Election night ended with Miller holding a 1668 vote lead with 25K or more votes left to count. The outcome was by no means inevitable unless you could see inside those questioned and absentee ballot envelopes. The Miller Campaign immediately started doing a victory dance, calling for Murkowski to concede, and accusing the Party and Murkowski of trying to steal the election victory from them. There was no reason to concede with 25K votes, many of them cast some time ago, yet to be counted. There was no reason to accuse the Murkowski Campaign of trying to steal the election. There was no reason to publish van Flein’s work of fiction regarding Mike Roman. Roman did what so many Beltway types do here, tried to bully the rubes, but he wasn’t able to and did nothing wrong, though not for lack of trying.

The Miller Campaign’s behavior after the count ended on the 24th is going to be very hard for a lot of people to get over. The Miller/Palin side of the Party has stored up a lot of ill will inside the Party. No Republican activist is going to go vote for the Democrat, though if it looks like he has a chance, some wannabe officeholder might start a “Republicans for McAdams,” somebody always does.

As my old Daddy used to say, “Son, don’t pee in wells you might have to drink out of.” Well, the Miller Campaign peed in quite a few wells and did so willfully. The whole stealing the election thing, which you went along with, was either outright paranoia or a cynical contrivance, I lean towards the latter. Murkowski was a sitting Senator with a lot of personal resources and the resources or the NRSC available to her. Whatever people here think, the NRSC is a club that incumbent senators have paid to join. Calling them for help is like calling the AAA for a tow rather than pushing your car to the garage. Miller’s bluster about stealing the election bluffed Murkowski and the NRSC out of using whatever resources they might have had in the count. The math was pretty easy by today; challenge enough votes to get inside the half percent and force a recount. Make Miller spend money that he first doesn’t have and second will need for the General if he wins; there were lots of moves on the board to either be destructive or maybe even eke out a win. Murkowski chose not to do it, and conceded while there were still perhaps 10K votes yet to be counted.

Now we are expected to go make nice with people who have twice been a part of Palin’s “clean up” campaign and who have very publicly accused us of trying to steal an election from them. It is going to be hard to drink from the well they peed in.

Post Script: And contrary to the assertions of some of the fantasy writers here, I don’t have any particular loyalty to the Murkowskis, father or daughter. I was there before Frank became Governor and would have been there afterwards if I had wanted to; he needed me more than I needed him. I think and have said here many times that appointing Lisa destroyed the Administration. But that said, she won re-election in ’04 and I’m one of those Party loyalty and support the incumbent kind of guys; I need a really, really good reason to oppose an incumbent and a political neophyte with no record of leadership or winning public office isn’t nearly a good enough reason for me. Now be a margin of a little over a thousand votes, that neophyte is the nominee. I hope that thousand votes didn’t just give this seat to the Democrats. I don’t think it will, but this race has turned the formerly unthinkable into the at least remotely possible.

but the people here who’ve spent the last several days and weeks excoriating Lisa Murkowski, who I support, aren’t sexits. That makes perfect sense.

It is a real liability for conservatives that so many of them so hate government that they refuse to learn anything about it. NRSC is a club of which Lisa Murkowski is a member and Joe Miller is not. Expecting her not to call on the NRSC for help is roughly the same as expecting her not to call the AAA when she needs a tow and, rather, pushing her car to the garage. I know they solicit money from people who aren’t members of the incumbent Senator club, but those people really ought to know what they’re giving money to.

I hope they were smart and cynical enough to have done it on purpose, though I think it more likely the blind hog found an acorn. They bluffed Murkowski out of taking any agressive steps on her own behalf. Whatever, if anything Mike Roman did, he did himself; I’m pretty confident that Bitney or Karen Knudsen didn’t tell Roman to go out there and try to get into an Elections computer. And, typically, he failed to intimidate the rubes.

I’ve dealt with this a lot inside State government with new administrations. They don’t have a clue where the light switches and restrooms are, are too paranoid of State employees to ask anybody, and do a lot of stupid stuff because they’re convinced everybody is out to get them.

a lot more influence in the Lower 48 than here. She probably has influence here in Southeast in the sense that if she’s for it, most people are against it.

I think it was just yo-yos trying to get five minutes on Dan Fagan.

That said, there would be a very good reason for either campaign to call absentee voters, their names are public record, and try to determine whether they really exist. Calling them to ask them who they voted for is kinda stupid and campaigns sometimes do stupid, but that call accomplishes nothing. But it really does accomplish something to establish that there is no John Smith at 123 Birch Lane. That’s the way you cheat with absentees; have a registered name and address that you know doesn’t exist and then you just vote it from the boiler room.

said she’d have never gotten the chance if she hadn’t been pretty. Different thing altogether. Palin is a very skillful political operative, but none of that would have mattered if she hadn’t been pretty. An unattractive woman with the same skills would still be unknown outside Wasilla, if even well known there.

I find a way to win the grievance, the arbitration, the labor board hearing, the court case, the election. I’m not a nice guy. My ethics can be very flexible, depending on the opposition. That’s why I’ve never been a candidate but once, and then only to make a point. I don’t want to represent The People, because The People have very different expectations from mine. But, when I find an officeholder or candidate that I like, it is lots of fun to make things possible for them. I’m very much a subscriber to the notion that friends will help you move, good friends will help you move bodies. I’ve moved a few bodies.