to maximize the chances of holding onto that Senate seat.  If Joe Miller wins, mission accomplished; if Luella Madcowsky wins, she's said she'll caucus with the GOP; so wouldn't the NRSC do everything it could above all else to make sure that Scott McAdams DOESN'T get into second place?

This is a really circuitous way of saying that I don't think Jonathan Karl is attempting an "analysis" of anything; I think he's trying to plant the seeds of a GOP implosion before their majorities can even get sworn in this January.

The NRSC appears to see the same thing I do:

“While I’m sure ABC News enjoyed leading Politico’s Playbook this morning, it might have been more useful if they had actually taken a moment to contact the NRSC before running this inaccurate story. Joe Miller not only has the full support of the NRSC, but he’s actually featured prominently in our TV ad which is running still today statewide in Alaska.” — Rob Jesmer, NRSC Executive Director

Just so.  Like I've said in defending the Party "Establishment" from both directions, John Cornyn is not an idiot.  He knows perfectly well that his life and Mitch McConnell's will be much less complicated with Joe Miller representing Alaska in the Senate next year than putting up with the towering awkwardness and ongoing intra-party schismatic headaches that Luella Madcowsky would bring with her like herpes or bad luggage.  He also knows perfectly well that they have to be prepared to deal with the latter eventuality.  But the last thing he or they are going to do is belch a leak like this NOW.

As I said, Senator Cornyn is not an idiot, and nobody should mistake him for one.

Exit thought: Wouldn't it be funny if Karl's "high-level GOP source" turned out to be (1) real and (2) Jim DeMint?  I can feel the guffaws gestating now, can't you?

UPDATE: Final call from Public Policy Polling (an overtly Democrat surveying outfit): Madcowsky 30%, McAdams 30%, Miller.....37%.