Republicans Must Remove Lisa Murkowski From The Energy Committee

By: Erick Erickson (Diary) | September 17th, 2010 at 03:50 PM |

RESIZE: AAA

Lisa Murkowski is going to run a write-in campaign against Joe Miller, the Republican Senate nominee, in Alaska.

Murkowski, during the primary against Joe Miller, used her ranking status on the Senate Energy Committee as a key selling point.

Murkowski is no longer the Republican nominee and is running against the Republican nominee, forcing the GOP to spend money in Alaska it might otherwise not need to.

The GOP leadership in Washington made a big deal out of removing Murkowski from the Senate GOP leadership, but that is all for show.

If the Republican Party is serious about supporting Joe Miller, the GOP must remove Lisa Murkowski from her ranking position on the energy committee. They must take that selling point away from her.

If the GOP does not, one can hardly blame the grassroots for thinking Senate Republicans are yet again willing to betray their base.

Tags: Alaska, Joe Miller, Lisa Murkowski

COMMENTS

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minncon

from holding onto ANY post marked for Republicans – vote or no vote!

Of course, her pals in the Senate would probably just decide they suddenly NEED a third party representative on the committee.
WY_Cowboy

Do we not have much larger things to worry about than this? Really. I mean this is pretty petty.

Sure, she should be removed, but the threat is juvenile. She is irrelevant, even in that position, so let’s just move on and stop beating the dead horse.
JSobieski

that I don’t want to go into civil war mode without being 100% certain.
Achance

totally unsourced piece in The Alaska Standard.
chihank

Murky spoke with “moderate” GOP Senators about the write-in campaign. The Maine Senators were among the people Murky spoke with.
WY_Cowboy

but she wasn’t a bad senator. The way she got the job was bad, but she did a good job. Sarah just doesn’t like her or her dad. Whatever,
eburke

Washington politics.

If Lisa does, indeed, run as an Independent then this *must* be done for two reasons:

1) it deprives her of a major selling point of her candidacy; and,

2) it sends a message to other possible defectors that such disloyalty will be dealt with.

One of the biggest problems the ‘Pubs have is that they allow folks to wander off the caucus reservation on major issues and suffer no consequences. Running as an Independent against *your* Party’s nominee is about as big of a reservation wander as you can get. To do nothing is to send a major message that you can do anything you dang well please and there will be no consequences.

There’s enough of that already.
someone

ADN

Apparently it was on her cousin’s Facebook as well.
eburke

the will of the same Party that she was so willing to use to get her power in the first place?

‘Cause that’s what it sounds like.
Douglas Erley

It may seem petty, but tough. Keep the pressure on. Never give an inch. She is a traitor to the party. We must lean on these people. They are the enemy. Press the offense. They must learn that nothing goes unnoticed. Betray us and pay the price.
Douglas Erley

They’re next
WY_Cowboy

very well. I also agree that defectors should be dealt with. However, she is not running a write-in campaign and this kind of rumormongering is irresponsible.

If she runs a write-in campaign, cut her head off. Let’s not cut her head off first and push her to it. Besides, she knows she’s done. She knows she can’t win.

Let’s move on.
WY_Cowboy

her actual intentions before questionning my loyalty. I’ve been at this, fighting for conservative principles, for a very long time and don’t need lectured by the likes of you.
deano64

as a write in candidate? Or rather that it hasn’t been confirmed?
WY_Cowboy

if she actually does it – hold her accountable and take her down.
eburke

And you know this for sure how?

Again, you apparently not only don’t understand how Washington works, you don’t understand how human nature works.

The *best* time to make these comments to Lisa is *now*, before she decides so that she is well aware of the consequences of what will happen if she runs.

Right now, Republicans in leadership positions (and I hope this includes McConnell and Cornyn) should be shouting to her from the rooftops that if she’s a team player they have her back in future candidacies but if she runs as an Indpendent they will make her life living hell.

Carrot….meet stick.
Oz

However, I would say that the GOP should communicate the above threat to her very clearly PRIOR to her announcement so she’s aware of what is going to happen.
deano64

agree with you and decided Joe Miller would do a better job. Maybe you ought to respect that.
eburke

2) Previous to this you had made two comments on this situation. Both of them discounted and blew off any notion that there should be retribution.

