IT WASN'T JUST PALIN

Joe Miller appears to have beaten incumbent Lisa Murkowski for the GOP Senate nomination in Alaska, and most people, understandably, are crediting Sarah Palin. Surely she deserves much of the credit, but don't forget that Miller's campaign was a full-on right-wing media crusade:



Levin's book Liberty and Tyranny spent 12 weeks at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and is reported by its publisher (Mary Matalin's Simon & Schuster-affliated imprint, Threshold) to have sold a million copies. Laura Ingraham's last book also hit #1 on the Times list. And Huckabee is, well, Huckabee. These are big guns, too.

Robert Stacy McCain thinks Levin's interview of Miller in July had an impact, especially after it got YouTubed.

Makes sense to me. We want to make this all about Palin, but really, there's a hive mind involved, and multiple positive remarks about Miller from multiple wingnut superstars had to count for something.

There are other factors, though we probably shouldn't overestimate the impact of this pro-Miller parade of Hummers and automatic weapons:



Murkowski is kinda-sorta pro-choice, depending on what day of the week it is, but Miller is unswervingly anti-abortion (as well as the father, apparently, of a rather large quiverful of kids) -- and there was an abortion referendum on the ballot. Murkowski also cast votes in favor of the hated TARP and stimulus.

FYI, Miller seems to be Sharron Angle Lite. In a "Letter to Seniors" (PDF) in which he insists he won't vote to cut Social Security or Medicare benefits, even as he rails against spending, he lists a number of "relatively painless" cuts he does favor instead:

There are many examples of cuts that could be made and that would be relatively painless to the American public including: foreign aid, funding to the United Nations, funding to the International Monetary Fund, corporate welfare, elimination of more than 640 duplicative federal programs, elimination of programs rated ineffective by the Office of Management and Budget, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Dept. of Education. Additionally, the cost of illegal aliens in this country also runs into the hundreds of billions of dollars.

Right -- because rounding up all illegal immigrants in this country and deporting them could be done at a cost of exactly zero dollars. The deficit fairy told me so. And that's in addition to eliminating the Department of Education and the NEA. (It's not clear whether he wants to pull the U.S. out of the U.N. or just stop funding it. Maybe someone will ask him.)