The Tea Party and Alaska’s Joe Miller

I've gotten a lot of entertainment watching the Senate election campaign by Alaska's Tea Party favorite Joe Miller. His campaign has been a Chinese fire drill of missteps and malapropisms from almost the very beginning. Now, he is widely considered by most Alaskans as a 'Nut Job'. In the primary election, Miller was a kind of a ‘sleeper’ Tea Party supported candidate who captured the Republican senatorial nomination by catching a complacent sitting Senator Lisa Murkowski by surprise. Sarah Palin and the Tea Party threw support and buckets of out-of-state money into both the primary and the general elections.

Finally awakening to what was happening, Murkowski mounted an apparently successful write-in campaign to win the vote in the general election. When and if she is certified she will become only the second senator in history to do so, and the first since 1954 when Strom Thurman won a write-in campaign in South Carolina. The decision is now tied up in several court cases. Joe Miller is pulling out all the stops to block Murkowski from being certified the winner. The Tea Party, and especially Republican Senator Jim Demint of South Carolina are fighting a desperate last ditch battle in the hopes of having Miller put in office over the wishes of the people of the state of Alaska.

Someone called Miller a ‘descendant’ of the infamous Soapy Smith of Gold Rush days in Skagway, Alaska. He certainly looks the part. Soapy was the iconic con man originally from Georgia, who moved to Skagway in 1897 and gathered a large and intimidating gang to become the de facto ruler of the town. Ol’ Soapy had his fingers in just about every pie around and his gang enforced his rule with force of arms and bullying. He even formed his own ‘militia’, naming himself as captain, which was recognized by the US War Department, and which he used to help him control the town of Skagway.

Soapy Smith was ultimately confronted and shot to death by Frank Reid, who himself was wounded and died twelve days later. Reid was part of a vigilante committee formed to combat Soapy’s nefarious criminal activities

And, indeed the similarities between Joe Miller and Soapy Smith give one pause, especially the striking physical resemblances. Both came from ‘away’. Both lied, distorted and twisted facts. Miller has loudly and incessantly decried all government aid as ‘handouts’ while taking advantage of a great amount himself, or for his family. Soapy Smith’s ‘handouts’ were the ones he grabbed for himself through cons and swindles. I think my favorite Soapy Smith tale is about the fake telegraph office soapy set up for miners. For a charge of $5 he would ‘send’ a telegram back home for them - when telegraph lines did not even exist to Skagway at the time.

But, there does seem to be one big difference; Soapy Smith seems to have been extraordinarily intelligent, while Miller appears to just be one great big, bitter, whiny, deceitful Tea Party Republican dumb ass.