Today is Scott McAdams Birthday, he turns the very scary (when your younger) 40 years old today. It's also 10-10-10 for those who like numbers (what were you doing at 10:10am this morning?).
Anyways, Scott is running a very smart, solid campaign but it seems that the Ak and national press is still treating him as an afterthought. What the Press isn't telling folks is that Lisa Murkowski can't win as a write-in candidate, but she can ensure that Joe Miller will win.
Follow me below the fold...
Here is a clip of Moore Up North where Shannyn Moore interviews Tom Begich, brother of Ak Sen Mark Begich and an all-around smart dude. It's a fun interview and worth watching as Tom lays out, using the Beck chalkboard, why write-in candidates can't win.
(h/t to HarpboyAK for the vid, he diaried it HERE, but at 4am EDT and it's about to fall off the blog roll)
Tom goes over the numbers, looking at the history of Alaskan write in attempts and how they've never worked in the past, usually topping out at 17% of the vote, even when stickers were allowed to be used, which is now illegal.
One place where I disagreed with Tom was where he seemed to indicate spelling would be an issue, saying back in the day even 5000 write-in voters for Taylor spelled the name wrong. However we've heard that the election commissioner that rules on spelling matters has said she'll take a very liberal, broad approach when deciding if improper spelled write-in ballots will count. Of course expect Miller's folks to already be working on court challenges for any ballot without perfect spelling. And one thing that the very open-minded ballot judge couldn't overlook is if the circle/oval isn't filled in beside the write-in name.
However Tom went on to explain that Miller will get his 35-40% just for being on the ballot with the [R] after his name. Similarly looking at the last 10 statewide elections, the lowest any Democrat ever got was 31%, basically just for having the [D] after their name. If you take the 35% for Miller, the 31% from McAdams that is 67% of the vote - leaving 33% for Murkowski who isn't on the ballot, and three other on the ballot small party candidates - two independents and one libertarian.
Tom then pointed to fundraising numbers over the last 40 days saying Lisa Murkowski raised $100,000 (though I suspect more, and further expect she has a warchest she didn't spend in the primary), Joe Miller raised $440K (though doesn't take into account the TPX spending) whereas Scott McAdams took in $720,000! The point he was making was to tie this into the percentages above because the 31% was the basement for Dems in Alaska, without really having the capability to run a campaign - the money proves that McAdams can run a fully exposed campaign.
Scott is out with a new radio ad highlighting Murkowski's voting record, which tells me he's still facing the battle of trying to secure runaway Dem votes who are panicked about Miller winning. Which is very unfortunate in that the best way to secure Miller winning is to not vote for Scott McAdams. This is starting to play out like the Florida race, where Crist went after Dem votes instead of shoring up Republican votes.
Murkowski is seemingly spending the vast majority of her money on educating folks on how to fill out a write in ballot. So she can't take shots at Miller. She's banking on Democrats being more scared of Miller than they are in support of McAdams, but as Tom Begich showed if that is the case - voting for Scott McAdams is the only sure way to ensure Joe Miller doesn't win.
So where does this leave us Today? As I mentioned today is his 40th birthday, if you can afford it and are so inclined why not send Scott McAdams a birthday wish donation of $10.40 today via his act blue - https://secure.actblue.com/...
Over 70% of his donors have come from Alaska, Joe Miller and his TPX backers and Lisa Murkowski and her corporate interests can't come near saying that. So if the other 49 States throw some money Scott's way and brings down his donor money to only 65% from inside Alaska, that would still be far ahead of any percentage Joe or Lisa could claim.