Moran

I'm sure the irony in this cartoon will be utterly lost on some folks. Maybe they'll get it, and simultaneously still not get it.

Drawn while listening live to the litany of calls for contested ballots, and no kidding, the first example in panel one is, according to the Miller legal camp, legitimate grounds for disenfranchising a voter. And this from a guy who said he wants to represent Alaskans, by ignoring Alaskan law: 

The regulation, 6AAC25.670, concerns the spelling of a candidate’s name on the federal write-in absentee ballot.
The regulation says, “Any abbreviation, misspelling, or other minor variation in the form of the name of a candidate or political party will be disregarded in determining the validity of the ballot, if the intention of the voter can be ascertained.”

Extended rant below...

Almost exhausted this election's cycle of idiocy - trust me, there's plenty more local issues pissing me off at the moment: there'll be another slew of editorials ranging from cell-phone drivers, deformed beaks, pipeline corrosion and redistricting; all coming up here sooner than later. But the unfolding melodrama on tap still has a few more drips to shake off between Miller & Murkowski. I can't put it any plainer than WC did over at his place with this post:

"And Miller’s not going to win on many of his contested write-in ballots. Voter intent is the key, not a twisted, absolutist view of the law. The view is particularly reprehensible in a state where Alaska Native voters have limited English skills, triggering, on the one hand, federal laws designed to protect those votes, and, on the other, a certain racist tinge to Miller’s tactics. Miller, after all, knows those Alaska Native votes are heavily weighted against him."

Tell ya what though, from this bitter perspective I'm actually having trouble caring less anymore: far as I'm concerned it'd be twisted poetic justice to have Miller rule over the collective Dall sheeple that empowered his political career to this point. In other words, maybe that's what it'll take to snap some folks out of their jaded malaise, get off their asses and get involved - I'll address that apathy specifically in an upcoming post. Then again, this is the state that originally unleashed the Quitter upon America (how's that for some serious Exceptionalism), so pardon the cynicism if I don't waste much hope or any more ink.

Here's another thought: for all the folks holding out on Murkowski somehow being indebted to moderates after all this, I submit you are about as much of a dreamer as, well, an Alaskan Green Democrat Independent voter. Logically she will cater to the larger and much more active faction of extremists who are, were, and presumably will be the more tangible threat to her re-election prospects in another six years. So if you think her swing to the right was pronounced during the primary, wait until you see how hard she'll waltz to secure support and convince that demographic now. Hopefully, I'll be wrong again.

Either way I'll soon be experiencing an eerily similar situation with an analogous politically precarious landscape in Maine. Olympia Snowe is almost a mirror image of Murkowski, and the Maine GOP has effectively been overthrown by the identical extremism that is gaining ground in Alaska. 

Then again, I'm shortly going on a self-imposed hiatus and focusing on more beaver. And sketching idyllic lighthouses by the seashore in soothing pastels. No, really, seriously. 

Okay, I'm gonna be a pirate instead. Yarrr.