Valley reactions mixed on Murkowski announcement

MAT-SU — Cheers and jeers are greeting U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s announcement Friday she will be mounting a write-in campaign to retain her seat.

“I announce today that I will be a write-in candidate in November for the United States Senate seat that I now hold,” Murkowski told a crowd of supporters at Dena’ina Civic and Convention Center in Anchorage. Her slogan: “Let’s Make History.”

Her effort to claim her seat against the winner of the Republican primary, Joe Miller, and Democratic challenger Scott McAdams leaves few sitting on the fence.

Jennie Bettine of Big Lake, president of the Conservative Patriots Group, a local nonpartisan political advocacy group that backs Miller, doesn’t mince words with what she sees as a selfish attempt by Murkowski to maintain the power handed to her by her father, then governor, when he appointed her to the Senate seat he vacated.

“It’s not about the United States,” Bettine said. “It’s not about Alaska. It’s about Lisa. It’s egotism.”

That’s not how Polly Kloep of Wasilla sees it. The independent voter is cheering Murkowski’s decision. Kloep blames the Republican Party for letting Outside interests, including the Tea Party, come into Alaska the two weeks before the primary and hijack the election.

“What was done to Lisa Murkowski was one of the most dishonest things I’ve ever seen in my life,” said Kloep, an 85-year-old who lives in the Wasilla Area Seniors complex. “She’s earned the right to be where she is.”

Bettine scoffs at that assertion, saying both candidates used Outside campaign funds. She said Murkowski should do as she said when she conceded and support the chosen candidate of her party.

“She would have demanded Joe Miller roll over if she’d won by 2,000 votes,” Bettine said.

In the primary, Valley voters gave Miller the clear edge, about 60 percent to 40 percent, over the incumbent. Statewide, Miller squeaked by Murkowski with a 2,006-vote margin of 109,750 votes cast.

Officially, local Republican leaders are standing behind their candidate of record, Fairbanks’ Miller.

“We had a Republican primary and Joe Miller won the race,” said Lynn Gattis of Wasilla, assistant secretary of the Alaska GOP. “The Republican Party respects the process. I respect the process.”

Gattis would not say how she feels personally about Murkowski’s maneuver.

Kloep said she sees plenty of support for the write-in candidate and she will campaign actively against anyone associated with the Tea Party.

“The Christian Right has taken a hold of the Republican Party and destroyed it,” she said.

Standing outside the crossfire is Democrat McAdams of Sitka. Gini King-Taylor of Wasilla, a volunteer for the local and state Democratic Party, said the GOP infighting will give her candidate a chance to shine.

“People may find out who Scott McAdams really is,” King-Taylor said. “Before this he might have been drown out.”

Murkowski supporters like Janet Kincaid, a long-time Palmer business woman and community activist, said it must have been an agonizing decision for her candidate; it is one she will support.

“She will continue to be a good senator,” Kincaid said. “We’re going to make history.”