Murkowski's Renegade Run: 'I'm Not Going to Quit on My State'

  • Share
  • Read Later
Michael Dinneen / AP

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski

(2 of 2)

Have you been approached by any Democrats about switching parties?
No.

Some people have said that you're doing this because you're bitter at Sarah Palin for endorsing Joe Miller and that you're trying to be a spoiler. How do you respond?
If I were in this to spoil the race or to push back Sarah Palin, would I put all my marbles on the table and be prepared to just push everything over the edge to make a point? What I have done in agreeing to offer this choice to the Alaska voters, it's all or nothing. If I am successful I can continue on representing Alaskans, doing the best job that I know how. If I fail, that's all she wrote in terms of the political history books. I knew there was going to be accusations and things that were going to be very, very hurtful. This was an extraordinarily difficult decision. The easiest thing I could've done for me and for my family would've been to step back, go and do something that would allow me an opportunity to make some money, have a political future in a couple of years, run for governor, run for the Senate again, do whatever I want. But I'm just not going to quit on my state, it's just not who I am.

You say Miller is extreme. How so?
Keep in mind this isn't just Lisa Murkowski; this is what I hear from other people. There is a concern, fear, from Alaska's most vulnerable populations that Joe doesn't represent the values that they share. Our seniors are worried about the statements he's made about dismantling Social Security and Medicare. Alaska natives, particularly out in our villages, are concerned with his approach to federal spending, concerned that the help that they are seeking, whether it is water and sewers, basic infrastructure needs, whether it is dealing with high energy costs, that they will be abandoned. When you think about the children, one of the things that I'm quite concerned about — and I've heard it expressed by others — is trying to find how we can build better accountability, work to provide a level of education that prepares our children for the future. His response — it's really the Tea Party platform response — is get rid of the Department of Education. That, to me, is a simplistic answer to a very complicated issue. The other vulnerable population that doesn't really have much representation is the poor. When you think about his statements about unemployment compensation being unconstitutional, we're a state where in so many of our villages we have 25% unemployment, 50% unemployment. We're a state that has seasonal workers. Right now construction season is still going on, tourist season is still going on, fishing has just ended. But what happens when that work is ended? There is no work in the canneries, there's limited work in the fisheries, so we're a state where there's a lot of big boom and then it goes pretty quiet for a while. This is not an approach — these are not approaches — I think that Alaskans might be comfortable with.

What are the polls telling you?
There was a Rasmussen poll out a couple of days ago. They just polled on Miller and McAdams. Miller got 42% of the vote, McAdams had 25%. I came in at 27%. What's interesting, though, is my name wasn't polled. I wasn't a choice. And people said, 'Wait, you're asking me about him and him but what about Lisa Murkowski?' And I got 27% of the vote without even having my name read in the poll, so I'm optimistic.

Is there a threat that the Tea Party could shrink the GOP, make it too purist?
It's your words, but there is a purity test that is clearly being applied and I didn't meet that. I don't think Mike Castle met that. Incredibly, Bob Bennett didn't meet that. And I think that's unfortunate because what it says is, If you don't look and sound like me, you shouldn't be part of the body that is building policy. Think about how our country was built. The greatness came from our diversity; the greatness came from individuals with different perspectives coming together. I can tell you that people still talk about the statesmen from 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago and they would fight all afternoon on the floor of the House and Senate and at night they'd go have a beer together and their wives would put together potluck dinners. We built things because there were relationships and we weren't so divided by our politics that we couldn't come together. So this push toward purity, I believe, is destructive when it comes to good governance. When we align ourselves so far to the right and so far to the left that we cannot come together and build consensus — and consensus is not a dirty word, it does not mean you abandoned your principles, it means that you work together for the good of the whole — we lose that wondrous diversity that makes us such an incredible state.

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. Next