Third-Grade Math Still Absent in the Miller Camp??

Alaska's Joe Miller doesn't appear to have a clue that he has absolutely no chance of winning the race for one of Alaska's two U.S. Senate seats. The race has gone into overtime, with hand counting of the write-in ballots taking up everyone's Saturday yesterday. A quote attributed to Mr. Miller by the Anchorage Daily News indicates that his team has failed to do some very basic mathematics.

"Miller, who visited the cavernous counting center on Juneau's outskirts, said he has not calculated what percentage of the vote would need to be challenged successfully for the race to be tight enough to possibly force a recount or make the prospect of a legal battle over ballots reality." (Anchorage Daily News, November 13, 2010)

What does that mean?

There are two possibilities:

(1) That no one in the Miller camp can do basic third-grade math;

(2) That Miller's camp has done the math, but wants to pretend that they haven't because there is a perception out there that they are challenging just enough write-in votes to keep the race "alive".

You can decide which explanation better fits the facts. The fact is that Joe Miller and his supporters are in the final seconds of Joe's fifteen minutes of fame. They are in the unenviable position of having raised money to keep the challenge alive while at the same time having no chance to prevail. This hell is probably the result of bad self-serving advice of paid political operatives and/or attorneys who stand to milk the campaign for a few more dollars. Joe Miller is a good conservative and an honorable man. It is time for him to put an end to the madness.

Anchorage Joe's Fifteen Minutes Are Up

The Anchorage Daily News reports that approximately ninety-eight per cent of the write-in ballots in the race for one of Alaska's two U.S. Senate seats are counted for Lisa Murkowski. Simple mathematics says that Murkowski has won this race handily.

According to published results, "write-in" has garnered 98,565, with 87,517 for Republican Joe Miller. The ninety-eight percent trend is based on three days of counting; thus, it is a significant trend. Third-grade mathematics tells us that 98% of 98,565 is 96,593 votes for Lisa Murkowski. That total gives Murkowski a nine-thousand vote lead over Miller.

It is my sincere hope that the Miller campaign has someone who can do math at the third grade level because that person can now tell him that it is time to stand down. It is time to shut down the fundraising. It is time to stop the interviews on talk radio and Fox News. It is time to stop the attacks.

But based on reports published in the Anchorage Daily News, and based on the posts on Joe Miller's Facebook page, it does not appear that Miller. The Miller campaign is touting affidavits that they say are evidence of voter fraud. They are making chain-of-custody allegations. They are alleging that the group charged with ballot security is biased toward Senator Murkowski. They are challenging votes where the name is not spelled exactly right. They are challenging write-ins for every possible reason. This was very unnatractive when Al Gore did it in 2000 in Florida. It is very unattractive now.

They have a team of attorneys up there who are being funded by the NRSC, who started raising money after Mark Levin and others took them to task on talk radio. Senator Murkowski has stated that she would caucus with the GOP. I suspect that she is mature and experienced enough to appreciate that this is just politics, and as a result she will still caucus with the GOP. But the GOP should not take that for granted.

As an election law attorney with fourteen years experience, I can tell you that the Miller camp is using the "spaghetti justice" approach to election law. They are throwing the whole pot of pasta up on the wall to see what sticks. We have a job to do in Washington, one that Joe Miller passionately supports. It is my sincere hope that the person who understands third grade math prevails soon because the Alaska ballot count is a distraction from the task at hand: Balancing the federal budget and ending the Obama deficits.

Joe Miller's fifteen minutes of fame are expiring. Joe, please face that fact. You are making the Tea Party look bad now. You are making your patron, Sarah Palin look bad now. I understand that it is tough to face the silence after the campaign, but you are hurting the very cause for which you have so ably fought in this year's elections.