3) If you’ll look at what’s been reported in the ADN, this isn’t just some unfounded rumor.

4) I didn’t accuse you of anything. I asked you a question followed by what my impression was. From that you got all defensive and accusatory.

My suggestion would be to write more precisely so that people better understand the points you wish to make and to actually better parse what you’re reading.
WY_Cowboy

then she has already decided to do it and the leadership in Washington can’t do anything about it, except strip her of her committee assignments. If she actually runs a write-in campaign, then they should take her down. However, they don’t need to do anything until she does something, and if they did, it would only serve to push Murkowski supporters away from Miller. If they hold tight for Murkowski to jump ship, then they can cut her throat without losing too many GOP Murkowski supporters.

Better for her to leave the party than to be thrown out.
eburke

She needs to understand that if she runs as an Independent, *we* won’t be throwing her out of the Party…she will be throwing *herself* out of the Party.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of the number of things I didn’t do as a child because my parents made it abundantly clear *before* I engaged in desired behavior exactly what would happen to me if I did.

Same thing here. Based on what’s coming out of AK, this is not idle speculation. No decision has been made before it’s announced publicly. The GOP has a habit of not holding their caucus accountable for their actions. It is entirely reasonable to assume that Lisa thinks she may be able to get by with this.

The time for the GOP leadership to disabuse her of those ideas is *now*.
WY_Cowboy

she was a pretty good senator from a conservative point of view. I respect the decision of the GOP voters in AK and have given Miller some money. Keep in mind, though, Miller didn’t exactly blow Murkowski out. It was close.

Again, I think we need to wait and see what she does before we start retribution. Besides, I doubt she does it.
izoneguy

How do you spell “Murkowski”

S-O-R-E-L-O-S-E-R
WY_Cowboy

agreed.
Tbone

if people don’t want to vote for him.
Jack_Savage

We need to wait. All of us.
deano64

Likely GOP to Likely Dem.
eburke

it’s clearer that we disagree(d) only on timing, not consequences.

AFAIC, we’re cool
eburke

I don’t necessarily think so.

First of all, write-in candidacies have a horrific history of failing miserably (the only one I recall being successful for a federal office was in CA about 20 years ago when some guy (I think his name was Packard) won a write-in campaign for Congress.

My guess would be that the few votes that Lisa gets will come pretty much from those folks who wouldn’t have voted for Miller anyway but who don’t like McAdams ’cause he’s a nothing. So I’d guess that she draws equally from both.

I can’t believe she would be this stupid. Aside from agreeing or disagreeing with her politics, this is just dumb.If the rumors are true, it will mean that she didn’t learn a thing from her dad. Art, who’s forgotten more about AK politics than I’ll ever know, has repeatedly said it was the dumbest move of his administration and led to his loss to Palin.
izoneguy

Murkowski Will Run As Write-In

http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2010/09/murkowski_will.php

EE is right:

Republicans Must Remove Lisa Murkowski From The Energy Committee
Scope

they aren’t going down without a fight for their right to keep there cheek imprints on their Senate chairs, and their power.
izoneguy

Murkowski running as a write in will only fire up the Miller supporters that much more. If Castle did the same thing an avalanche of more support will head O’Donnell’s way.

Karl Rove’s rant & rave really helped O’Donnell rake in the cash.

Keep it up RINO’s the whole world is watching.

I would love to do a spoof of Murkowski, Castle, Bennett talking to an Elephant wondering what went wrong……

Ruling Class RINOs Draw Line in the Sand Over the Delaware Race

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_091410/content/01125108.guest.html
deano64

of the Republicans who did support her in the primary now think of her. I have to think most of them are looking at her and wondering who the hell she thinks she is and hows she’s obvioiusly desperate to hold on to power.
fideist

Force her to caucus with the Dems. Tell her if she wins in November and cause the Republicans to not get the majority, she will not be allowed to caucus with them.
philhoganjr

now that the stimulus has been deemed a failure, has anyone asked them how they feel about their votes for in favor of it? seriously. i want to know whether they’re sorry for that vote, whether they would do it again, etc.
philhoganjr

how’s that? b/c she was the queen of appropriations and looked out for alaska in that way? b/c she voted with the party on most big issues? most rankings say she was somewhere b/w the 4th and 8th most liberal republican senator. did i mention she was from alaska? i know that’s not wyoming, but it ain’t maine either.

