THE HUFFINGTON POST

By Jesse Quick


The Huffington Post is a liberal/progressive American news website and blog featuring various news sources and columnists. The site offers a variety of coverage including politics, media, business, entertainment, living, style, the green movement, world news, sports, art, religion, and comedy. The site also has a blog where people can express their ideas and beliefs. The Huffington Post was launched on May 9, 2005.

I will be writing about an article that I found in the Huffington Post that is titled “Lisa Murkowski’s Defeat In Alaska Primary Marks Major Tea Party Win”. The article was written by Associated Press writer Dan Joling. Associated Press writers Becky Bohrer, Rachel D’Oro, and Mark Thiessen also contributed to the article. (facts and figures in the following report are from said article, written by Dan Joling)

In one of the biggest political upsets of the year, a conservative Alaskan lawyer by the name of Joe Miller, defeated incumbent GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski, when she conceded Tuesday, giving the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate to Miller. Miller’s win was a major victory for the tea party movement, and is the first time it had defeated a sitting senator in a primary.

Murkowski trailed Miller by 1,668 votes after the August 24th primary. After counting 15,000 absentee and outstanding ballots on Tuesday, however, she was still down 1,630 votes. After she became aware of those results, she made the decision to concede. She said that while there were still outstanding votes, “I don’t see a scenario where the primary will turn out in my favor, and that is a reality that is before me at this point in time. And for that reason, and for the good of the state of Alaska, I am now conceding the race of the Republican nomination.” (Dan Joling, AP).

Miller, who is backed by the Tea Party Express, and Sarah Palin, is the favorite in November to defeat Democrat Scott McAdams, in a strongly Republican Alaska. As of a few weeks ago, McAdams, who is the mayor of Sitka, Alaska, only had a few thousand dollars and a volunteer treasurer to help him claim the Democratic nomination. But after the surprising upset by Miller, volunteers and money have been flowing his way. He expects his campaign to collect $100,000 by the end of the week. In order to be competitive in this race, McAdams needs to gain the support of independents, and disappointed Murkowski supporters, who are worried that Miller’s call for cuts in government spending will hurt Alaska, a state that has benefited from federal funding for a long period of time.

Before taking on Murkowski in the Republican Senate race, Miller had no experience running in political races, other than a failed legislative bid in 2004. Miller’s victory over Murkowski just goes to show what can happen when you are friends with a well known political figure like Sarah Palin. In the final days of the campaign, Palin called Miller “a man of the people” on her facebook page. (Dan Joling, AP). It also doesn’t hurt that Miller received nearly $600,000 from the California-based Tea Party Express to help in the campaign, most of it coming in the final weeks of the race.