AK Senate Race Poll: Miller leads by only 6 points!

[K8-EEE]

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2010/election_2010_senate_elections/alaska/election_2010_alaska_senate

Sarah has handed us a real opportunity for a Senate pick up in Alaska!! The race has now moved from "Solid Republican" to "Leans Republican." THANKS SARAH!

[NeedleCast]

1. And it's a Rasmussen Poll, so you can probably move it 2-3 points more towards the Democrat

[K8-EEE]

2. Exactly!!

I would LOVE to see Madame Sarah's nutty endorsements all go down in November. ESPECIALLY here in CA -- I would be beside myself if Carly should somehow win over Boxer!!

[Radical Activist]

3. Great news!!!

And the Democrat barely had a campaign until very recently. With all the national attention he should have the funds to run a serious race. It doesn't take a whole lot in Alaska.

[still_one]

4. I am not so sure. Alaska is not a liberal oasis /nt

[K8-EEE]

5. Yes but there are a significant amount of them who are

sick of Madame Quitter and don't appreciate her trying to run things after running out on them.

[Recursion]

6. It's more a "weird" oasis. Gravel is from AK, remember.

I don't mean anything bad by "weird", just that the political problems of Alaska don't really line up with the problems in the lower 48 so politics works differently up there. You can say the same thing to some extent of the west coast.

[Blue_In_AK]

9. Exactly.

Up until now, even our Republicans have been far more "liberal" than the ones down south. Sarah Palin was an anomaly that has completely divided the Republican Party here. Joe Miller and Sarah Palin unsuccessfully attempted to oust the long-time Chairman of the Alaska Republican Party a few years ago, so I'm sure he's not going to throw the full weight of the official Republican apparatus behind Miller, especially since Lisa was very popular. She had a 70% approval rating here, and even the Democrats liked her, even though we were kind of put off by her recent moves to the right, which she was forced to do because of Miller's sniping. When she was a Representative in our state legislature, she was always considered a moderate.

[Blue_In_AK]

7. Alaska may not be a liberal oasis,

but it's not a Teabagger's haven either. We consistently rank toward the bottom of the most religious states polls (49th last year) and we were founded as a progressive Democratic state. Miller/Palin's brand of Republicanism has been very foreign to us and Sarah no longer has the popularity she once had here. In fact, she's pretty much a joke. In a recent poll of potential 2012 Republican presidential nominees, she came in third here. That's hardly a ringing endorsement.

Miller won the primary because of Ballot Measure 2, a parental notification for teenage abortions proposition that brought out the fundies in droves. Even at that, there was only about a 27% turnout for the primary, at least here in Anchorage, which means that in the grand scheme of things, Miller only took about one-tenth of the potential votes out there, which is hardly a mandate.

I believe that many of Murkowski's supporters will turn to Scott McAdams, who is a moderate, "real" Alaskan in the mold of some of our most popular former politicians -- Wally Hickel, Jay Hammond, et al. -- and that once people realize how radical and out of the mainstream of Alaska political thought Miller is, he will go down in flames.

All Scott needs to do is make himself known outside of Southeast Alaska, and I'm sure the voters will flock to him. It's to his advantage that he isn't known as part of the Democratic Party establishment here.

Remember that over 60% of Alaska's voters aren't affiliated with any major party and that there is no way to predict from the primary results how they voted since the Republicans have a closed primary.

I feel very good about this race. Scott is raising the money he needs and he has the support of the Alaska Democratic Party. Hopefully the DSCC will come through for him, but if they don't, I still think he'll have a good chance. This is a small-population state where we know our politicians personally, and McAdams is much more personable. I like his chances.

[Parker CA]

10. Great synopsis. Thanks for that, Blue!

[K8-EEE]

11. Wish I could rec this post, Blue!! VERY INTERESTING!

I always enjoy your fascinating insight on Alaska.

[Blue_In_AK]

13. Thanks, K8-EEE

I've been here for 35 years now and I've been paying attention. Politics in Alaska is never a boring exercise, that's for sure. :)

[Dogmudgeon]

8. It has a 4.5% M.O.E.

(The "Big MOE" is, for the uninitiated, the "Margin of Error".)

3% is more typical for professional polls.

And Miller's extremist statements will be the way we win Alaska.

--d!

[Blue_In_AK]

12. Here's some good news posted at ProgressiveAlaska

http://progressivealaska.blogspot.com/2010/09/last-guy-to-beat-joe-miller-has-some.html

"The Last Guy to Beat Joe Miller Has Some Advice for the Next Guy to Beat 'Joe the Teabagger'"

Alaska State representative David Guttenberg (D- 8th District) beat teabagger Joe Miller in 2004. Here's a bit of his advice to Sitka Mayor Scott McAdams, who is tightening the race against Miller:


I beat this fool when he ran against me in 2004. Miller speaks drivel.

He clearly cares nothing about the lives of Alaskans just about this constitutional double talk. If I was a Tea Party supporter, I would worry about this guy being my champion. I believe he is a career wanna-be big high mucky muck, who wants to be in charge of your life.

That precious advice is from Guttenberg's facebook page, quoted at the Alaska blog, The Mudflats, with Guttenberg's permission.

Miller, who spent about $600,000.00 of Koch Industries-linked funds in his barely successful run against incumbent GOP U.S. senator Lisa Murkowski in the GOP primary, is poised to take in more money from powerful, behind-the-scene out-of-state interests who could give a rat's ass about the average Alaskan or about anything other than ripping us off up here. Some of us are closely scrutinizing the Alaska media for evidence of shilling for Joe the Teabagger. As if all the free publicity Miller is getting from FOX News and Newscorp isn't enough already, eh?

Meanwhile, progressive moderate Scott McAdams has been spending a lot of time reaching out to individual Alaskans, and raising a lot of money from middle class and blue-collar donors, at his campaign site, campaign HQ and on the web, at Act Blue.

Wednesday, McAdams probably set a record for the most money raised in small amounts on the web in a single day for an Alaskan running for statewide office. Yesterday morning, Scott's Act Blue page had taken in about $55,000 since it was created in late June. Right now, less than 24 hours later, it is at $97,865, with 1,010 supporters. Over $40,000.00 in less than a day!

The announcement yesterday by the Rasmussen polling group that they had changed this race from "Solid Republican to Leans Republican" may have been the impetus for some of this surge. Just as important, though, is the growing perception that Miller, to re-quote David Guttenberg, "is a career wanna-be big high mucky muck, who wants to be in charge of your life."

Folks, the Scott McAdams campaign is where we turn back the shadily-funded Tea Bag Express. McAdams is aiming very accurately at the very large majority of Alaska voters who are not affiliated with a political party, and to whom sanity still means something. In the same poll referenced above, Rasmussen notes that, even with few Alaskans yet knowing much about Scott, they are favoring him over the Joe the Teabagger by 22%. If that remains and the non-affiliated are motivated to vote on November 2nd, McAdams is the next U.S. senator from Alaska, and is the biggest upset of the 2010 election.

Think about that.