common, cowboy. you’re way off base here, and you know it.
http://www.libertytreehugger.com reverelth

It’s not too soon to start cultivating potential replacemnts. They need to get used to hearing “footsteps” in their own backyard.e
redtillimdead

Has hinted they will force her out of her leadership position too. One possible replacement? Tom Coburn. There is one win in this situation!
lbjgal

Senator Murkowski took Joe Miller as a joke. If Murkowski was on her job , she would have won. Although End of Story!
lbjgal

Senator Murkowski took Joe Miller as a joke. If Murkowski was on her job , she would have won. Although End of Story!
lbjgal

I am tired of sore losers! When I lose I go home…. I have another year until that offically happens in the job market in D.C…
Achance

When she left Alaska day before yesterday to return to DC, she had decided against running. In DC yesterday she got muscled by the “true conservatives,” said to Hell with you, and came back to Alaska to announce that she’s running as a write in.

I wrote Lisa encourageing her to put an end to it and walk away. I shook Joe Miller’s hand yesterday and told him I would support my Party’s nominee. Needless to say, my phone has been ringing, my email is full, and my arms are sore from being twisted. The real problem is that a LOT of people that I really like and respect are supporting her decision. They don’t think they’re bolting the Republican Party to support her and don’t think they really are a part of the Palin Party. I KNOW I’m not a part of the Palin Party. So, I have an hour to decide whether I go to the Lisa Kickoff gathering or not; people do keep score about this sort of thing.
JSobieski

frankly, I am hopeful that she will change her mind before absentee ballotts start getting filled out.
Achance

the most likely outcome of a Murkowski write-in would be to elect the Democrat. I wrote her to that effect encouraging her to walk away. That said, the demographics of the election are very interesting. Miller is casting his lot with the Railbelt or Roaded Area districts, casting the coastal and rural areas to McAdams or Murkowski, and staking his fortune on whether he can take Anchorage, which Lisa carried largely.

Nothing is going to change in the interior except the SIVV types won’t be as motivated; there’s no parental notification initiative on the ballot to turn them out. Nothing much is going to change in roadless Alaska except a little bit from the relative amount of money spent by McAdams and Murkowski. Miller doesn’t need to even campaign in these areas other that a fundraiser in the bigger towns to take up collection from people who play politics or who do business with government. So, the battle is for the hearts and minds of Anchorage urban voters.

Robin Taylor got twenty percent of the vote in the ’98 Governor’s race in a last minute rush to try to do something after John Lindaurer got taken out. Alaska may be remote, but almost everybody has internet and a cellphone. It is very different from either ’98 or ’78 in terms of organizing a write-in. And there are a lot of very highly motivated, skillful and well-off people who would like to see Sen. Murkowski win as a write-in candidate. They think they can make history.
http://www.libertytreehugger.com reverelth

to support her?

That was a fantasy land as soon as the primary voters spoke.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/bdpaasch Brian Paasch

“To do nothing is to send a major message that you can do anything you dang well please and there will be no consequences.”

I wonder if Jim DeMint would agree with that statement….
http://www.linkedin.com/in/bdpaasch Brian Paasch

Hopefully they’ll do a tearful press conference and bemoan how “the party has left them” and pull the tissue thin mask off and put Ds after their name. Enough of the fakery and lies!!
http://www.linkedin.com/in/bdpaasch Brian Paasch

I’m still concerned that Castle might formally endorse and maybe even actively campaign for Coons. He’s a lame duck in the House. He’s a non-starter in the Senate. He’s, umm, “elderly”. He’s done.

From his perspective, he has nothing to lose and his spiteful pride to gain by actively undermining that impudent youngster who thrashed him in the election.
IJB

In fact, if I was smart, I’d probably set the ‘line’ far lower…
waxmanlaw

I hate to use the term RINO but it seems to me that they are on a suicide march. NV, UT, FL, PA (Specter is the ultimate), DE, and finally the disgrace in AK.

Someone please tell me when a moderate REP has lost a primary to a conservative when have they endorsed the conservative for party unity. Tell me, just one. I don’t care if you make me look like a fool. KY maybe but that is the Senate leader’s home state, he had no choice.

