Alaska should be safely Republican, but thanks to Sarah Palin's meddling, we have a three-way contest that could very realistically give Democrats the seat.
But for the best-case scenario to happen, the 25-30 percent of Democrats planning to vote for Lisa Murkowski have to come home to the Democratic nominee, Scott McAdams.
So here's a bit of additional motivation for Dems to vote Democratic:
Palin endorsed Miller, a Fairbanks attorney with a Yale law degree, back in June when he was hardly seen as a serious challenger to Sen. Lisa Murkowski in Alaska, let alone beyond. At the time some downplayed the move as just a continuation of her civil war with Murkowski, whose father Palin ousted in the 2006 GOP gubernatorial primary. But a little more than two months later, with assistance from the Tea Party Express, Miller upended the second-term senator in the Republican primary in one of the most stunning primary upsets of the cycle.
Now with a string of public polls showing Miller falling behind Murkowski's write-in effort and Democrats suddenly sensing an opportunity for Scott McAdams, their candidate, Palin has doubled-down on her support for Miller [...]
Sen. Mark Begich, who is seen as the chief strategist behind the effort of McAdams' bid [...] told POLITICO that a Miller loss “says that her home state has rejected her because there's no other state that knows her like we do. That should be a message to the rest of the country.”
A McAdams Republican loss would be placed SQUARELY on Palin's lap. It's bad enough (for Republicans) that she cost the GOP a sure-fire pickup in Delaware with Christine O'Donnell. If she squanders the Senate seat in her own state, the blowback will be epic.
That should be all the motivation Alaska Democrats need to cast their ballot for McAdams.
