Posted by Kromey at 8:06pm Nov 24 '10A quick run-down of the 2010 Alaskan race for US Senate:
The Democratic primary resulted in Scott McAdams winning the party's ticket for the US Senate.
The GOP primary resulted in a very tight race narrowly electing Joe Miller over incumbent Lisa Murkowski for that party's ticket for the US Senate. At the time, Lisa bows out and says she won't try to run against Miller in the general election.
Outpouring of support for Lisa from her supporters causes her to change her mind, and after the Libertarian candidate declines to step aside to let Lisa run on that ticket, she launches a long-shot write-in campaign.
In effect, Alaska just ran a 3-party race for a federal position: GOP candidate Joe Miller; Democratic candidate Scott McAdams; write-in candidate Lisa Murkowski. (Libertarian and Alaskan Independence Party candidates were on the ballot, but these "4th-party" candidates never stood a chance, just the same as 3rd-party candidates in nearly every other election.)
Local and state media managed to cover all 3 candidates leading up to the general election. Hell, national media even poked their nose in a couple times, and didn't screw up too much. Alaskan voters routinely demonstrated just as much understanding of the 3 candidates as all American voters do when there's only 2 candidates (which is to say, practically none). And as a result, Alaskans had more choice than merely two ends of the liberal/conservative spectrum: semi-conservative liberal McAdams; moderate conservative Lisa Murkowski; hard-core extreme conservative Joe Miller.
The election isn't officially decided yet, as Joe Miller plays the part of the sore loser very, very well: Following in the footsteps of Al Gore (although in doing so has lost the point), he has filed a lawsuit challenging the validity of nearly 8,000 write-in votes for Lisa Murkowski; if he wins this suit to get those votes disqualified, Lisa wins the election by more than 2,000 votes. Everyone else, his own party the GOP included, is trying to talk Miller out of this bullshit and just concede the race that he lost despite having every advantage -- I mean, hell, voters only had to fill in a circle to vote for him, but they had to do that plus spell "Murkowski" correctly to vote for her!!
Miller's post-race antics aside, I would call this election a very successful one, albeit a somewhat strange one. Strange not because there were 3 candidates, but strange because one of those candidates had bowed out of the race before stepping back in and then winning it!
What's the point of all of this? I've heard it said that America is stuck in a 2-party rut of a system because Americans are too stupid to handle more than 2 candidates in a race, and that American media is too simplistic to be able to adequately cover more than 2 candidates. Alaska's 2010 US Senate race disproves this, but that shouldn't a surprise to anyone: Every race sees more than 2 candidates debated by Americans and covered by the media. The most recent US Presidential race, for example, started out with 5 major candidates -- 3 GOP, 2 Democratic -- that the American people and the American media handled just fine and dandy, until come election day only 2 choices were presented to us.
The Democratic primary resulted in Scott McAdams winning the party's ticket for the US Senate.
The GOP primary resulted in a very tight race narrowly electing Joe Miller over incumbent Lisa Murkowski for that party's ticket for the US Senate. At the time, Lisa bows out and says she won't try to run against Miller in the general election.
Outpouring of support for Lisa from her supporters causes her to change her mind, and after the Libertarian candidate declines to step aside to let Lisa run on that ticket, she launches a long-shot write-in campaign.
In effect, Alaska just ran a 3-party race for a federal position: GOP candidate Joe Miller; Democratic candidate Scott McAdams; write-in candidate Lisa Murkowski. (Libertarian and Alaskan Independence Party candidates were on the ballot, but these "4th-party" candidates never stood a chance, just the same as 3rd-party candidates in nearly every other election.)
Local and state media managed to cover all 3 candidates leading up to the general election. Hell, national media even poked their nose in a couple times, and didn't screw up too much. Alaskan voters routinely demonstrated just as much understanding of the 3 candidates as all American voters do when there's only 2 candidates (which is to say, practically none). And as a result, Alaskans had more choice than merely two ends of the liberal/conservative spectrum: semi-conservative liberal McAdams; moderate conservative Lisa Murkowski; hard-core extreme conservative Joe Miller.
The election isn't officially decided yet, as Joe Miller plays the part of the sore loser very, very well: Following in the footsteps of Al Gore (although in doing so has lost the point), he has filed a lawsuit challenging the validity of nearly 8,000 write-in votes for Lisa Murkowski; if he wins this suit to get those votes disqualified, Lisa wins the election by more than 2,000 votes. Everyone else, his own party the GOP included, is trying to talk Miller out of this bullshit and just concede the race that he lost despite having every advantage -- I mean, hell, voters only had to fill in a circle to vote for him, but they had to do that plus spell "Murkowski" correctly to vote for her!!
Miller's post-race antics aside, I would call this election a very successful one, albeit a somewhat strange one. Strange not because there were 3 candidates, but strange because one of those candidates had bowed out of the race before stepping back in and then winning it!
What's the point of all of this? I've heard it said that America is stuck in a 2-party rut of a system because Americans are too stupid to handle more than 2 candidates in a race, and that American media is too simplistic to be able to adequately cover more than 2 candidates. Alaska's 2010 US Senate race disproves this, but that shouldn't a surprise to anyone: Every race sees more than 2 candidates debated by Americans and covered by the media. The most recent US Presidential race, for example, started out with 5 major candidates -- 3 GOP, 2 Democratic -- that the American people and the American media handled just fine and dandy, until come election day only 2 choices were presented to us.