And they wonder why conservatives are so mad. The moderates are marching themselves right out of the party.
ffc99

lost a primary by 15 votes to Dan Benishek, decided against asking for a recount and graciously endorsed his opponent.
waxmanlaw

Thank you for MI-1. A obscure district almost to Canada. I have been to the UP of MI. Nice Country. Escananba is a quaint little town. Lake Michigan is awfully cold, even in July.

Maybe we should make all the RINO senators go to a gracious seminar with Mr. Allen as the keynote speaker.
cordpt

The idea that “soreloserismis” is correlated with ideology is bogus.
waxmanlaw

The NV race would be no contest but the support for Angle in June was tepid and even now I think that Tarkanian is secretly disdainful of Angle. Lowden and him both hindered Angle out of the primary. Although, Lowden is the classer act. I still beliieve the ideology correlation is strong.
acat
cordpt

At least that’s what 2 polls on 3-way raced showed: she draws more votes from McAdams. And that was with Murkowski running on a 3rd party line, not as a write-in candidate.

Maybe she can spend all her money attacking Miller and depress a sizeable part of his voters? I doubt it, I think Miller’s support is profound enough to hold on.
IJB

I don’t see Miller getting less than 40%. He definitely won’t get less than 33%.

Murk. can’t win this without McAdams’ support collapses.

And McAdams is too weak a candidate to profit from the chaos that Murk’s candidacy will generate.

My guess is that the final tally will be something like:

Miller – 40-45%
McAdams – 30-35%
Murk. – 20-25% (and this is probably Murk’s *best* possible showing too…)

AK voters aren’t fools: they aren’t going to put an Obama minion in there (twice!) in the current political environment – AK, more than any other state, can’t afford 2 more years of unfettered Obama agenda…
aesthete
acat

but then, I figured Illinois voters weren’t fools.. and I was also a foolish Illinois voter once upon a time.*

Mew

* voted for the corruptopublican George Ryan instead of Glenn Poshard.
Doc Holliday

of course do everything we can to defeat her, but the party types should probably not openly pound on her too much at this point. We don’t want her to get sympathy votes or Alaskans standing up for another Alaskan type thing.
JSobieski

since the actually act of writing in is a big deal.
gekster

then they are fools.
(sorry for saying this, but it’s true.)
Kyle-MI

He is raising money and running commercials to fight Reid. Is it self serving? Probably, but it is helping Angle, too.
deano64

of “crazy buggers” who only voted for him because of all the outside money.
constitutionalconservative

We shouldn’t just remove her from all committees, we should make it clear that she will not be welcome in our caucus when she gets back. It’s far worse to show weakness and coddle the establishment here than it is to have the possibility of losing the seat.
gremlin1974
nepanyrush

Miller has stated that he has been told by senior GOP officials that Murkowski will lose her positions and Sen. McConnell has stated:
” I informed her that by choosing to run a campaign against the Republican nominee, she no longer has my support for serving in any leadership roles, and I have accepted her letter of resignation from Senate leadership. ”

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/247000/miller-murkowski-refuses-relinquish-power-robert-costa
klondike

The AP is reporting:

Murkowski last week resigned her leadership position within the Republican conference. She said she didn’t want her decision to stay in the race to cause dissension within the group. Murkowski maintains her committee positions, including that as the top Republican on the Senate Energy Committee.

GOP rules allow any Republican senator to seek her removal by forcing a secret ballot vote of the 41-member caucus, but that is unlikely to happen before the Nov. 2 general election, according to GOP staffers and other observers. There are only a few weeks left in the legislative session, with no action on major bills expected.

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ALASKA_SENATE?SITE=VANOV&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2010-09-20-19-22-57
klondike

The AP is reporting:

Murkowski last week resigned her leadership position within the Republican conference. She said she didn’t want her decision to stay in the race to cause dissension within the group. Murkowski maintains her committee positions, including that as the top Republican on the Senate Energy Committee.

GOP rules allow any Republican senator to seek her removal by forcing a secret ballot vote of the 41-member caucus, but that is unlikely to happen before the Nov. 2 general election, according to GOP staffers and other observers. There are only a few weeks left in the legislative session, with no action on major bills expected.

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ALASKA_SENATE?SITE=VANOV&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2010-09-20-19-22-57

RS

EDITOR OF REDSTATE

Republicans Must Remove Lisa Murkowski From The Energy Committee

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