Frozen Blogofascists

by digby

Regular readers of this blog know that I used to live in Alaska back in the day. In fact, I worked on the Alaska pipeline — the one that’s drizzling oil all over the tundra right now. And I’m sad to report that Alaskans are in the process of one of those horrible leftist purges we’ve been hearing so much about. The state’s Republican Governor, ex-Senator Frank Murkowski, looks like he’s going to lose the Republican primary.

I know it’s shocking to see all those leftwing hippies of the Alaska Republican party be so short sighted as to oust a man with decades of experience in both Washington and Juneau, but they won’t listen to reason. For some reason these Stalinist conservatives are unhappy with their Republican Governor.

He has many problems, the most recent being this oil leak which is not only harmful to the environment (Alaskans expect their oil company landlords to take care of the land) but it’s costing the Alaska permanent fund billions in lost revenue — which translates to dollars not coming into residents’ pockets at the end of the year. He froze state hiring which is a major source of employment in Alaska.

The voters are also angry that he made a secret deal with the energy companies for lucrative natural gas pipeline that greatly benefitted the companies and screwed Alaskans. He failed to fulfill his campaign promise to get ANWR passed (all those friends in high places, you know.) He appointed his daughter to the Senate which still doesn’t sit well with a lot of people. Mostly, he’s seen as being in bed with George W. Bush.

There is a strong military presence in Alaska with many retirees taking up residence there. It’s one reason why Alaska has become such a strong red state. It’s odd that they would vote against a good solid Republican like Murkowski but the numbers seem to show that they are. I’d love to know why.

Finally, Murkowski is behaving strangely and doesn’t make sense half the time. I don’t find this unusual among powerful Republicans, but Alaskans are evidently concerned.

Now I know that Murkowski losing his seat in a Republican primary is an affront to all that is decent and good in our system and that Democrats should be ashamed. This goes without saying. All Republicans’ problems are obviously a result of the crazed blogofascists taking over the Democratic party and pushing it to the left.

Still, if one were to look at this from another angle — you know, like it’s 2006 rather than 1972 — one might see that these primary losses portend a general sense that people are very unhappy with the status quo which, in case nobody’s noticed, is Republican rule.

Oh and by the way, Murkowski is currently coming in third in that Republican primary.

Here’s a story on the pipeline leak from the LA Times.

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