The Murk Suddenly Clears

Well, THAT was fast.

After the Joe Miller campaign continued ignoring my advice by expanding its accusations of voter fraud to include the State of Alaska itself, and it looked like there finally would be the Republican "civil war" that the Obamedia is always proclaiming is at hand....sanity dramatically descended:

National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn (Texas) spoke with Joe Miller over the weekend and assured him that the NRSC will stay neutral in the Alaska GOP Senate primary and support whoever wins, according to Republican sources.

...

NRSC chief counsel Sean Cairncross was on the ground in Alaska for three days last week, but has since returned to Washington, D.C. He traveled at Murkowski’s request, and offered her campaign team general advice. But sources say the NRSC is not coordinating with her. It also isn’t participating in the vote count or in any future recounts.

...

In fact, one reason Cairncross returned to Washington so quickly was to ensure that the NRSC’s actions would not be misinterpreted.

As I, um, argued from the start.  Even if you cast ethics and principles aside for pure, undiluted pragmatism, the fact remained that there simply wasn't anything in it for the NRSC to try to drag Murkowski over the top.  Alaska is an R+18 state; whoever wins the GOP senatorial primary is going to win in November, period.  Miller admittedly wouldn't win by the same crushing margin the Murk would, but double-digits is double-digits nonetheless.  Hence, there was everything for John Cornyn to lose and nothing to gain.  'Tis gratifying to see see logic prevail for a change.

But it didn't stop there:

On Sunday morning, over coffee and donuts, the ExComm voted unanimously, 5 to 0 to deny the Senator the ballot line. There was no malice intended. ALP Chair Kohlhaas has repeatedly stated that she is a nice lady, and the ALP was flattered by the offer.

The meeting was contentious at first. Two board members who were clearly on the Tea Party friendly Joe Miller side were combative before they realized that the other three board members agreed with them on the essentials. At a number of points the meeting even digressed into name-calling. The ‘F’ bomb was even tossed around a number of times. One board member was hellbent on holding an immediate statewide meeting open to full membership or registered Libertarians to decide the matter. That idea was shot down 4 to 1.

The vote on Murkowski was taken at about halfway through the meeting which lasted a total of three hours. After the result was clear, tempers calmed down, and the five member board moved forward with plans on how to announce the results to the media.

This is a triumph of principle AND self-respect, particularly since the Libertarians had quite a bit to gain by dumping their joke of a senatorial nominee and putting the slot up to the highest bidder.  It's why they'll never win any elections, but you gotta admire their purity.

So that leaves the Murk with no viable option other than hoping that there were enough early votes for her before Miller's late surge to make up her deficit.  Which, due to Miller's imprudent rhetoric, pretty much guarantees that if Murkowski does eventually take the lead from the absentees, Miller'll sue, and if she falls short, so will she.

Lovely.

Does that give Scott McAdams a rarer than hens-lips-other-than-two-years-ago shot at sticking The Last Frontier with two Donk senators?  With all do respect to Eeyore.....no.  But it will make it robustly non-dull.

BTW, Miller's tampering accusation against the State of Alaska has been....refuted.  So how's about you and Murk stop treating each other as enemies and refocus on the big picture of saving the country?  Sound like a plan?