Okay. So I paraphrased:
As her write-in votes surpassed the votes for Republican nominee Joe Miller this week, Murkowski asserted her independence from the party.
Murkowski told the press she feels liberated because she won “not because I came as my party’s nominee but because a very, very wide range of Alaskans of all political stripes have stepped up and said ‘you’re the person we want to represent us in Washington.’ ” The Hill newspaper reported, “Murkowski said her ‘backbone is stiffer, straighter’ ” from winning as a write-in.
And how is Murkowski standing up to the GOP bosses? By rejecting the party’s earmark ban and promising to pork up spending bills with parochial, unauthorized pet projects that, no doubt, will help her political allies.
Murkowski has repeatedly said this week she will continue to request earmarks, justifying them because Alaska is a “young” state (a “young state” that takes five dollars in spending for every dollar in taxes it sends to Washington, according to the Cato Institute).
Murkowksi points out that the Republican Senate Conference rule banning earmarks has no real enforcement mechanism, and says she’ll chose Alaska over the party.
But Murkowski’s earmarking shows us that pork isn’t about helping out the home state as much as it’s about rewarding political donors and greasing the gears of the political patronage machine.
[…]
When you realize how dependent on federal favors these Alaska-connected corporations, local politicians, and lobbyists are, it’s clear why they went to the mat to save Murkowski after she lost the primary in August — especially because Miller is a limited-government conservative.
If Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision allowing corporate spending on politics, affected the outcome of one race this year, it was Murkowski’s. Eight ANCs poured $50,000 to $140,000 directly from their corporate treasuries into a “Super PAC” called “Alaskans Standing Together,” which spent $920,000 attacking Miller and boosting Murkowski. Because the Natives are the shareholders of the ANCs, this amounted to corporate bosses (the highest paid of whom are non-Native) using Natives’ money to elect the woman who would then perpetuate the favor factory for these corporations and their lobbyists.
The media loves political independents and deifies “centrists.” But often, centrists of both parties are simply those who lack principal and instead set their political compass according to what is politically expedient or what helps their friends.
Expect Murkowski, as she bucks the GOP over the next six years, to get plenty of adulation. And expect her friends to get plenty of your money.
Maverick. Moderate. Pragmatist.
And also, defiantly politics as usual.
Congrats to all the establishment GOP types who went to the mat for this chick. You bought yourselves an “independent”!
Meet the new Chairwoman of the Senate Committee for Not Doing Much At All
She doesn’t even meet the satirical definition of an “honest politician.”
These ANC deals and their satellites look to me like ripe targets for detailed Congressional hearings. Plus, there are credibility bonus points to be had investigating corrupt Republican politicians and their instruments.
Electable FTW!
Murky’s Alaska
If shes not down with the agreed upon earmark ban then no comittee seats for her. Let her switch parties, you know she wants to anyway; or like Sanders, self-righteously call herself an independant.
No, Sanders calls himself a “socialist”. And Obama’s voting record in the Senate was further left than his.
We should allow ourselves the luxury of rubbing her statements and future actions in the faces of every non-Tea Party Republican, every chance we get. She’s right up there with the two lobster-pot bimbos (thanks!, to the ‘old ‘feets’, for that) from Maine and John McCain and his turgid daughter, &c.
Lisa, The Earmark Express.
Murky is a king crab bimbo.
Boy, it sure is a good thing that the Senate Republican Caucus was pragmatic enough not to boot her off her committees, strip her of seniority or indicate in other ways that the gravy to Alaska would no longer flow through the Murcowski spigot. If she’d won with the D.C. establishment working against her, think how straight her spine would be then!
Which will serve better to keep Tea Partiers motivated over the next two-year cycle?
A) Pelosi’s triumphalism
B) Murkowski’s triumphalism
A) Pelosi’s triumphalism
B) Murkowski’s triumphalism
– If the last two years is any indication of what to expect in the next two, blue-based triumphalism doesn’t look to have a very promising future.
Not unlike the “libertarians” who voted for Obama seeking “change”. Something about a nose and a face.
A very good question posed, Squid. They’re equally repulsive creatures, but I’m betting mercousckui’s known contempt is a little more “action” inducing. The tea party knows what to expect from nan, but will not forget, nor forgive, a putative political ally like the princess.
For a while there was panic among the Establishment GOP that the Princess of Pork might caucus with the Democrats. I wonder if there are, now, a few of those “pragmatic” weasels considering expelling the cretin.
They went to the mat for this chick and saved a member of the establishment.
D or R is not relevant because she was a true member of the establishment, and for those who went to bat for her that was all that counted. Whether that will discourage the Tea Partiers or encourage them in their attacks on the establishment – I guess we’ll see over the coming months.
That is why I never pay much attention to Reason magazine. They are more interested in appearing “cool” than actually standing up for individual liberty.
She Who Offends The Electric Hamster has been fighting the Mur?escu Machine for years. I seriously doubt that Princess Lisa has seen the end of her political challengers.
Well, I’d expect at least one or two states to take in more federal funds than sent in taxes. Otherwise, there isn’t much *bleeping* point in sending the money to the Feds in the first place.
(That’s orthogonal to whether it is a good idea to route that much stuff through the Feds in the first place.)
“eat me”?
I can smell spoilt arctic char from my house
(a “young state” that takes five dollars in spending for every dollar in taxes it sends to Washington, according to the Cato Institute)
Not surprising when the bulk of the state is federal land.
A similar thing happens in Michigan with Crawford County. The state sends the county money. Why? Because the bulk of the county is state land – Camp Grayling, one of the largest National Guard training sites east of the Mississippi. There is no other way the county could raise the money to fund the basics ofgovernmental services (and up there governmental services are pretty basic).
Here we see Rabbit in full panic mode. Something about tea-party idealists needing to become more polished like the pragmatists, or pragmatists needing to put on an idealistic shine. Some damn thing I couldn’t as yet bring myself to read in its entirety.