Assuming that Joe Miller holds onto his narrow lead over Lisa Murkowski in Alaska's GOP senatorial primary, Sarah Palin and the Tea Party Express will tout his victory as a sign of their influence. But while they deserve credit for putting him in the spotlight and giving him a chance to win, the thing that really sealed the deal for him wasn't just their support: it was his absolute opposition to any form of reproductive freedom. As Miller said to the Anchorage Daily News (emphasis added):
Elements of Alaska's right wing have always disliked Murkowski.
Murkowski's pro-choice stance is a particularly sore point, one that Miller supporters hammered her on.
Tuesday's primary election also included Ballot Measure 2, which would require parents to be notified before their teens age 17 and younger received an abortion. Miller said he thinks that brought out voters who supported him over Murkowski, even though she supported the ballot measure as well.
"The Prop. 2 supporters were our supporters, largely. ... Frankly I think the pro-life vote was important," Miller said on Tuesday night.
On his website's home page, Miller featured a four page letter targeted to anti-abortion activists, detailing not only Murkowski's pro-choice positions, but his anti-choice philosophy. On his website, he wrote:
I am unequivocally pro-life and life must be protected from the moment of conception to the time of natural death. The family is the foundation of a free society.
In his letter to anti-choicers (emphasis in the original), Miller writes:
I pledge to you that if you send me to Washington DC, there will be no greater advocate for Life in the United States Senate. I am committed to advocating for innocent life and vigorously opposing the culture of death.
Miller would support a ban on all abortions, a position that's hard to believe, but this is a right-wing lunatic we're talking about here, not a mainstream Republican. In fact, he's so far to the right it raises the question of whether Miller considers the birth control pill a form of abortion. Believe it or not, as Markos illustrates in his upcoming book, many of Miller's fellow American Taliban actually believe that taking the pill is equivalent to having an abortion and believe it should be banned.
Miller's radical position on abortion doesn't just place him on the rightmost edge of Republican politics, it also raises questions about his other views. He's literally come out of nowhere in this campaign, and given the extremism that he's displayed on this one issue alone, there's bound to be more fodder coming out, certainly enough to make this race a contest for Democrats to watch.
Indeed, in just the past few days, Democratic researchers and political reporters have dug up some compelling evidence of Miller's fringiness:
Miller has called for across-the-board cuts, phasing out government Medicare and Social Security, and getting rid of the federal Department of Education because it is not in the Constitution, leaving the function to the states. He's going well beyond positions that Palin advocated when she was running to be governor of the state and those she espoused as governor.
Arguably even stranger than Miller's plan to phase out Social Security and Medicare is his belief that unemployment benefits are unconstitutional. Yes, you read that right: he believes it's constitutional to ban abortion but unconstitutional to offer unemployment insurance.
Given the way he's started off his campaign, it would be a mistake to assume that Joe Miller is a lock to win this election, especially in light of Mark Begich's victory as a Democrat in 2008. Things are definitely far from settled up north -- in fact, there's already speculation that Murkowski could run as an independent, and if that happens all bets are off. Alaska may be far away, but its U.S. Senate race should definitely be on the national radar screen.