I wanted to wait a week before commenting on Alaska’s senior US Senator Lisa Murkowski’s (R) vote on the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. In the end, she voted against cloture and voted present (neither for nor against) on the nomination. You can find her floor speech explaining her thinking here. https://www.adn.com/politics/2018/10/05/sen-lisa-murkowskis-full-senate-speech-on-why-shes-not-supporting-kavanaugh/
While her vote was not sufficient to defeat the nomination, it was not a help either. Reaction here in Alaska to the vote has been sharp and highly critical. It even triggered a Palin sighting, with Sarah Tweeting that she can see 2022 from her house. https://twitter.com/SarahPalinUSA/status/1048288254422728704?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
This led to immediate Palin for US Senate 2022 speculation. Note to my friends outside Alaska: Palin wouldn’t get elected dog catcher up here, especially in a Republican primary. She is far better being a rock star, trolling well deserved targets using her superb political timing talents. Unfortunately, her talents after being elected are limited.
Lisa’s strengths in the senate are energy and Alaska issues. She suffers when she moves out of those lanes into social issues, women’s issues, and Alaska Native issues. Her remarks combined all three of those problems.
Her claim that Kavanaugh no longer has the temperament to be on the SCOTUS after fighting back against the democrat orchestrated smear and character destruction operation is laughable. Lisa is a fighter, which is why she is in the US Senate. She fought back after Joe Miller beat her in the Republican Primary in 2010. She fought back to get her father elected governor of Alaska in 2002, and defended him after he came in third in a field of three Republican gubernatorial candidates in 2006. So now Lisa is saying that someone being attacked cannot fight back? Really?
She went on to speak glowingly about supporting tribal recognition for Alaska Natives, something native separatist Ada Deer did in 1993. She wants to do the same thing for so-called Hawaiian Natives. This latter is a legacy from former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, who supported his good friend US Senator from Hawaii Daniel Akaka who pushed legislation unsuccessfully for years before his death. As an Alaskan, I can tell you that tribal designation has done nothing positive, giving native separatists yet another way to divide Alaskans from one another.
Do not forget that Lisa was not particularly supportive of then candidate Donald Trump in 2016. She clanged over into active Never Trump after NBC ran the Billy Bush tape. She managed to bring junior US Senator Dan Sullivan along with her at least for a while. Something about women’s issues cause her to default to the demands of the Sisterhood rather than the interests of the rest of us. One only needs to take a look at the infamous photo of Dianne Feinstein cornering her in the halls of the senate to get some sort of an idea of the problem we have up here.
Will someone defeat Lisa in 2022? Don’t know. If they are interested, they will have to start running and raising money right now, today. And I haven’t heard of anyone yet. Republicans have shown an inability to punish three Republican turncoats who organized with democrats, turning a 18-member democrat – indy minority into a 21-member governing majority. As of this writing, perhaps one of these will be defeated in November. Perhaps not. Worse, she appears to have dabbled in the good old democrat art form of voting fraud to win her primary. And if they cannot punish legislative turncoats, they will have a very difficult time punishing Lisa in four years.
The problem with Lisa’s vote is that it empowers democrat orchestrated mob violence in the halls of the US Senate. It also tells those democrats and the people who fund the mobs that she can be rolled. And once you demonstrate that you can be rolled, they will never, ever leave you alone. Finally, she refuses to punish democrats for the fraud they committed in bringing Dr. Ford and her democrat lawyers in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee to lie about an attempted sexual assault 36 years ago.
Lisa rewards those who destroyed the process and conducted a well-planned character assassination on a Boy Scout with her tacit support by voting in favor of what they demand. And when you reward Bad Actors, they will continue on their merry way. If the Senate is a toxic swamp, then Lisa Murkowski with her vote just participated in making it worse. Congratulations. I hope she is proud of herself.
Alex Gimarc lives in Anchorage since retiring from the military in 1997. His interests include science and technology, environment, energy, economics, military affairs, fishing and disabilities policies. His weekly column “Interesting Items” is a summary of news stories with substantive Alaska-themed topics. He is a small business owner and Information Technology professional.
