Wednesday September 1, 2010
Palin-Backed Pro-Life Candidate Wins Upset Victory over Pro-abort Senator
By Peter J. Smith
ANCHORAGE, Alaska, September 1, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who had a mixed record on abortion-related measures, finally conceded defeat in the primary race to Joe Miller, a pro-life attorney backed heavily by former Gov. Sarah Palin.
“Now is the time for all Alaskans to come together and reach out with our core message of taking power from the federal government and bringing it back home to the people,” Miller stated in his victory speech. “If we continue to allow the federal government to live beyond its means, we will all soon have to live below ours.”
Miller pulled off an upset victory over Murkowski on the August 24 primary, beating her by 1668 votes. Polling showed Murkowski comfortably ahead of Miller going into primary day, but the week before Sarah Palin and the fiscal conservative Tea Party Express launched an aggressive get-out-the vote effort on Miller’s behalf.
Murkowski was hoping that 16,000 outstanding absentee ballots would change the outcome. However, with the first round of absentees counted, Murkowski narrowed the gap by only 38 votes, prompting her concession of the GOP nomination.
“I don’t see a scenario where the primary will turn out in my favor, and that is a reality that is before me at this point in time,” Murkowski said Tuesday at her campaign headquarters.
Ever since she was appointed in 2002 by her father, then Gov. Frank Murkowski, to fill his vacated Senate seat, Lisa Murkowski acquired a rather mixed bag on abortion. She voted repeatedly to repeal the Mexico City Policy prohibiting funding of abortion overseas, to reject a measure making an “unborn child” eligible for health coverage under SCHIP (State Children’s Health Insurance Program), and voted to expand human embryonic stem cell research.
At the same time, Murkowski garnered a 71 percent pro-life rating from the National Right to Life Committee’s congressional scorecard for the 111th Congress (2009 – 2010), but most of those pro-life votes were votes against the health care reform bill. However, she did vote to ban partial birth abortion, supported the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, and opposed carrying minors across state lines for abortion.
Miller made his platform unapologetically and unambiguously pro-life, attracting the support of Alaska Family Council and Alaska Right to Life.
The Anchorage Daily News reports that pro-life voters may have carried Miller cross the finish line, because the vote on Ballot Measure 2, a law requiring parental notification for teenagers seeking abortion, was on the same day as the primary.
According to the Daily News, Miller made support for Ballot Measure 2 front and center in his campaign.
“He told voters over and over again: Flip your ballot over, vote ‘yes on 2.’ Before you vote for me, vote ‘yes on 2.’ Ballot Measure 2 is much more important than this Senate race,” Bernadette Wilson, campaign manager for the ballot’s sponsor Alaskans for Parental Rights, told the Daily News.
Miller’s victory is a huge coup for the Tea Party Express, which poured $600,000 into the campaign to defeat Murkowski. His victory also adds to the portrait of Palin as an emerging GOP powerbroker whose endorsements capture both media attention for herself and significant votes for those whom she supports.
Miller will face off against Democrat Scott McAdams, the mayor of Sitka, in November’s upcoming general election.