Lisa Murkowski is waging a write-in campaign to maintain her Senate seat. In her quest to maintain the gift her father dutifully bestowed on her she now opposes the duly nominated Republican candidate as well as the Democratic candidate. The latest poll in the race suggests that here it could be close, though some appropriate adjustment has to be made to discount Murkowski’s number for the problem created by having to write in a vote for her.
Last week Murkowski’s colleagues in the Senate Republican Conference voted on two questions. The first was whether to replace Murkowski as vice chairman of the conference [see correction; Senator Murkowski resigned her postion as vice chairman; the vote was to determine who would replace her]. A vote occurred on that question, and she was replaced by Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming. The second was whether to accept the decision of the Republicans on the Senate Energy Committee to strip her of her ranking status. The senators voted to table this question.
Rich Lowry explains that technically the Senators didn’t vote on the second question, but effectively acted to leave Murkowski in place. So who thought that was a good idea? Rich reports: “We know DeMint voted against Murkowski. Amazingly, though, we’ve gotten only Inhofe and Sessions (via the Politico) on the record against Murkowski on the committee question. The others either say they support her retaining the committee position, or won’t say.” NR has collected responses as best it could for the Murkowski files.
UPDATE: Senator Murkowski’s office writes with a correction:
Lisa resigned from her position as the vice-chairman of the Republican Conference at the same time she made the decision to run as a write-in candidate. Thus [your] statement, “The first [vote] was whether to replace Murkowski as vice chairman of the conference,” is misleading. Whether this was already a done deal because she had resigned, the vote was about who would be the replacement. I think Senator Barrasso will do an excellent job.
I regret the error and appreciate the correction.
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