Leaving the door open to a Joe Miller return

Lots of interesting things going on with Republicans these days.

It is unclear whether this is really a battle between the old guard and the new guard, between Paulists and non-Paulists, or between moderates and the crazies. Probably, as is often the case, it’s a little bit of all of them.

On the surface, you have efforts by Ron Paul supporters to disrupt the Republican Convention and take over the party, ostensibly with the single goal of nabbing as many delegates for their man as they could. They succeeded in getting a complete unknown, Russ Millette, installed as the successor to the outgoing Randy Ruedrich, and then turned their attention to changing party rules.

The Paulists, however, are only here for a moment in time. Once the Republican National Convention comes and goes, the Paul movement will fade and we’ll be left here in Alaska with a Republican Party that’s a cobbled together, motley collection of disgruntled old-timers and idealistic newcomers and party members with a variety of different agendas and ideologies, all pulling in different directions. Say what you like about Randy Ruedrich, he’s smart and committed to the cause, and succeeded in keeping the party together.

It’s going to be interesting to see how the party fares under new and undeniably less ruthless leadership.

One person in particular will be viewing this all with some interest, and that’s Republican wacko-in-chief Joe Miller. Joe, of course, has been licking his wounded pride the last couple of years after a historic and categorically humiliating defeat in 2010 to Lisa Murkowski.

He had made unsuccessful efforts in 2008 to unseat Randy Ruedrich and hand the party to the conservative wing. So throughout this latest chapter, I’m sure he’s been lurking in the wings, watching and waitin,g and quite enjoying the turn of events.

A party in disarray he can deal with. Once the Paul lovefest has subsided, you watch — in he will come and endeavor to create the Republican Party in his image.

Couple this with the landscape in races that are shaping up for this fall’s elections. Across the state, Republicans are challenging Republicans in the primary. In many cases there’s a Republican who is fairly moderate and reasonable up against a Republican who adheres to purist, conservative theology ideology.

In Senate races, for example, there are incumbent Republicans who had the temerity to (shock, horror) organize with the Democrats in the “Bipartisan Working Group.” By all accounts, Republican voters split fairly evenly between those who view this as a good thing and those who view it as shacking up with the devil.

Come the end of August, we will see whether the momentum in the Alaska Senate and House, at least among Republicans, will move toward the right or the center. And come November, we’ll see whether that will be a good or bad thing for Republicans.

We have a situation now where the split in the Republican Party between conservatives and moderates is such that conservatives may win in August, but be unpalatable to the general electorate come November.

The Conservative Patriots Group was founded in Wasilla in 2009, supported Joe Miller’s campaign in 2010, now has a chapter on the Kenai Peninsula and is undoubtedly working on opening one in Fairbanks. Joe Miller has returned the favor and spoken at a number of CPG rallies recently, devoted as both of them are to defeating the “man from Kenya,” defeating liberal Democrats in general and installing as many true-blue conservative purists to the Legislature as possible.

So, as Joe Miller views the Republican Party carnage with a degree of satisfaction, he’s undoubtedly looking forward to his next political opportunity. It must have been tough to have gone from measuring the curtains in his D.C. office to being dumped by a write-in candidate in the general election, the first time that had happened in a race for national office for 60 years.

But Joe’s nothing if not a survivor. He’s dusted himself off, kept his name out there with regular visits on Fox News, and forged his symbiotic relationship with the CPG, all with a view to becoming a leading figure in the Republican Party and bringing about a quantum shift to the right in Alaska politics.

In 2014, he may look at running against Mark Begich for Alaska’s other seat in the U.S. Senate. Of course, a bunch of other people will be eyeing that seat, too. Begich was elected in 2008 in somewhat fortuitous circumstances, and as a Democrat in a national seat, has the kind of numbers that will make him perpetually vulnerable.

Sean Parnell may well forgo the opportunity of a second term as governor and run. Mead Treadwell may get bored guarding the state seal between now and then and choose to run, also. Dan Sullivan’s name has also been mentioned, since he will be approaching the end of his second term as Anchorage mayor. So 2014 may not be Joe’s time.

However, 2016 would be a different story. 2016 may offer Joe the opportunity for the kind of vigilante street justice that might appeal to him — the opportunity to come back and give Lisa Murkowski a good revenge spanking.

And here’s the deal with Lisa: Her write-in run in 2010 made her the darling of the political center (even though she gave it a good dinging with her vote on the Blunt Amendment), but it has made her thoroughly unpalatable to the CPG types on the right. Lisa has a problem, because the reality is, if Joe Miller succeeded in beating her in the primary in 2010, he’s going to do it again in 2016, and by an even wider margin.

And write-in lightning isn’t going to strike twice.

I was one of the first commentators in 2010 to suggest that Lisa Murkowski should run a write-in campaign before her campaign had even seriously considered it. So here’s my advice for her now — she should run as an independent in 2016 and thereafter. Forget about the primary, you can’t win them anymore.

If that happens, and it probably will, it will be the culmination of the split in the Republican Party that is beginning now. When a moderate Republican incumbent decides that he or she no longer succeeds within the primary system, then the CPGs and the Joe Millers and all the other wackos will have won.

Ivan Moore is a public opinion pollster who lives in Anchorage and works for a variety of clients — political, corporate, public sector or just plain curious — around Alaska. His opinions are his own. He can be reached at ivan@ivanmooreresearch.com.