Alaska has never been so promoted. Two of its inhabitants won’t leave the front pages of the newspapers: Sarah Palin and Lisa Murkowski. Sarah Palin had been an influential woman in the shadow of the midterm and is watching 2012, and Lisa Murkowski, who should have been there (in the shadow), comes out winning a titanic fight for her seat as senator. If the one describes herself as a mama grizzly, the other would undoubtedly see herself as the Big Dipper. To your down jackets, cold and harsh Alaska!
Alaska has two strong women at least. There were 5 million viewers who watched the first episode of “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” the best showing for a Discovery Channel premiere. On Nov. 2, 41 percent of Alaskans voted for Lisa Murkowski for senator, the election confirmed last night. The public recognition of Palin started with her presence on the Republican ticket in 2008 alongside John McCain, and it hasn’t diminished since. Lisa Murkowski just accomplished a feat that hasn’t been achieved since 1954: landing a senate seat after losing the party primary. And so she appears as a write-in, meaning by herself: a Polaroid of each of them.
Sarah Palin is deliberating at the moment; The New York Times Magazine devoted a very long article to her at the end of the week, constructed after an hour on the telephone and months of investigation. The object of her deliberation is whether or not to run in 2012. After having been No. 2 on the 2008 ticket, the taste of greatness has come to her, and her journey since reminds us that she WILL GO. Her performance during the midterm is still up for consideration. More than half of the 70 candidates that she supported were elected. The game isn’t over. She herself says that it’s a very serious decision to be made as a family. And one would really like to know what her daughter Bristol, a celebrity on “Dancing with the Stars,” thinks about it, between two steps of the tango and the public recognition of her mother! More seriously, The New York Times asks her questions about her team, her ability to cope with the job, etc., … more questions than normal, while 78 percent of Americans asked several months ago by CBS declared that she didn’t fit the job description.
This is what Lisa Murkowski immediately declared on the set of CBS News, while she was waiting — even though her opponent, Joe Miller, supported by Sarah Palin, himself acknowledged his defeat (41 to 34.3 percent). To Katie Couric, she said, “I just do not think [Palin] has those leadership qualities, that intellectual curiosity that allows for building good and great policies.” In other words, she isn’t a boss, and she has no vision. Thank you, ma’am.
Lisa Murkowski is undoubtedly everything that Sarah Palin fights: a daddy’s girl — educated and a former prosecutor, elected to the House in 1998 in her state, then nominated by her senator father to replace him in his federal seat in 2002. Accused of nepotism (not without reason), she got herself elected for six years against the former Democratic governor of the state, Tony Knowles.
She uses humor regarding her own name, not easy to pronounce or write, and on her campaign slogan to play on both registers — her independent candidacy and her difficult name: “Fill it in. Write it in.” And Alaskans picked their Republican incumbent senator not presented by the party. Sacred victory. What will she do? One hopes something more constructive than to prevent Sonia Sotomayor from going to the Supreme Court (she voted against her). Lack of vision?
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